Yahad-In Unum’s work is conducted on two fronts: archival research followed by field investigations of execution sites. Field investigation trips by Yahad-In Unum’s researchers are prepared through studies of archival resources: the archives of the Soviet Extraordinary State Commission of 1944 today accessible at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington D.C., the Polish archives from the National Memory Institute and the archives of German Juridical investigation of the national socialist crimes accessible at the German Archives of Ludwisburg, Germany. The findings provide the background information for the research on the ground.

 

In 2010, more than 9,000 archives pages were scanned and transferred to Yahad- In Unum’s office in Paris to prepare the on-the-ground research. Yahad – In Unum decided to increase the archival research in order to provide the necessary background information needed for the 13 investigation trips from January to December 2010.

 

 

I. RESEARCH ON THE GROUND

 

 

Ukraine

January 2010 – Region of Khmelnitski

May – June 2010 – Region of Dnepropetrovsk

June – July 2010 – Region of Dnepropetrovsk, Nikopol

August 2010 – Region of Vinnytsia

December 2010 – Region of Dnepropetrovsk

December 2010 – Region of Vinnytsia, Cherkassy

Belarus

March – April 2010 – Region of Brest

April – Mai 2010 – Region of Brest, Grodno

November 2010 – Region of Grodno

November – December 2010 – Region of Grodno

Russia

October – November 2010 – Region of Briansk

Poland

July 2010 – Region of Lublin

Romania

November 2010 – Drobeta Rurnu Severin

• Ukraine

January 2010 – Region of Khmelnitski

 

From January 4 to 20, 2010, a Yahad-In Unum team completed a research investigation of 17 days in the northern region of Khmelnitski (formerly the Kamenets-Podolsk region), in 12 towns and villages: Pavlikovtsi, Pisarevka, Volotchisk, Koupil, Staraïa Siniava, Starokonstantinov, Orlintsi, Manevtsi, Gritsev, Iziaslav, Slavouta and Teofipol. Khmenlnitski is part of the Podolia region, the largest of modern Ukraine and a region with one of the highest numbers of Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Ukraine (over 115,000 deaths).

 

At the end of the 19th trip to Ukraine, the team had interviewed 56 witnesses and located 14 mass grave sites. Note that in the southern region, unlike other Ukrainian regions, over 80% of the mass grave sites have memorials. However, none is being protected from plunderers.

 

 

May – June 2010 – Region of Dnepropetrovsk

 

From May 22 to June 3, 2010, a Yahad-In Unum team completed a research investigation of 13 days in the villages of Krassyne, Novojytomyr, Zlatooustivka, Kamianka, Izloutchyste, Nova Zoria, Vilne, Ielizavetpilia, Jovtnevé, Novopodilske, Novovitebske, Jovte, Novi Kovner, Odroubok, Marïivka, Ievdokïivka, Ingoulets, Kryvy Rig.

 

The research trip was conducted primarily in the former Jewish district of Stalindorf (now Jovtnevé), an agricultural region dominated by the steppe, east of the huge industrial city Kryvy Rig. This is the first time that a Yahad team has gone to an Oblast in eastern Ukraine. One feature of this region to highlight is the virtual absence of any source material on the area, in either the German or the Soviet archives. For this reason, we first focused our research on the former Jewish kolkhozes.

 

During this research trip, we interviewed 46 witnesses in 18 villages and towns. Of the 10 execution sites found, 3 had a memorial, sometimes inaccurately placed.

 

June – July 2010 – Region of Dnepropetrovsk, Nikopol

From June 25 to July 10, 2010, a Yahad-In Unum team completed a research investigation of 14 days in the the Dnepropetrovsk Region, north of the town of Nikopol, in 20 villages : Perchotravnevé, Tavritcheskoïé, Lenineskoé, Kirovo, Kirovo 2, Poutilovka, Novossofievka, Ordjonikidze, Khmelnitskoïé, KroutoïBereg, Chevtchenko, Tchkalovo, Maksimovka, Golovkovo, Goloubovka, Lochkariovka, Krasnoarmeïskoïé, Krinitchevatoé, Okhotnitchié, Vesseloé.

The team was able to locate and fix the exact GPS coordinates of about two dozens Jewish settlements of which nearly 85% had completely disappeared.

Following the investigation by the Yahad – In Unum team, 3 execution sites of Roma and 2 common places of shootings of Jews and Roma were identified. A memorial was installed at only 1 of the five sites.

 

The team recorded 49 witnesses and identified 16 extermination sites including 6 with memorials.

