Patrick Desbois - Holocaust by Bullets

I owe what I was able to do and hear in the little villages of Ukraine to so many people that it would need a whole book to record their names.

First of all, thanks to my grandfather, Claudius Desbois, who gave me the thirst for truth. Thank you to my father and mother who gave me the taste for justice and truth.

Thank you to Cardinal Lustiger, who telephoned me after each trip to ask about the research, the discoveries, and how my team was.

Thank you to Monseigneur Vingt-Trois, archbishop of Paris. Thank you to Cardinal Ricard, archbishop of Bordeaux.

Thank you to Mme. Simone Veil, who was president of the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah. She was the first to speak publicly of my work, in simple, just, and true words. Thank you to the Foundation for the Memory of the Shoah who supported all this research. Without the financial aid, friendship, and the discernment it gave me, I would never have succeeded. Thank you to Mr. Revcolevschi, director of that foundation, who came with us to Ukraine for several days to understand our work, and also to trace a family who had disappeared.

Thank you to Serge and Beate Klarsfeld.

Thank you to Jacky Fredj, Sophie Nagiscarde, and the Center for Contemporary Jewish Documentation which exhibited my work. Thank you to Paul A. Shapiro, director of the Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and to the Museum's director Sarah Bloomfield who gave me access to the center's Soviet archives.

Thank you to the archive of Ludwigsburg, the central judiciary office of the Lnder which gave access to the German archives. Thank you to the Targum Shlishi Foundation.

Thank you to the Victor Pinchuk Foundation, the Claims Conference, and the Task Force. Thank you to the World Jewish Congress, to Maram Stern, and Serge Cwajenbaum.

Thank you to Dr. Richard Prasquier, president of the Representative Council of the Jewish Institutions of France; thank you to Marcello Pezzetti, director of the Shoah Museum of Milan; thank you to Israel Singer, who was the first to believe in the relevance of our work.

Thank you also to the historians douard Husson, Martin Dean, and Dieter Pohl for their valuable help.

Thank you to the rabbinical authorities, Rabbi Yacov Blaich of Kiev, Rabbi Kaminezki of Dnipropretosk, and Rabbi Schlessinger of London.

But above all a big thank you to all those who contributed to the research in Ukraine, particularly as it was often carried on when it was raining and cold: Svetlana Biryulova (interpretation and research of witnesses); Guillaume Ribot (photography and coordination of work); Andrej Umanksy (translation and research in the archives); Mikhailo "Micha" Strutinsky (ballistics expert); Pierre-Philippe Preux (script writing); Patrice Bensimon (translation into Ukrainian and French); Thierry Soval (camera); Pierre-Jrme Biscarat; Yaroslav Nadyak (former deputy mayor of Rawa-Ruska); Vera Savchak (translation); Jean-Franois Bodin (notes); Victor Fleury (notes); Henri Planet (script); Emmanuel Salunier, Bchir Chemsa, Alain Durand (camera); Roger Garnier, Eric Pellet (camera); Andrej Demtchouk (translation); Galina, Eugenia Pace; David Baisnenou, Mona Oren, Bogdan Gorayetsky, Eugenia, Ivan, Bruno Moreira, Vassili Vakhnyanki, Vassili, Vitaly (transport); Yael Halberthal, Taras Yatsoulak (lawyers); Franoise Planet, Michel Roux (accounting). A big thank you to the mayors and the administration of the little towns of Ukraine, to the shopkeepers of the shops, and to the priests of the Ukrainian parishes. And also thank you, in France, to Marco Gonzalez, coordinator of Yahad, Sverin Mls, and Jacqueline St.

Thank you to Sophie Charnavel and Virginie Fuertes.

And thank you to the thousands of Ukrainian men and women who took the risk, on a little wooden bench, of revealing the truth.

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I spent my early childhood living with my paternal grandparents in Saint-Laurent, a neighborhood on the banks of the river in Chalonsur-Sane that was not quite town and not quite the countryside. Claudius, my grandfather, was a farmer and a poultry provider for my parents' cheese and poultry shop. Every morning at dawn he set out on the roads leading to the villages of central Bresse in a little gray truck with empty wooden cages strapped to it. Every day he traveled to a different village, where the weekly market was held. People came to buy chickens, ducks, turkeys, pigeons, rabbits, eggs, and butter from the farmers. For me the days of the week corresponded to the names of the villages where the markets were held: Wednesday, Saint-Martin; Thursday, Saint-Germain-du-Plain; Friday, Mervans; and so on.

At nine in the morning, the town bell marking the opening of the market would ring over a market square that was already bustling with life. The chicken buyers, who had long been seated at an outdoor caf, could finally rush toward the center of the market and the cages full of fowl. They had to be fast. From a very young age my grandfather taught me how to recognize good birds, and the tricks of negotiating for the best fowl in the Bresse region. At the end of the day I would stuff the squawking and flapping birds into the cages on our truck. The afternoons were spent in the plucking house where the birds and rabbits had to be killed and prepared for sale. I was my grandfather's "apprentice." Everybody said I looked like him.

Later, I lived with my parents who had a small shop in a narrow street in the middle of town, rue aux Fvres, on the corner of the rue des Cloutiers. Eventually I discovered that this was in the old Jewish neighborhood of Chalon. The shop was called Au bon gruyre ("Home of the good gruyre"). As the name suggested, we sold cheese, mainly gruyre that we bought in 50-kilo rounds, but also the fowl that my grandfather bargained for in the villages. For the holidays, particularly Christmas, my uncles, aunts, and cousins came to help us pluck the chickens and prepare them. For us, Christmas meant the birth of Jesus but also a steady stream of customers coming to collect their turkeys.

My mother's family was called Rivire, like a river, my father's Dubois, like the woods. Some names lend a whole landscape to life, as did these. Life was simple and very lively, from school to the shop, from the shop to the slaughterhouse, from the slaughterhouse to the village farms, Chalon to Bresse. Every day we rode our bicycles steering our 13 cows to the meadows 10 kilometers from the house.

A sense of justice and a job well done were the twin pillars of my family. Being curious about life, I asked my parents to place a small chair, a little straw-bottomed affair, beside the shop door so that I could sit and watch the people on the sidewalk. The street and the passers-by were like a book that opened the world to me. My father always said: "The street is a theater!" Like the rest of my family, I knew all the people who lived on the street by name, regardless of their work, religion or nationality. My childhood friends were French, Italian, and Tunisian. It mattered little to me! My parents taught me a strict Catholic and humanistic ethic. My mother often repeated: "In the shop we must serve beggars in the same way we serve the Countess!" A countess did in fact come to the shop sometimes, in a blue convertible; she parked on the sidewalk and demanded: "A little piece of gruyere, please!" If there were other customers, my mother turned a deaf ear until her turn had come. Beggars also came to the shop with a meat voucher given to them by the municipality. My mother used to say to me: "You have to give them half a rabbit, but only give them the good bits, the thighs!" And we were perfectly happy to eat the rabbit ribs ourselves.