The "Holocaust by Bullets": Historian Reflections on Father Desbois' Inquiry and its Presentation by the Media

Abstract

Over the last two years, Father Desbois' inquiry on "Holocaust by bullets" in Ukraine has had exceptional media, coverage in France. In this paper, the main argument is not to criticize Father Desbois' investigation, which bring a lot to the subject in spite of some limitations, but to question the media coverage. Most media - television, radio, newspapers - and even the book Porteur de memoires have portrayed Father Desbois as a sort of hero dedicated to the ditty of memory. He is celebrated fir having revealed an allegedly unknown aspect of the Holocaust - the massive ex termination of Soviet Jews by German firing squads. Such an heroic view neglects more than sixty years of public debates, judicial procedures and historical research on the crimes perpetrated in the Soviet Union by the Einsatzgruppen and other German units implicated in the "Final solution". This rhetorical exercise of "discovery" is a worrisome example of a scoop-oriented popularization of history.