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{{Short description|Ravine and massacre site in Kyiv}}
{{The Holocaust}}
{{Other uses}}
]
{{Pp-30-500|small=yes}}
'''Babi Yar''' (]: Бабий яр, ''Babiy yar''; ]: Бабин яр, ''Babyn yar'') is the site near Kiev (Ukraine), where during WW II more than 100, 000 Soviet civilians (over 37, 000 of them Jews) were executed by Germans and local collaborators in ] - ]. Today Babi Yar is internationally known as the site of one of the worst Jewish massacres of the Holocaust.
{{Use dmy dates|date=September 2021}}
{{Infobox holocaust event
| name = Babi Yar
| image = Babi Yar-06-194.jpg
| caption = Soviet ] being used by Germany to cover the mass grave after the massacre, 1 October 1941
| AKA = Babyn Yar
| location = Kyiv, ], Soviet Union
| coordinates = {{Coord|50|28|17|N|30|26|56|E|type:event_region:UA-30|display=title,inline}}
| date = 29–30 September 1941
| incident_type = ], mass murder
| perpetrators = ], ], ], ] and others
| participants =
| organizations = '']'', ], ], ] 4a, ]
| camp = ]
| ghetto =
| victims = {{Plain list|
* 33,771 Jews in initial two-day massacre (29 survived)
* 100,000–150,000 Jews, Soviet prisoners of war and Romani on later dates
}}
| survivors =
| witnesses =
| documentation =
| memorials = ]
| notes = Possibly the largest two-day massacre during ]. ] was also located in the area. Massacres occurred at Babi Yar from 29 September 1941 to 6 November 1943, when Soviet forces liberated Kyiv.
{{Infobox historic site |embed = yes |designation1 = UKRAINE NATIONAL |designation1_offname = Комплекс пам'яток на місці масового знищення мирного населення та військовополонених в урочищі Бабин Яр під час гітлерівської окупації |designation1_type = History |designation1_number = 260033-Н}}
}}'''Babi Yar''' ({{langx|ru|Бабий Яр}}) or '''Babyn Yar''' ({{langx|uk|Бабин Яр}}) is a ] in the ] capital ] and a site of massacres carried out by ]'s forces during ] against the ] in ]. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, in which some 33,771 ] were murdered. Other victims of massacres at the site included Soviet ], communists and ].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/Jewish-World/A-Museum-for-Babi-Yar |title=A Museum for Babi Yar | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130626000548/http://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/Jewish-World/A-Museum-for-Babi-Yar |archive-date=26 June 2013 | first=Avi |last=Hoffman |newspaper=] |date=23 October 2011}}</ref><ref name="BYUnk2">{{cite web |url=http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Babi_Yar.htm |title=Zionism and Israel – Encyclopedic Dictionary: Babi Yar |access-date=26 December 2014 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141227012518/http://www.zionism-israel.com/dic/Babi_Yar.htm |archive-date=27 December 2014}}</ref><ref name=BYUnk1/> It is estimated that a total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.<ref name="rpmag1">
{{cite book
|last= Magocsi|first= Paul Robert
|title= A History of Ukraine|year= 1996
|publisher= University of Toronto Press|page= 633
|url= https://books.google.com/books?id=t124cP06gg0C&q=A+History+of+Ukraine
|isbn= 978-0-8020-7820-9
}}
</ref>


