The George and Irina Schaeffer Center for the Study of Genocide, Human Rights and Conflict Prevention invites you to attend a presentation by guests Patrice Bensimon and Michał Chojak from Yahad - In Unum.
Yahad - In Unum is the world's leading organization on Holocaust field research. Over the course of more than 14 years of investigation in 8 countries, Yahad - In Unum has worked to uncover the Holocaust by bullets: the killings of 2,2 million Jews by the Nazis in Eastern Europe from 1941 to 1944. They have located more than 2000 mass graves of these forgotten Jewish victims and gathered evidence of their massacres.
Yahad - In Unum has also developed a scientific methodology after years of archival and field research. This expertise has equipped Yahad - In Unum to investigate several genocides and mass crimes, including the Nazi genocide of the Roma people, the mass crimes committed during the Guatemalan armed conflict, and the genocide of the Yazidis that is being perpetrated today by ISIS.
Yahad - In Unum also leads academic courses and seminars around the world to help future generations draw lessons from the Holocaust by Bullets.
During the conference, Patrice Bensimon and Michał Chojak will present the specificities of the fieldwork that Yahad leads in Eastern Europe on the Holocaust by Bullets. Yahad's specific methodology highlights the core of the criminal process of the genocide. What does it mean today to lead research on mass crimes, to document a genocide and to collect evidence of mass violence? How can we complete our understanding of Holocaust history to include the killings that were perpetrated 70 years ago across an entire continent?
Patrice Bensimon serves as Research Director for Yahad - In Unum, he started his studies at university in 1997 in the Slavic department at the Sorbonne. He spent one year in Moscow at the University of People’s Friendship and received his M.A. in Slavic Studies when he returned from Moscow. In 2004-2005, he received a M.A. in Soviet and post-Soviet history; his dissertation topic was “Renewal of Jewish community in post-Soviet Russia”. Currently, he is a Ph.D candidate in history in the department of Jewish studies at EHESS (School of High Social Science Studies) and is writing a thesis on “the Jewish sites of memory in post-Soviet Ukraine".
Michał Chojak has worked with Yahad - In Unum since 2010, when the organization began its research in Poland. In the past six years, Mr. Chojak has participated in 30 research missions in Eastern Europe and interviewed hundreds of eyewitnesses of the Holocaust by bullets. Deputy Director of Yahad - In Unum Research Center since 2014, he has specialized in the research of the Holocaust in Poland and Lithuania. He is also involved in Yahad - In Unum’s research projects in Guatemala and Iraq. Originally from Poland, Michał Chojak completed his studies at the Université Paris-Sorbonne, receiving a Masters in International Trade and a Masters in European affairs.
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