Holocaust by Bullets

 

The Holocaust by Bullets: A Forgotten Chapter of Genocide 
 

While many people are familiar with the visual images of Nazi extermination camps and can easily recognize words, phrases, and names like “final solution,” “Auschwitz,” or “gas chambers,” this familiarity can give a fragmented view of the cruelty and inhumanity of the Nazi extermination campaigns. In fact, a significant number of victims were killed - up close, and personal – by simple gunfire. Ordinary German soldiers, policemen, and neighbors all pulled the triggers and watched people they knew fall into pits. And then watched as the victims were bulldozed in – the dead, the wounded and many still alive. 

This horrifying yet lesser-known chapter of this genocide was the Holocaust by Bullets, a term coined by French Catholic priest and historian Father Patrick Desbois to describe the mass executions of Jews and other victims in Eastern Europe by Nazi Einsatzgruppen and their collaborators. Unlike the mechanized extermination in camps, these executions were carried out at close range, often in broad daylight, before being buried in mass graves.