Jewish Studies Lecture: 'Genocide by Mass Shooting' to Be Given by Andrew Buchanan

Genocide by Mass Shooting

On June 22, 1941, Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union. This act of war sounded the death knell for the Jewish populations of Eastern Europe. Approximately two million Jews were murdered by bullets by German units and their collaborators. This practice of extermination has come to be designated as the "Holocaust by bullets" or "genocide by mass shooting."

This session will provide an overview of the Einsatzgruppen, from their participation in the T-4 Programme to the process of mass murder by shootings in eastern Europe. Participants will analyse Yahad in Unam's work documenting the crimes of the Einsatzgruppen in eastern Europe. Yahad-In Unum (YIU) is a French organization founded to locate the sites of mass graves of Jewish victims of the Nazi mobile killing units in Lithuania, Latvia, Ukraine, Belarus, Russia, Poland and Moldova.

Participants will be able to investigate the anatomy of the crime, using eyewitness testimonies to understand the actual process of mass murder from beginning to end. Participants will seek to answer the following questions:

1. What was the Final Solution to the Jewish Question, (Die Enlosung der judenfrage) and what is its legacy?
2. Who were the murderers of the mobile killing units, where did they operate and what methods did they use?
3. How does a government plan and implement a policy of mass murder, and/or genocide?
4. How has the work of Fr. Patrick Desbois and Yahad-in-Unum added significantly to our understanding of the process of mass murder?

Buchanan believes this presentation will meet a need for participants interested in gaining an overview of the system of mass murder by shooting and how it relates to the Holocaust, creating a broader understanding of how the process of genocide unfolded so that students can gain a better sense of how this history affects them economically, geopolitically and culturally today.