 

 

August 2010 – Region of Vinnytsia

 

From August 11 to 25, 2010, a Yahad-In Unum team completed a research investigation of 14 days in the Vinnytsia Region, along the main road heading toward Dnepopetrovsk, and studied the following towns and villages: Voronovytsia, Kordychivka, Gnivan, Tyvriv, Zaroudyntsi, Raigorod, Bougakiv, Nemyriv, Stryjavka, Tchoukiv, Perepelytche, Breslov, Novosselivka, Lityn.

 

Like previous missions in the west in the Lviv, Ternopil and Khmelnitskyï regions, Yahad investigated the labor camps whose main purpose was the construction of the Durchgangstrasse IV, which was a major highway leading to the Caucasus via Dnepropetrovsk. At Zaroudyntsi, a tiny village near the main road, we knew that there had been a camp, but we did not have any records or documentation.  We found several witnesses who helped us to understand what happened.

Although a number of Jews managed to flee before the Germans arrived, the region of Vinnytsia is one with among the highest number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust in Ukraine. The region had already suffered greatly from the Great Famine of 1933, under Soviet rule, an experience emphasized repeatedly in the testimony of older witnesses.

 

At the end of the trip, the team had investigated 14 towns and villages, interviewed 52 witnesses and found 20 mass graves or execution sites. While a large majority of these places now have memorials, the testimony gathered allowed Yahad to find traces of other sites that had been totally forgotten.

 

 

December 2010 – Region of Dnepropetrovsk

From December 2-16 2010, Yahad – In Unum team investigated the following villages of Dnipropetrovsk Region : Lochkariovka, Mykolaïvka, Petrivka, Nazarivka, Malaïa Kalynivka, Nezaboudiné, Novomarievka, Tchernigivka, Tchoubarovka (a former Jewish settlement), Oleksandropil, Petrikivka, Tykhé, Mykhaïlivka, Voïkové, Propachné, Myrné, Khyjyné, Natalivka, Nezboudiné, Ossypenko, Ossypenko, Vladimirovka, Neperemojné, Zelené, Katerino-Natalivka, Lubymivka, Marganets, Gorodichtché, Maksimovka, Ostriv, Marievka, Vyvodovo, Strioukivka, Novopavlovka, Nikopol, Cholokhové, Girnytské, Khmelnitské, Novossélivka, Novoivanivka, Vyssoké, Loukievka, the former Jewish settlement of Krassindorf, Chyroké, Avdotievka, Novopetrivka, Novoioulievka, Troudolioubovka, Stepové, Oleksiïvka, Vychnevé, Novokhortitsa, Radionovka, Ingoulets, Novossiolka, Lativka, Starodobrovilské, Novolativka.

 

Yahad concentrated its investigation on the former Jewish settlements as well as on the labor camps built along the Durchgangstrasse IV. Because of the absence of Soviet or German archives describing what happened on that territory, the Yahad team had to stop by every village to interview as many people as possible.

 

Since the beginning of the war, the fate of Jews was closely linked to the labor camps created along the Durchgangstrasse IV. The adults who were able to work were locked in the camps whereas the old people and the children remained in the settlements, before being shot.

 

Thanks to the testimonies of local people, Yahad – In Unum managed to discover the Jewish settlements of Freileben, Krassindorf, Rotfeld, the labor camps of Lioubimovka, Vychnevé, as well as execution sites that were not even mentionned in the archives.

 

At the end of this 13 days research travel, the Yahad – In Unum team localized 16 extermination sites whose 60% are without memorials and interviewed 43 witnesses.

December 2010 – Region of Vinnytsia and Cherkassy

 

From December 15 to 27, 2010, a Yahad – In Unum team completed one research travel of 13 days in the Vinnytsia and Cherkassy regions. The team studied the following towns and villages: Oradivka, Talalaieva, Ivangorod, Krasnopilka, Teplyk, Ossitna, Pogorila, Oudytch, Ouman, Djoulynka.

 

Like previous missions further in the west in the Lviv, Ternopil, Khmelnitskyï and Vinnytsia regions, Yahad investigated the Jewish labor camps whose main purpose was the construction of the Durchgangstrasse IV, which was a strategic major highway leading to the Caucasus via Dnepropetrovsk. The Jews locked into these camps were sometimes brought from great distances, or even regions occupied by the Romanians, as Transnistria for exemple.

Thanks to the testimonies of local people, we also found other sites of camp for which there was no existing documentation. This is how we were able to lead a research in the small village of Pogorila, where Jews – probably brought from the city of Gaisin – had been locked into a cowshed.

At the end of the trip, the team had investigated 10 towns and villages, interviewed 46 witnesses and found 11 execution sites.

