May 12, 2011 -- Washington, DC -- Father Patrick Desbois today handed over to AJC the data he assembled on hundreds of Holocaust mass graves in Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.

AJC is spearheading an international coalition, launched in January, to identify and memorialize the grave sites. The transfer of information from Father Desbois’ organization, Yahad-in-Unum, to AJC took place during a ceremony at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

“The meticulous work of Father Desbois is invaluable to our efforts to demarcate, protect and properly memorialize these sites,” said Rabbi Andrew Baker, AJC Director of International Jewish Affairs.

The German Foreign Ministry is providing funding for the project and the work will be carried out with the cooperation of organizations in Germany, Ukraine, Belarus and Poland.

Representatives of AJC and the Conference of European Rabbis met with Yahad-in-Unum in Paris on April 5 to review five “pilot project” sites of multiple mass graves in western Ukraine. Work will begin on these sites this summer in the first stage of what is envisioned to be a multi-year effort.

Most of the graves, each containing between several hundred and several thousand victims, are unmarked and exposed to the elements. In addition to erecting fences to protect the sites, informational and memorial texts will be inscribed on stone markers.

As these five pilot projects are implemented, teams will begin to survey the sites identified by Father Desbois in order to determine what work must be done and estimate the overall costs.

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