The decision to murder all the Jews in Kyiv was made by the military governor '']'' ], the Police Commander for Army Group South, SS-'']'' ], and the ''Einsatzgruppe'' C Commander ]. ] 4a as the sub-unit of ''Einsatzgruppe'' C, along with the aid of the ] and ] with the ] backed by the '']'', carried out the orders.<ref name="Berkhoff-2">{{cite book | url= https://books.google.com/books?id=hyYGOyX1IQUC&q=%22Ukrainian+sources+also+name+paramilitary+and+auxiliary+police+formations%22&pg=PA303 | title= Babi Yar Massacre | series= The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization | year=2008 | access-date= 23 February 2013 | author= Karel C. Berkhoff | page= 303 | publisher= Indiana University Press | isbn= 978-0253001597}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.yadvashem.org/education/educational-materials/learning-environment/babi-yar/historical-background3.html|title=Holocaust in Kiev and the Tragedy of Babi Yar {{!}} www.yadvashem.org|website=historical-background3.html|language=en|access-date=1 August 2019|archive-date=4 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190804201343/https://www.yadvashem.org/education/educational-materials/learning-environment/babi-yar/historical-background3.html|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref name=":0" /> Sonderkommando 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site.<ref name=MtVol4>{{cite web| url=http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/NT_war-criminals_Vol-IV.pdf |title=Military Tribunal Volume IV "The Einsatzgruppen Case"|website=]|language=en}}</ref><ref name=Kruglov>{{cite book| url=http://tkuma.dp.ua/images/public_dounload/2011_kruglov_babiy_yar.pdf |title=''Круглов А.'' Трагедия Бабьего Яра в немецких документах. Днепропетровск: Центр «Ткума»; ЧП «Лира ЛТД», 2011. – 140 с. |year=2011 |isbn= 978-966-383-346-0 |trans-title=''Kruglov A.'' The tragedy of Babi Yar in German documents. – Dnepropetrovsk: Center "Tkuma"; PE "Lira LTD", 2011. 140 p. |last1=Kruglov |first1=Aleksandr Iosifovič |publisher=Ткума }}</ref><ref name=Evstafieva>{{cite web| url=http://dspace.nbuv.gov.ua/bitstream/handle/123456789/121969/14-Yevstaf%27yeva.pdf |title=Трагедія Бабиного Яру крізь призму архівних документів Служби безпеки України / Т.О. Євстаф'єва // Архіви України. 2011. № 5. С. 137–158. Бібліогр.: 76 назв. укр. |trans-title=The tragedy of Babyn Yar through the prism of archival documents of the Security Service of Ukraine / Т.О. Evstafieva // Archives of Ukraine. 2011. № 5. 137–158. Bibliography: 76 titles. ukr.}}</ref><ref name=ProcISC>{{cite web| url=http://history.org.ua/LiberUA/978-966-2214-15-4/978-966-2214-15-4.pdf |title=Бабин Яр: масове убивство і пам′ять про нього. Матеріали міжнародної наукової конференції 24–25 жовтня 2011 р., м. Київ / В. Нахманович, А. Подольський, М. Тяглий. Український центр вивчення історії Голокосту; Громадський комітет для вшанування пам'яті жертв Бабиного Яру. – К., 2012. – 256 с. |trans-title=Babyn Yar: mass murder and memory. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference October 24–25, 2011, Kyiv / V. Nakhmanovych, A. Podolsky, M. Tyagly. Ukrainian Center for Holocaust History Studies; Public Committee to Commemorate the Victims of Babyn Yar. K., 2012. 256 p.}}</ref>
== Historical Background ==


The massacre was the largest mass-murder by the Nazi regime during the campaign against the Soviet Union,<ref>{{cite book | title= The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality | url= https://archive.org/details/wehrmachthistory00wett_0 | url-access= registration | author= Wolfram Wette | author-link = Wolfram Wette | year= 2006 | page= | publisher= Harvard University Press| isbn= 9780674022133 }}</ref> and it has been called "the largest single massacre in the history of ]" to that particular date.<ref name="Lower">{{cite journal |first=Wendy |last=Lower |authorlink=Wendy Lower |url=http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2007-18.pdf |title=From Berlin to Babi Yar. The Nazi War Against the Jews, 1941–1944 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090305074504/http://moses.creighton.edu/JRS/pdf/2007-18.pdf |archive-date=5 March 2009 |journal=Journal of Religion & Society |volume=9 |date=2007 |publisher=The Kripke Center, ] |hdl=10504/64569 |issn=1522-5658 |access-date=24 May 2013 }}</ref> It is only surpassed overall by the later ] of more than 50,000 Jews (committed by German and ]), and by '']'' of November 1943 in ] with 42,000–43,000 victims.<ref name="Browning">{{cite web | url= http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf | title= Arrival in Poland | publisher= Penguin Books | work= Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland | date= 1992–1998 | access-date= 24 May 2013 | last= Browning | first= Christopher R. | author-link= Christopher Browning | pages= 135–142 | format= PDF file, direct download 7.91 MB complete | url-status= live | archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20131019043400/http://hampshirehigh.com/exchange2012/docs/BROWNING-Ordinary%20Men.%20Reserve%20Police%20Battalion%20101%20and%20the%20Final%20Solution%20in%20Poland%20(1992).pdf | archive-date= 19 October 2013 }}</ref>{{qn|date=September 2017}}
Babi Yar is a ravine in the outskirts of Kiev, capital of Ukraine. First mentioning of Babi Yar dates back to 1401 and in the course of several centuries the site had been used for different purposes including military camps and at least two cemeteries, among them a New Jewish Cemetery that had been closed by 1937.