 

 

 

 

• Belarus

 

 

March – April 2010 – Region of Brest

The fifth research travel to Belarus took place in various towns surrounding the city of Baranovichi in the southwest of the country.

 

This area was part of Poland between 1920 and 1939 and there is a significant Polish as well as Jewish and Belarussian population. The Soviets took possession of the territory in September 1939, integrating it within Soviet Belarus. The Germans occupied the area beginning in June 1941 placing it under the jurisdiction of the Reichskomissariat Ostland.

 

From March 22, 2010 to April 6, the investigation team studied the villages of Moltchad, Gorodishche Liakhovitchi, Gantsevitchi, Novaya Myche, Koldychevo, Arabovchtchina, Baranovichi Siniavka.

 

In Gorodishche, many Roma were eliminated in two different sites: in a pit near the Orthodox cemetery, and in the woods outside the town. For the first time, we found a memorial to the Roma victims in the woods.

 

During this trip, the team interviewed 53 witnesses, investigated 17 mass extermination sites. A large majority has memorials. In some cases, such as in Gantsevitchi, the victims’ bodies were exhumed after the war and buried in mass graves.

April – Mai 2010 – Region of Brest and Grodno

From April 28 to May 10, 2010, Yahad – In Unum finished the investigation in the region of Brest and continued in the region of Grodno and studied the villages of Tourets, Mir, Byten, Jirovitchi, Kozlovchtchina, Medveditchi, Tchepelevo, Petralevitchi, Slonime, Dvorets, Diatlovo, Novoïelnia, Lesnaïa.

 

The area was part of Poland from 1920 to 1939. Therefore, there was a significant Polish population, but also numerous Belarusians and Jews. The Soviets took possession of this territory in September 1939, making it part of Soviet Belarus. The Germans occupied the area in June 1941.

 

While a number of urban areas featured a ghetto (Slonime, for example, which had a ghetto with tens of thousands of Jews), this was not the case in a number of smaller towns and was even less so for villages, even those that had a Jewish population. One of the recurrent themes in the testimonies is the description of regular interactions between the ghetto and the external population.

 

During the course of this trip, the research team interviewed 46 witnesses and investigated 24 execution sites, most of which have memorials, some of which were erected relatively recently.

 

November and December 2010 – Region of Grodno

- From November 7 to 21, 2010, A Yahad – In Unum team investigated the region of Grodno, especially the towns of Ostrino, Chtchoutchine, Skidel, Kamenka, Mosty Lievyie, Pesky, Kolbassino, Lounno, Zaleski, Volpa, Ross and Jeloudok.

 

- From November 27 to December 9, a Yahad-In Unum team completed a second research travel in the Grodno Region. The team studied the following towns and villages: Naoumovitchi, Oziory, Poretchié, Sopotskine, Odelsk, Indoura, Loustkovlany, Bolschaia Berestovitsa, Grodno, Svislotch, Mstibovo, Volkovysk, Zelva.

 

The investigated area was part of Poland between 1920 and 1939. It was then annexed to Soviet Union between 1939 and 1941. In 1941, it becomes part of the German Reich.

In this region, there were few shootings compared to other areas. Ghettos of various dimensions were created in the localities of this territory. The Jews who lived in those ghettos were eventually sent to the largest ghetto – the one of Volkovysk – or to the camp of Kolbassino (a former soviet war prisoner camp) near Grodno, before being deported at the end of 1942 and beginning of 1943 to the extermination camps of Auschwitz and Treblinka in occupied Poland.

During these research travels, the team found an outstanding witness, a Jewish survivor who lived during more than 2 years in the 2 different ghettos of Grodno. He then escaped from the convoy which led him to Treblinka, before joining the Bielski brothers’ partisans group.

At the end of the first trip, the Yahad team investigated 12 towns and villages, interviewed 47 witnesses and found 6 execution sites. Half of the sites had no memorial.During the second trip, the Yahad team investigated 13 towns and villages, interviewed 42 witnesses and found 6 execution sites.

 

 

• Russia

 

October – November 2010 – Region of Briansk

From October 22 to November 3 2010, a Yahad team completed a research trip in the region of Briansk.

 

Cities and villages in the north and west of this region had a numerous Jewish population before the war because this perimeter composed the ancient Jewish residence territory where the Jews were authorized to live before the 1917 Revolution. Jews were mostly “sovietized” which means that they were forced to abandon their religious practice and synagogues were closed. More than half of the Jews of this region was evacuated before the German invasion.

 

The team investigated the following villages: Ouritski, Briansk, Karatchevsk, Potchep, Novozybkov, Karkhovka, Novy Ropsk, Klimovo, Zlynka, Starodoub, Souraj, Mgline, Ounetcha.

