What:

French Priest Father Patrick Desbois, Founding President of the International Association of Yahad-In Unum will sign a contract of cooperation with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the first of its kind between Yahad-In Unum and a North American institution.

Since 2004, Father Desbois has led a truly historic undertaking. Using the Museum’s archives to inform his search, he and his team have crisscrossed the countryside in Ukraine in an effort to locate every mass grave and site at which Jews were killed during the Holocaust. To date, they have identified 800 of an estimated 2,000 such locations. They are marking these sites, collecting artifacts, and, most significantly, recording video testimonies from eyewitnesses—many of whom are speaking publicly for the first time.

The agreement will confer copies of photographs, videos and oral testimonies collected by Yahad-In Unum to the Museum. It also confers a selection of artifacts collected by Yahad-In Unum. The Museum will provide copies of the records of the Soviet Extraordinary Commission to Investigate Nazi War Crimes on the Territory of the USSR to Yahad-In Unum. These archives have helped direct Father Desbois’s search and documented many of his findings.

When:

Thursday, March 26, 1:00 p.m.

Where:

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
100 Raoul Wallenberg Pl. SW

Media:

Media interested in covering the signing should contact Andrew Hollinger at 202-488-6133 or ahollinger@ushmm.org.