Yahad - In Unum

About Yahad - In Unum

Yahad - In Unum ('together' in Hebrew and Latin) is a Paris-based organization established in 2004 by Father Patrick Desbois and dedicated to systematically identifying and documenting the sites of Jewish mass executions by Nazi mobile-killing units in Eastern Europe during World War II. The objective of this work is to:

• Substantiate a “Holocaust by Bullets,” in addition to those Jews murdered in Nazi concentration camps
• Provide evidence of such mass executions to answer the Holocaust
• Give proper respect to the victims’ burial places and enable their preservation
• And disseminate and help apply the universal lessons about genocide derived from the work of YIU.

YIU Current Organizational Goals & Priorities:

• Expand the work of identifying additional mass Jewish killing sites, collect evidence of the executions and videotape the witnesses to these killings. Yahad-In Unum's mission has expanded to seven countries within Eastern Europe.
• Conduct international workshops and graduate-level seminars to add to the scholarship of the Holocaust in particular and genocide in general. YIU also offers academic programs and collaborates closely with the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
• Promote Holocaust education and information by maintaining a research center and archives in Paris. Thus, YIU’s findings will be available not only to Holocaust museums and centers around the world but to historians, researchers, students and relatives of the victims.

'Holocaust by Bullets' has become the model by which mass killings and violence are perpetrated today. Studying the Holocaust in Eastern Europe (or by bullets) and the criminal and genocidal process, in particular, will help educate current and future generations on the particular conditions of mass violence that allow such acts to take place. Additionally, they will help us identify warning signals and build our resistance towards future mass killings and violence. Moreover, the Jewish people's relationship to the memory of the Holocaust can teach us how to bring the victims, and not the perpetrators, to the center of commemoration and transmission.

Yahad – In Unum resources

Different resources and tools of Yahad – In Unum database can help genealogists in their research of information about their town.

Yahad –In Unum Video Library

Yahad – In Unum recorded more than 3,500 testimonies of eyewitnesses of mass shootings of Jewish victims by the Nazis and their collaborators during the WWII in more than 1 000 villages in Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Belarus, Poland, Romania and Lithuania.
In the testimonies of the elderly, one can find also valuable information about the prewar history of the villages and shtetlekh, and often names of Jewish inhabitants of the village are mentioned by the interviewed people.
The testimonies are available online upon request to Yahad – In Unum. To send your request please click here Yahad - In Unum Video Library (work is in progress, site will be available shortly).
Users must be aware that the editing of the video testimonies is on progress and that all the testimonies are not available for the moment. New testimonies are being added incrementally as the editing is in progress and as new villages are investigated by Yahad – In Unum research teams.

Yahad – In Unum Interactive Map

The Yahad – In Unum Interactive Map indicates the sites of mass execution sites located by Yahad research teams at which the Nazis and their allies murdered Jews in towns and villages throughout Eastern Europe. Each site includes a link to a brief village profile and to research findings for each location.
One can get access to each village where Yahad – In Unum investigated. There 2 ways to find a specific village: 1/ click on the map directly on the village you are interested in if you know where it is located; 2/ enter the name of the village in the line called “village” in the column on the left.
Users have also the possibility to launch a search by country, scrolling through the section “country” in the column on the left of the map. Selecting a country, all the villages investigated by Yahad – In Unum in the selected country will appear on the map.
Users can also make search with other criteria than geographical. For that, users must write any word (for example: “gas van”, “synagogue”, “rabbi”…) and all the occurrences of the selected word published on the interactive map will be listed.
Each village has a dedicated page containing various information including:

1. Archival pictures of the town/village and their Jewish inhabitants
2. Contemporary photos of witnesses, of various places (execution sites, ghetto location, synagogues, camps location…)
3. Number of video testimonies recorded in the village in question
4. Short video clips of witness testimony
5. Written excerpt of testimony
6. If available, an excerpt of German archives with the reference of the archives. The German archives are from the collection of the Bundesarchivs of Ludwisburg. It is files of trials of perpetrators including interrogation of sued persons, interrogations of witnesses (Jewish survivors, bystanders and so on). These archives are available for consultation in Yahad – In Unum research Center in Paris.
7. If available, an excerpt of Soviet archives with the reference of the archives. The Soviet archives are from the collection of the Soviet State Extraordinary Commission. It is inquiries lead by Soviet authorities between 1943 and 1946 after the liberation of the towns and villages about what happened (not only for the Jewish population) during the occupation. These archives are available for consultation in Yahad – In Unum research Center in Paris.

Users must be aware that not all of the sites identified and not all of the villages investigated are published for the moment. Village profiles are being added incrementally each month as information is prepared and new sites are being identified.
Go the Yahad – In Unum interactive map

YAHAD - IN UNUM - 114, Boulevard de Magenta, 75010 Paris
Tél. : 01 42 88 04 39 - Fax : 01 42 88 17 63 - www.yahadinunum.org