Filed under: Development Update | Tags: Aspen, campaign, davenport, education, fundraising, Hamptons, jewish center of the hamptons, media, Philadelphia, press interviews, public venue, russian language classes, sixth and i synagogue, Speaking tour
Father Desbois began his speaking tour of the United States this week with a talk at the Sixth & I Synagogue in Washington D.C.
He will spend the upcoming month giving press interviews, taking Russian language classes in preparation for his upcoming investigative trips there, speaking at various venues across the States (including Aspen, Davenport, Philadelphia, and the Hamptons), and staying in contact with our supporters.
The purpose of the tour is two-fold: it is an education campaign and a fundraising campaign. We hope to raise public awareness about this less well-known side of the Holocaust, as well as raise funds so that Father Desbois can make the important investigation trips he has planned to Russia.
Tomorrow (Saturday, August 1st), Father Desbois will be speaking at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons in East Hampton, Long Island, New York at 11am.
Then, at 7:45pm, Father Desbois will speak again at the Hamptons Synagogue in Westhampton.
If you have any questions or requests, feel free to post a comment and we will get back to you right away.
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Dear Father Desbois,
Comment by Mrs. Caren Lever August 2, 2009 @ 11:54 pmI am grateful that you are making the world aware of this story since it is my family’s story. My grandmother’s family was living in the town of Kaluch or Kalucz in 1941. Kalucz is located south of Lemberg or Lvov near Stry and Stanislov. We learned from a man, who was in the Soviet army at the time, that the Jews of this town were killed in the Jewish cemetary. Have you found this mass grave? Do you have any information about the town of Kalucz. This town is located in the Ukraine. Thank you.
Mrs. Caren Lever
Dear Mrs. Lever,
Thank you for sharing your story. Father Desbois is busy on tour now, but I will do my best to answer your question.
Our team has never visited Kaluch. Extensive research has been done in the Lvov region, and our team has visited nearly 40 towns in the area surrounding Lvov.
We decide which villages and towns to visit based on evidence from Soviet and German archives. If the archival research corroborates, and therefore suggests that there has been a massacre at a particular location, our team goes to the location and begins to interview eyewitnesses. It is possible that there was simply no evidence in the Soviet and German archives of a massacre at Kaluch.
It’s difficult to say what actually happened in Kaluch. There usually is some sort of evidence in the archives if there was a killing in a town; that said, if the Jewish population was very small, it is possible that nothing was recorded.
If you’re interested in learning more about the archives, this post may be of interest:
http://holocaustbybullets.wordpress.com/2009/06/05/a-bit-about-those-archives/
If you have any more questions, please comment or email me. I would be happy to do a little bit of research. I would also recommend using http://jewishgen.org/ to research Kaluch.
Thank you,
Sam Frizell
Comment by Samuel Frizell August 3, 2009 @ 2:15 pm