==Historical background==
== World War II ==
The Babi Yar (Babyn Yar) ravine was first mentioned in historical accounts in 1401, in connection to the sale of it by "baba" (an old woman) who was also the '']'' in the ] Monastery.<ref name=VK>Anatoliy Kudrytsky, editor-in-chief, ''"Vulytsi Kyeva" (The Streets of Kyiv)'', Ukrainska Entsyklopediya, {{ISBN|5-88500-070-0}}</ref> The word "yar" is ] in origin and means "gully" or "ravine". Over several centuries, the site was used for various purposes, including military camps and at least two cemeteries, including an ] cemetery and a Jewish cemetery. The latter was officially closed in 1937.{{Citation needed|date = September 2016}}
After 45-day battle for capital of ] German forces finally entered the city on ], ]. Several prominent buildings within the city had been rigged with explosives by NKVD and a series of explosions between September 24-29 caused considerable casualties among German forces. The German military governor, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, and several other higher officers decided at a meeting that a retaliation was to be made towards local population. First execution took place on September 27, 1941, when 700 mental patients of the local psychiatric asylum had been executed. Further it was decided by German authorities that Jewish population of the city was responsible for the explosions and orders were made to prepare for their extermination. It became later known that Germans knew all along that Jewish population of ] had nothing to do with the explosions, but preferred to use it as a pretext for the massacre.


===Massacre of September 29-30, 1941=== ==Massacres of September 1941==
{{See also|Battle of Kiev (1941)}}
]
On September 28, notices around town read:


Axis forces, mainly German, occupied Kyiv on 19 September 1941. Between 20 and 28 September, explosives planted by the ] (the NKVD) caused extensive damage in the city, and on 24 September an explosion rocked Rear Headquarters Army Group South.<ref name="kyivpost">{{cite news | title=Remembering the Kyiv Inferno, 1941 | work=Kyiv Post | date=25 September 2016 }}</ref> Two days later, on 26 September, Maj. Gen. ], the military governor, and SS-{{lang|de|]}} ], the ], met at Rear Headquarters Army Group South. There, they decided to exterminate the Jews of Kyiv, claiming that it was retaliation for the explosions.<ref>
<blockquote>''All Jews living in the city of Kiev and its vicinity are to report by 8 o'clock on the morning of Monday, September 29, 1941, to the corner of Melnikovsky and Dokhturov Streets (near the cemetery). They are to take with them documents, money, valuables, as well as warm clothes, underwear, etc. Any Jew not carrying out this instruction and who is found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilian entering flats evacuated by Jews and stealing property will be shot''.</blockquote>
* {{cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QSpUZ6t6BPwC&q=Kurt+Eberhard+kiev&pg=PA95
|title=War of Annihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front |first1=Geoffrey P. |last1=Megargee |author-link=Geoffrey P. Megargee |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |year=2006 |isbn=978-0-7425-4481-9 |page=95 }}
* {{cite book |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=tdYkMPfUSUAC&q=eberhard&pg=PA141 |title=A War to Be Won: Fighting the Second World War |first1=Williamson
|last1=Murray |first2= Allan R. |last2=Millett |publisher=Harvard University Press
|year=2001 |isbn=0-674-00680-1 |page=141 }}</ref> Also present were SS-{{lang|de|]}} ], commander of {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} 4a of {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppe}} C, and his superior, SS-{{lang|de|]}} Dr. ], commander of {{lang|de|]}} C. The mass murder was to be carried out by units under the command of Rasch and Blobel, who were ultimately responsible for many atrocities in Soviet Ukraine during the summer and autumn of 1941.


