Massacre of Babi Yar

Babi Yar (pl. Babi Gravel bank, ukr. Бабиняр) is a locality between the villages of Łukianowka and Syriec (today in the district of Kiev in Ukraine), where close to: 100000 civilians, as a majority of Jewish origin, were massacred by the Nazi and of the collaborator buildings, during the Second world war.

Arrival of the Nazis in Kiev

The September 19th 1941 the Wehrmacht entered Kiev, which counted: 900000 inhabitants including 120 with: 130000 Jews. The September 28th, an official statement ordered with all the Jews to be presented the following day, day of Yom Kippour, with 8:00 with their papers, values and of warm clothing. It was specified that very Juif found elsewhere and without possession of the official statement in question, like any surprised civilian to burglarize an evacuated Jewish apartment, would be carried out. The majority of the inhabitants of Kiev, Jews or not, thought that it was about a deportation. In fact, the Nazi had decided to immediately carry out all the Jews in retortion against a series of bombardments by NKVD, aiming at German installations, whose Jews were marked.

The command places from there (Generalmajor Eberhardt, Höherer S - und Polizeiführer SS-Obergruppenführer Jeckeln, the chief of the Einsatzgruppe C, SS-Brigadeführer Rasch and of Einsatzgruppe 4a SS-Standartenführer Blobel) had selected an special unit (Sonderkommando 4a) for the execution of the plan and the place of its realization.

Executions

The Jews of Kiev gathered with the ordered place, expecting to be embarked in trains. Crowd was sufficiently dense so that the majority was unaware of what actually occurred. When they heard the machine-guns, it was too late to escape. They were led by groups of ten through a corridor trained soldiers, forced to undress itself under the blows of stick, then carried out at the edge of the throat of Babi Yar. The massacre lasted two days. According to the German reports/ratios: 33771 Jews were carried out during the operation.

In the months which followed: 60000 executions had place at the same place on Jews, Pole, Tziganes, Ukrainians. Among them was the poet and activist Ukrainian Olena Teliha.

Concentration camp

After the executions of mass, a concentration camp was created in Babi Yar. The Communists, resistant and prisoner of war were locked up there. The number of victims of the camp is estimated at: 30000.

Commemorations

Since 1990, the medal of “Juste de Babi Yar” rewards the people who carried help to the Jews condemned to died in the extermination of Babi Yar. 400 people received this medal to date.

The massacre of Babi Yar inspired the Russian writer, Evgueni Evtouchenko in a poem put in music by Dmitri Chostakovitch. Babi Yar is also the title of a novel of Anatoli Kouznetsov and of an Ukrainian cartoon film. In 1981, the translator, poet and novelist English D.M. Thomas evoke lengthily the massacre of Babi Yar in a chapter of his novel " The White Hotel" (the White Hotel).

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