Five years of research into one of mankind's darkest episodes has convinced a French Catholic priest that the death toll in the Holocaust is far higher than the generally accepted figure of 6 million.

Father Patrick Desbois has identified 800 of the estimated 2,000 gravesites of Jews who were rounded up and shot across the Ukraine.

Documenting these graves is certain to boost the current estimate of 1.7 million Jews murdered in the Ukraine, he says. He expects similar work elsewhere in eastern Europe will raise the death toll even further.

"Surely, at the end of it all, the numbers will be larger," Desbois told The Times of London. "But we are still inspecting sites in Belarus, and there is the vastness of Russia ahead of us."

As president of Yahad-In Unum, an organization devoted to confronting anti-Semitism, Desbois has been working closely with the US Holocaust Memorial Museum.

http://www.nypost.com/php/pfriendly/print.php?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nypost.com%2Fseven%2F05242009%2Fnews%2Fworldnews%2Fholocaust_count_is_too_low_170811.htm

Copyright 2009 NYP Holdings, Inc. All rights reserved.