The implementation of the order was entrusted to {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} 4a of {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppe}} C commanded by Blobel, under the general command of Friedrich Jeckeln.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/270.html |title=1941: Mass Murder |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029193800/http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/270.html |archive-date=29 October 2013 }} The Holocaust Chronicle. p. 270</ref> This unit consisted of {{lang|de|]}} (SD) and {{lang|de|]}} (SiPo), the third company of the Special Duties ] battalion, and a platoon of the 9th Police Battalion. {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} 4a of {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppe}} C and Police Battalion 45, commanded by Major Besser, conducted the massacre, supported by members of a {{lang|de|Waffen}}-SS battalion. Contrary to the "]", the ] under the command of Field Marshal ] worked together with the SS and SD to plan and execute the mass-murder of the Jews of Kyiv.<ref name=":0">{{cite book|last1=Wette| first1=Wolfram| author-link1 = Wolfram Wette | title=Die Wehrmacht: Feindbilder, Vernichtungskrieg, Legenden|language=de|date=2005|publisher=Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag|location=Frankfurt am Main|isbn=3596156459|pages=115–128|edition=revised}}</ref>
The Jews of Kiev gathered by the cemetery, expecting to be loaded onto trains. The crowd was large enough that most of the men, women, and children did not know what was happening, and by the time they heard machine-gun fire, it was too late to escape. They were driven in small groups of ten, and led down a corridor of soldiers, as described by A. Kuznetsov:


On 26 September 1941, the following order was posted:
<blockquote>There was no question of being able to dodge or get away. Brutal blows, immediately drawing blood, descended on their heads, backs and shoulders from left and right. The soldiers kept shouting: "Schnell, schnell!" laughing happily, as if they were watching a circus act; they even found ways of delivering harder blows in the more vulnerable places, the ribs, the stomach and the groin.</blockquote>


{{blockquote|
The Jews were then ordered to undress, beaten if they resisted, and then shot at the edge of the Babi Yar gorge. According to the ] , 33,771 Jews from Kiev and its suburbs were killed at Babi Yar on ] and ], ]: systematically shot dead by machine gun fire.
All Yids{{efn|name="yids"|The order was posted in German, Ukrainian, and in the largest letters, Russian. In only the Russian version is the defamatory word "zhid" ({{lang|ru|жид}}) used for Jews. The respectful Russian word is "yevrey" ({{lang|ru|еврей}}). The word "zhyd" ({{lang|uk|жид}}) in Ukrainian was at the time<!--Wiktionary notes it is now often considered offensive in Ukrainian due to its offensiveness in Russian.--> not defamatory at all, as noted by ] in his memoirs: "I remember that once we invited Ukrainians, Jews and Poles&nbsp;... to a meeting at the Lvov opera house. It struck me as very strange to hear the Jewish speakers at the meeting refer to themselves as 'yids.' 'We yids hereby declare ourselves in favour of such-and-such.' Out in the lobby after the meeting I stopped some of these men and demanded, 'How dare you use the word "yid?" Don't you know it's a very offensive term, an insult to the Jewish nation?' 'Here in the Western Ukraine it's just the opposite,' they explained. 'We call ourselves yids'&nbsp;... Apparently what they said was true. If you go back to Ukrainian literature&nbsp;... you'll see that 'yid' isn't used derisively or insultingly."<ref>{{cite book |first=Nikita |last=Khrushchev |title=Khrushchev Remembers |url=https://archive.org/details/khrushchevrememb00khru |url-access=registration |location=New York |publisher=Bantam Books |year=1971 |page=}}</ref>}} of the city of Kiev and its vicinity must appear on Monday, 29 September, by 8 o'clock in the morning at the corner of Mel'nikova and Dokterivskaya streets (near the Viis'kove cemetery). Bring documents, money and valuables, and also warm clothing, linen, etc.


Any Yids who do not follow this order and are found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilians who enter the dwellings left by Yids and appropriate the things in them will be shot.|Order posted in Kyiv in Russian, Ukrainian, and German on or around 26 September 1941<ref name=Berenbaum97>]. ''The World Must Know'', United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this edition 2006, pp. 97–98.</ref>}}
A unit of ] C, Police Battalion 45 commanded by a Major Besser, carried out the massacre, supported by members of a ] battalion and units of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, under the general command of ].