 

The team found many local people forced to watch the crime scenes perpetrated by the Nazis and the police.

They discovered also that most of the time Jewish victims were massively shot with no mass grave dug in advance. The bodies remained lying on the floor, waiting to be buried by local people.

 

During this research trip, Yahad inteviewed 46 witnesses and found 10 extermination sites whose 3 are totally unmarked. The 7 existing memorials have been erected during the USSR by the families and therefore have no mention of the Jewish identity of the victims.

 

• Poland

July 2010 – Region of Lublin

From July 22 to August 5 2010, a Yahad team investigated the towns of Kobylany, Malaszewicze, Swory, Sycyna, Lomazy, Biala Podlaska, Terespol, Wlodawa, Sobibor, Luta, Drelow, Miedzyrzec Podlaski, located in the districts of Biala Podlaska and Wlodawa, region of Lublin.

 

In Lomazy, 2000 Jews have been killed according to the Polish and German archives. If the main extermination site is already known, we found another mass grave, next to the graveyard, which is totally uncovered.

 

In Wlodawa, the Yahad team discovered that there were at the same time 2 kinds of ghettos: one closed for the Jews able to work and one open for the children and the elders. During the liquidation of the open ghetto, the Jews of the closed ghetto set a fire in order to escape in the woods.

 

In Biala Podlaska, the Yahad team found an extermination site on the current market place of the city.

 

During this trip, the Yahad team interviewed 32 witnesses and located more than 10 execution sites.

 

 

• Romania

November 2010 – Drobeta Rurnu Severin

In response to a request from a Roma Association in Belgium, from November 21 to 28 2010, Yahad – In Unum has recorded the testimonies of 20 Roma/Gypsies who live in Romania and who were deported by train during the war to Transnistria, region of Ukraine. The story of Nazi persecution and killings of the Roma is one of the less known and documented stories of the Holocaust.  According to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, historians estimate that 25% of the Roma in Europe were killed by the Germans and their allies, or 220,000 people, although estimates range as high as 500,000.

 

The trip is part of Yahad’s ongoing research into the fate of the Roma. Yahad identified 48 killing sites of Roma populations to date in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia.

 

 

II. ARCHIVAL RESEARCH

• German Archives

2010: 800 pages of archives scanned, copied, translated, used for the research

• Soviet Archives

2010: 800 pages of archives scanned, copied, translated, used for the research

• Polish Archives

2010: 600 pages of archives scanned, copied, translated, used for the research

III.  RESEARCH CENTER

Yahad – In Unum has converted 450 of the testimonies video recorded during the research travels into DVD’s, which can be consulted at the Research Center in Paris. The same number of DVD’s was sent to the Research Center of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington.

 

The Yahad – In Unum’s Research Center is open two days per week in Paris and we welcome several researchers, historians, families and students who want to learn more about the Holocaust by bullets and also to consult the different archives, testimonies and other sources of information concerning the researches of the Association in Ukraine, Belarus, Russia and Poland.

IV. ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES

Leading experts from around the world took part in a special workshop held by Yahad – In Unum in June 2010 to examine the characteristics of pre-war local administrative structures in the Soviet Union and their role in the history of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe. Some of their communications were about: “The ABC’s of Deportation and Genocide: the Case of the Ukrainian-Polish Borderlands”, “The Importance of the Rural Indigenous Administration in the Holocaust in Ukraine and its Bordering Regions: Case Studies of the Starosta/Village Elders”, The pre-1941 system of rural administration; the Soviet procurement system, the behaviour of the kolkhozniki, the economic order of the command economy, German occupational policy” and “No two Russian villages were alike: Rural Administration in Russia and the Soviet Union”.

 

Among the participants invited were Wendy Lower, from the Ludwig Maximilian University in Munich; Kate Brown, from the University of Maryland – USA; Stephan Merl, from the Univeristy of Bielefeld – Germany; Lynne Viola, from the University of Toronto – Canada; Aleksandr Kruglov, from the Univeristy of Radio and Electronics of Kharkov – Ukraine; Valery Vasylyev, from the National V.I. Verdansky University, Ukraine and Andrej Angrick, from the Foundation for Science and Culture of Munich – Germany.

For the first time, a dozen of teachers of history from high schools in Europe (Spain, Belgium, England, Netherlands, Sweden) has been invited to participate in a seminar on July 4-5 on the Holocaust in Eastern Europe by Yahad – In Unum. Historians, researchers and members of the Yahad – In Unum team presented the different faces of the “Holocaust by bullets » to further educators’ understanding of this part of the history of the genocide of the Jews and Roma of Europe.

