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Babi Yar 29 – 30 September 1941

29.09.2011   

Seventy years ago today the killing began of around 35 thousand Jewish men, women and children at Babi Yar, a ravine then on the outskirts of Kyiv.

The Nazis had put up announcements on 28 September ordering all Jews to come with their possessions and documents the next morning to the corner of Melnykova and Degtyryovska St.  Those who did not, the announcement read, would be executed. 

Some few fled, many being found and killed in the Holosiyivsky Forest near Kyiv.  A small number (around 150) were given refuge by non-Jewish friends or neighbours.  Those who sheltered Jews knew that they and their families faced execution if caught.

Many obeyed the order with foreboding, yet the location was near a train station, and some believed, or hoped, that they were being deported.

It was simply impossible to comprehend that Nazi Einsatzgruppen and local collaborators could strip naked and systematically murder innocent children and adults.

70 years later it remains impossible. 

The figure normally given of 33, 771 victims of that massacre is almost certainly wrong.  History Yury Shapoval stresses that executions had taken place earlier, from 27 September, and by 9 November more than 57 thousand people had been murdered.  It is believed that at least 100 thousand people were murdered there during the Nazi occupation:: Jews, Gypsies, Soviet prisoners of war, Ukrainian nationalists, and others. 

More historical detail can be found in most history books and on the Internet.  Remembrance and sorrow, unfortunately, come harder. 

In Soviet times the execution during those terrible days of Jews at Babi Yar was assiduously ignored.  Plans to build a rubbish dump at the ravine were condemned by the writer and War veteran Viktor Nekrasov who in 1959 spoke out, calling for a monument to those murdered at Babi Yar.  The authorities ignored such calls, with even pulp being pumped into the ravine.  This led in 1961 to a catastrophic mudslide which claimed the lives of about 2 thousand people.

During the 1960s and 1970s the Soviets continued building over the ravine area.  A television centre and sports complex were built on Melnykova St, and by 1980 the territory had mainly been turned into a park, with only a small part of Babi Yar remaining.

After unauthorized meetings on 29 September 1966, the 25th anniversary of the Massacre (addressed by Ivan Dzyuba, Viktor Nekrasov and others) and a year later, the authorities finally acknowledged the need for some monument.  The official monument erected by 1968 was to the memory of “Soviet citizens during the period of the temporary German-Fascist occupation of 1941-1943”. 

The story of Soviet lies is long and sordid.  In 1991, following Ukraine’s independence, a menorah was erected at Babi Yar. 

The years since then have also seen controversy and sometime ugly dissent.

It is true that many of those murdered at Babi Yar were not Jewish.

It is also true that on 29 September the Jews of Kyiv were ordered to assemble near Babi Yar, where all of them, including thousands of children were massacred as Jews.

Is it so very hard for the Ukrainian nationalist parties and some authors who even during these days can insist on arguing numbers of victims, to understand this?

And to honour the memory of the victims of a monstrous crime  in silent sorrow

 

(Halya Coynash)

 

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