], ] with ] translation ordering all Kyivan Jews to assemble for supposed resettlement]]
===Further Executions===
On 29 and 30 September 1941, the Nazis and their collaborators murdered approximately 33,771 ] civilians at Babi Yar.<ref name="USHMM">{{cite encyclopedia|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005421|title=Kiev and Babi Yar|encyclopedia=Holocaust Encyclopedia|publisher=]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070103133722/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005421|archive-date=3 January 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Prusin|first=Alexander V.|date=Spring 2007|title=A Community of Violence: The SiPo/SD and Its Role in the Nazi Terror System in Generalbezirk Kiew|journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies|volume=21|pages=1–30|doi=10.1093/hgs/dcm001|s2cid=146390847 |issn=1476-7937 }}</ref><ref name="HC-270">{{cite web|title=The Holocaust Chronicle: Massacre at Babi Yar|website=The Holocaust Chronicle|format=web site|url=http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/270.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029193800/http://www.holocaustchronicle.org/staticpages/270.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=29 October 2013|access-date=17 December 2007}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal|first=Victoria |last=Khiterer|author-link1=Victoria Khiterer |year=2004|title=Babi Yar: The tragedy of Kiev's Jews|url=http://www.brandeis.edu/gsa/gradjournal/2004/khiterer2004.pdf|url-status=live|journal=Brandeis Graduate Journal|volume=2|pages=1–16|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071128164646/http://www.brandeis.edu/gsa/gradjournal/2004/khiterer2004.pdf|archive-date=28 November 2007|access-date=20 January 2008}}</ref> The order to murder the Jews of Kyiv was given to {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} 4a of {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppe}} C, consisting of SD and SiPo men, the third company of the Special Duties {{lang|de|Waffen}}-SS battalion, and a platoon of the No. 9 police battalion. These units were reinforced by police battalions Nos. 45 and 303, by units of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, and supported by local collaborators.<ref>{{Cite book|title=Encyclopedia of the Holocaust|volume=1|last=Gutman|first=Israel|publisher=Macmillan|year=1990|pages=133–136}}</ref> {{lang|de|Sonderkommando}} 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site.<ref name=MtVol4/><ref name=Kruglov/><ref name=Evstafieva/><ref name=ProcISC/>


The commander of the {{lang|de|]}} reported two days later:<ref name="Gilbert">{{cite book |author-link=Martin Gilbert |last=Gilbert |first=Martin |year=1985 |title=The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War |publisher=Holt, Rinehart and Winston |isbn=0-03-062416-9 |page= |url=https://archive.org/details/holocausthistory00gilb/page/202 }}</ref>
Further executions took place on ], 2, 8 and 11, ]. During this time 17,000 more Jews were executed. Mass executions in the ravine continued up until Germans withdrew from the city in ]. Among others, about 621 members of ] (]) have been executed, and notably a prominent Ukrainian poet ]. According to different sources the number of executed in Babi Yar could be between 70,000 and 200,000 people. According to testimonies of Jewish workers forced to burn the bodies, the number could be as high as 70,000 - 120,000.


{{blockquote|The difficulties resulting from such a large scale action—in particular concerning the seizure—were overcome in Kiev by requesting the Jewish population through wall posters to move. Although only a participation of approximately 5,000 to 6,000 Jews had been expected at first, more than 30,000 Jews arrived who, until the very moment of their execution, still believed in their resettlement, thanks to an extremely clever organization.<ref>Nuremberg Military Tribunal, ''Einsatzgruppen trial'', Judgment, at page 426, quoting exhibit NO-3157.</ref>}}
Later at Babi Yar the Syretsk Concentration Camp was set up, where interned ], soviet ] and captured resistance fighters were executed as well. On ] ] three ] players, who took part in the so-called Match of Death with German ] team were executed in the camp. It is estimated that around 25,000 people died in the camp alone.


According to the testimony of a truck driver named Hofer, victims were ordered to undress and were beaten if they resisted:
===Cover-up Attempts===


{{blockquote|I watched what happened when the Jews—men, women and children—arrived. The Ukrainians{{efn|name="Ukrainians"|While the witness referred to {{nowrap|"he}} Ukrainians" there has only been one documented Ukrainian speaker at Babi Yar, and that was Second Lieutenant Joseph Muller, an ethnic German from ].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/the-dark-secrets-of-babi-yar-1583.html|title=The dark secrets of Babi Yar |date=2 October 1998|work=Kyiv Post|access-date=14 March 2018|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150218141949/http://www.kyivpost.com/content/ukraine/the-dark-secrets-of-babi-yar-1583.html|archive-date=18 February 2015}}</ref> Thus, it is more accurate to describe these people as "Ukrainian speakers". A German policeman who guarded Babi Yar testified in 1965 that "the Jews were guarded by Wehrmacht units and by a Hamburg Police Battalion, which, as far as I can remember, carried the number 303."<ref>{{cite book |editor-first=Peter |editor-last=Longerich |editor-link=Peter Longerich |year=1989 |title=Die Ermordung der europäischen Juden: Eine umfassende Dokumentation der Holocaust 1941–1945 |language=de |location=Munich and Zurich |publisher=Piper |page=123 |isbn=9783492110600 |oclc=1198514341}}</ref>}} led them past a number of different places where one after the other they had to give up their luggage, then their coats, shoes and over-garments and also underwear. They also had to leave their valuables in a designated place. There was a special pile for each article of clothing. It all happened very quickly and anyone who hesitated was kicked or pushed by the Ukrainians{{efn|name="Ukrainians"}} to keep them moving.|Michael Berenbaum: "Statement of Truck-Driver Hofer describing the murder of Jews at Babi Yar"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/hofer.html |title=Statement of Truck-Driver Hofer describing the murder of Jews at Babi Yar |access-date=9 January 2006 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070606213149/http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/hofer.html |archive-date=6 June 2007 }} Cited in {{cite book |author-link=Michael Berenbaum |last=Berenbaum |first=Michael |title=Witness to the Holocaust |location=New York |publisher=HarperCollins |year=1997| pages=138–139}}</ref>}}
]

