In honor of International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Saturday, Northern Arizona University’s Martin-Springer Institute will host author Father Patrick Desbois, who will present on “Past and Present: Holocaust Memories and Yazidi Genocide.”
“Father Patrick Desbois embodies some of the core values of the Martin-Springer Institute: actively remembering the Holocaust past and raising awareness of today’s genocidal assault on the Yazidi religious community in Iraq,” said Björn Krondorfer, director of the Martin-Springer Institute.
Desbois is a French Roman Catholic priest, consultant to the Vatican and head of the Commission for Relations with Judaism in France. He is the founder of the Yahad-In Unum, an organization dedicated to locating mass grave sites of Jewish victims of the Nazi mobile-killing units in the former Soviet Union. He received the Légion d’honneur, France’s highest honor, for his work documenting the Holocaust. In 1978, he worked as a math teacher for the French government in Africa. Desbois later worked for Mother Teresa in Calcutta, where he helped set up homes for the dying. His 2008 book, “The Holocaust by Bullets: A Priest’s Journey to Uncover the Truth Behind the Murder of 1.5 Million Jews (Palgrave Mcmillian),” won the National Jewish Book Award.
The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. Jan. 29 in Prochnow Auditorium.
Prochnow Auditorium (Bldg. 3A) is located on Knoles Drive on the NAU Flagstaff campus. Tickets are $10 for the public and free for NAU and Coconino Community College staff and students. Tickets can be purchased by calling (928) 523-5661 or visiting nau.edu/cto. Event parking passes can be found at nau.edu/parking.