The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Conference: The Failure to Bomb Auschwitz: History, Politics, Controversy, Washington, D.C.
Aryeh Rubin, founder and director of Targum Shlishi, chaired and spoke at the seventh national conference of The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies at Fordham University School of Law in New York City on September 13, 2009. The conference was titled The Failure to Bomb Auschwitz: History, Politics, Controversy. It was the first conference ever to focus on the issue of bombing Auschwitz. Speakers discussed why the Allies refused to bomb and what lessons might be learned from it. The conference included new evidence about the Allies’ refusal to bomb Auschwitz, a video interview with Elie Wiesel on the bombing issue, and discussion of the use of U.S. military force to stop genocide today. Aryeh Rubin discussed the shortcomings of Jewish leadership during the Holocaust and continuing through the present, the threat posed to Israel by Iran, the complicity of European nations who are providing parts for Iran’s nuclear reactor, and the position taken by world Jewry today. The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies teaches the history and lessons of America’s response to the Holocaust, focusing on the abandonment of Europe’s Jews during the Nazi era, the efforts to promote rescue, and the moral and historical lessons of those experiences.
Father Patrick Desbois, Lecture On the Mass Shooting of Jews in Ukraine during World War II, Miami FL
Targum Shlishi supported and helped organize a lecture by Father Patrick Desbois, a Catholic priest in Paris and author of The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews (2008 National Jewish Book Award winner). The lecture, held at The Shul of Bal Harbour, discussed the mass shooting of Jews in Ukraine during World War II, which were the first mass killings of the Holocaust. Between 1941 and 1944, almost 1.5 million Ukrainian Jews were murdered when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Father Desbois has spent more than five years uncovering the history of the events that occurred and locating the sites of mass graves of Jews killed by the Einsatzgruppen, the Nazi mobile killing units. Father Desbois has documented approximately 600 sites; prior to that 200 were known. He estimates that 1,800 are yet to be found. He and his team travel to Ukraine at least every other month, to small villages where he interviews residents who witnessed the killings. In addition to supporting this lecture, in 2007–08, Targum Shlishi spearheaded an informational and fundraising effort to support this work.
Update: Father Patrick Desbois, U.S. Paperback Edition of The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews
As described directly above, the work of located the sites and uncovering information about mass graves in Ukraine is an ongoing project undertaken by Father Patrick Desbois. The English translation of Father Desbois’ book about this work, The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews (Palgrave Macmillan) was published in 2008 in the U.S. and won a National Jewish Book Award. In 2009 the paperback version was issued.
The David S. Wyman Institute for Holocaust Studies, Book: The Student Struggle Against the Holocaust, Washington, D.C.
Targum Shlishi is supporting work on the book The Student Struggle Against the Holocaust, coauthored by Rafael Medoff and David Golinkin of The David S. Wyman Institute and scheduled to be published in 2010 by the Schechter Institute of Jewish Studies. The two-year grant, awarded for 2009 and 2010, is to support research and writing. The book explores the activism of American students and others during the Holocaust, focusing on a group of rabbinical students and JTS, and including the landmark 1943 interdenominational Holocaust rescue rally at Kehilath Jeshurun (New York).