No.16 May 2011
| Holocaust by bullets commemoration in Canada
 In the small town of Bass River, Nova Scotia, a recent candlelight memorial service marked the dedication of a plaque honoring the victims of the Holocaust by bullets. In Novaya Ushitsa, Ukraine, where more than 3,000 Jews were shot by the Nazis in a nearby forest in 1942, a similar plaque was brought last year by a local resident, Elizabeth Shein. Members of Ms. Shein’s family, which comes from Novaya Ushitsa, were among those killed. She presented it to Mr. Isaac Itken, now 85, the sole Jewish survivor of the village who continues to look after a memorial site marking the execution site in the forest. Yahad investigated Novaya Ushitsa in 2008.
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Meet Team Yahad
 Born in Uzbekistan and raised in Germany, Lillia Votler joined the Yahad team in 2009 where her responsibilities include organization of educational and academic events, including Yahad’s “Thursdays at CERRESE” program. Fluent in French, English, German, Russian and Spanish, she also often translates at conferences and as a member of research teams in the field. In addition to her background in languages, she also has studied music, economics and political science. Her past experience includes working for a war reparations commission in Berlin and at the Goethe Institute which promotes international cultural relations. Lillia describes her work at Yahad as “motivating, diverse and, at times, intensely moving.” She particularly appreciates the moments when Yahad is able to help family members of victims connect to information about their families or their villages. “Yahad’s uniqueness comes from the direct and personal approach of our research, seeking to give an identity to each individual victim, to honor them and to reconstruct the places and circumstances of how they lived and died.” |
Upcoming public events
Melbourne and Sydney – Father Desbois speaking at events June 2 and 5.
more information
Bucharest, Romania – Symposium with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum on the mass graves of the Holocaust, Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of Holocaust in Romania June 30-July 1.
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Father Desbois was presented with a Tribute of Appreciation certificate by the U.S. State Department on May 12 in Washington D.C. In a ceremony in the State Department’s famed Treaty Room, Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism Hannah Rosenthal recognized the work of Father Patrick Desbois and Yahad – In Unum, saying that “there is even more urgency to complete the work to gather the eyewitness evidence of the Holocaust by bullets.” The event came at the end of a several day U.S. tour that included a presentation at the Association for Studies of Nationalities World Convention, Harriman Institute, at Columbia University in New York, and presentations in Chicago and in Los Angeles where he joined Rabbi David Rosen of the American Jewish Committee at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles to discuss “Out of the Wilderness: a 40-year reflection on Catholic-Jewish relations. ” 
As Yahad – In Unum marked its seven-year anniversary May 11, two research teams were completing their work, one in Belarus, the other in the Ukraine. They are the first of 15 research trips scheduled for 2011 as Yahad accelerates its work to identify mass graves while the remaining witnesses are still alive. Two more Ukraine trips began in May and the nine-member research teams will continue departing throughout the summer and fall, also traveling to Poland and Russia. Each trip lasts an average of 16 days during which teams will interview 40-50 witnesses.
Father Desbois and Serge Klarsfeld were the featured speakers this month at a new Holocaust conference series sponsored by the College of Bernardins in Paris and part of Yahad’s Thursday’s at CERRESE program. Entitled “The Combat for Memory,” the evening program included a discussion of how Serge Klarsfeld and Father Desbois became historians of the Shoah.
Thomas Will, a German judge and prosecutor presented the history of war crimes proceedings brought against former Nazi’s at Yahad’s “Thursdays at CERRESE” program in April. Here, Mr. Will presents the story of Roberto Einstein, a cousin of Albert Einstein whose wife and two daughters were killed by the Nazis in Florence, Italy, one of the cases that German prosecutors continue to pursue. Mr. Will also discussed the trial in Munich of recently convicted former Nazi death camp guard John Demjanjuk.