 

Yahad is planning to organize a second seminar for European History teachers in the summer 2011. Educating the new generations is a very important mission that Yahad – In Unum wants to strengthen. By disseminating this tragic part of our own European history, which is still not well known by the public, Yahad – In Unum has taken the responsibility to increase a large number of students’ awareness in Europe of this genocide.

Yahad is partnering with Sweden’s Södertörn University to sponsor an international workshop in Ukraine examining Nazi genocide carried out against Roma/Gypsy populations in Eastern Europe. An aspect of history that has been little studied, the Roma holocaust was the subject of a three-day conference in October 2010 in Kiev among scholars from Ukraine, Romania, France, Sweden and the UK. In addition, the group visited Ukraine’s Rivne and Lutsk regions in an effort to locate suitable sites for a future commemorative event with local Roma representatives.

 

Through its investigations of the Jewish Holocaust in the East, Yahad has regularly studied the question of other populations who were killed, identifying to date 48 killing sites of Roma populations in Ukraine, Belarus and Russia and the liquidation of Roma collective farms inside Russia. Södertörn University offers courses in Roma history and hosts a formalized group for Roma studies among educators, religious scholars and historians.  This month’s activities mark the beginning of a large common research project on Roma Holocaust in the German-occupied parts of the former Soviet Union.

 

 

 

 

 

In partnership with Casa Sefarad in Madrid and the Ministry of Justice of Spain, Yahad – In Unum organized an international symposium about the Holocaust by bullets in Madrid from December 15 to 17. Yahad displayed the most recent researches of the organization in Eastern Europe. More than 25 teachers, historians and politicians participated to this symposium which gathered daily more than one hundred people.

 

International historians from United States, Ukraine, Germany, France and Spain attended this symposium.

 

Providing perspective on the Eastern Holocaust, from multiple viewpoints – historical, sociological, political, geopolitical, artistic, literary and psychoanalytical viewpoints – this is the objective of a new series of conferences organized by Yahad – In Unum in Paris at its European Resource Center for Research and Learning about the Eastern Holocaust (in French CERRESE).

 

The first session was held January 21, 2010 and featured psychoanalyst Jean-Jacques Moscovitz.

 

In February, journalist Michel Gurfinkiel spoke about the status of Holocaust victims’ bodies in the Jewish law.

 

The lecture by the author, sociologist and CNRS researcher Gérard Rabinovitch on March 11 continued the series of contemporary perspectives on the Holocaust from multiple viewpoints. Dr. Rabinovitch spoke on the topic of “Behemoth, the destructive impulse at work in human societies, including Nazism and the Holocaust”.

 

In June, Suzanne-Brown Fleming, Director of Visiting Scholar Programs, U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, discussed the research results from the secret archives from the Third Reich era opened by the Vatican.

 

The fall season started on November 18 with Frederic Encel, noted author, international relations professor and expert on geopolitics interviewed by Father Desbois: “Can the Middle East be reduced to the confrontation between Israelis and Palestinians?”

 

On December 9, the French movie “La Rafle” (“The Roundup”) was show the Collège des Bernardins in Paris. The film director, Roselyne Bosch, and the producer, Alain Goldman, were invited to debate with Father Desbois and Bishop Beau the historic issues raised by the movie dedicated to the Holocaust in France.

 

In total, more than 300 people from different backgrounds attended the different lectures and activities organized by Yahad – In Unum during 2010.

 

 

V. PUBLICATIONS

 

 

During the year 2010, Yahad started two publication processes.

 

Yahad produced and edited in September the first photography book of Yahad – In Unum research trips “Broad Daylight 2009″.

 

It is the first edition of a photo album, which shows pictures of Yahad – In Unum researches in the field of Ukraine, Belarus and Russia during the year 2009. It highlights the investigations led in 2009 and displays a serie of photographs along with testimony extracts recorded on the ground. It gives also a panorama of Yahad’s main activities during 2009.

 

Yahad started the translation and publication process of the 2009 Yahad – In Unum international symposium’s proceedings on “Operation 1005: Nazi attempts to erase the evidence of mass murder in Eastern and Central Europe, 1942-1944″, in cooperation with the United States Holocaust, the University Paris IV – La Sorbonne and the Collège des Bernardins. The symposium was held on June 15-16, 2009 at the Collège des Bernardins in Paris and gathered almost 25 participants from all over the world, who spoke in English, French, German and Russian. It was the first international symposium ever organized on that subject.

 

The publication in English will be available in Spring 2011. It will gather the several lectures delivered by the international historians and researchers who participated to this symposium. It will be the first time that a specific publication based on the most important expert research on Operation 1005 will be available in a worldwide public.