Retreating from ] Germans made an attempt to cover up the atrocities. In August -September of ] the Syretsk camp was partially destroyed, some bodies were exhumed and burned in open ovens. Ashes of tens of thousands of bodies were scattered in the neighbourhood. During the night of ], ] an inmate revolt broke out and as a result 18 people managed to escape, while the rest 311 were executed.
The crowd was large enough that most of the victims could not have known what was happening until it was too late; by the time they heard the ] fire, there was no chance to escape. All were driven down a corridor of soldiers, in groups of ten, and then shot. A truck driver described the scene.

{{blockquote|Once undressed, they were led into the ravine which was about 150 metres long and 30 metres wide and a good 15 metres deep&nbsp;... When they reached the bottom of the ravine they were seized by members of the {{lang|de|Schutzpolizei}} and made to lie down on top of Jews who had already been shot&nbsp;... The corpses were literally in layers. A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a ]&nbsp;... I saw these marksmen stand on layers of corpses and shoot one after the other&nbsp;... The marksman would walk across the bodies of the executed Jews to the next Jew, who had meanwhile lain down, and shoot him.<ref name=Berenbaum97/>}}

In the evening, the Germans undermined the wall of the ravine and buried the people under the thick layers of earth.<ref name="Gilbert" /> According to the {{lang|de|Einsatzgruppe}}'s Operational Situation Report, 33,771 Jews from Kyiv and its suburbs were systematically shot dead by machine-gun fire at Babi Yar on 29 and 30 September 1941.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061207163856/http://www.einsatzgruppenarchives.com/osr101.html |date=7 December 2006 }} (einsatzgruppenarchives.com)</ref> The money, valuables, underwear, and clothing of the murdered were turned over to the local ] and to the Nazi administration of the city.<ref>Nuremberg Military Tribunal, ''Einsatzgruppen trial'', Judgment, at p. 430.</ref> Wounded victims were buried alive in the ravine along with the rest of the bodies.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lawrence|first=Bill|title=Six Presidents, Too Many Wars|url=https://archive.org/details/sixpresidentstoo00lawr|url-access=registration|year=1972|publisher=Saturday Review Press|location=New York|page=|isbn=9780841501430}}</ref><ref name="haaretz06">{{cite news |url=http://www.haaretz.com/news/yad-vashem-tries-to-name-babi-yar-victims-but-only-10-identified-1.198036 |title=Yad Vashem tries to name Babi Yar victims, but only 10% identified |access-date=3 August 2010 |newspaper=Haaretz |first=Amiram |last=Barkat |display-authors=etal |date=September 2006 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110523040842/http://www.haaretz.com/news/yad-vashem-tries-to-name-babi-yar-victims-but-only-10-identified-1.198036 |archive-date=23 May 2011 }}</ref>

==Further massacres==
]

In the months that followed, thousands more were seized and taken to Babi Yar where they were shot. It is estimated that more than 100,000 residents of Kyiv of all ethnic groups,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://day.kyiv.ua/uk/article/panorama-dnya/babin-yar-dva-dni-dva-roki-dvadcyate-stolittya |title=Бабин Яр: два дні – два роки – двадцяте століття /ДЕНЬ/ |publisher=day.kyiv.ua |date=28 November 2007 |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050405015440/http://www.day.kiev.ua/124453/ |archive-date=5 April 2005 }}</ref><ref>Юрій Шаповал (27 February 2009), {{cite web |url=http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |title='Бабин Яр': доля тексту та автора. |access-date=28 August 2010 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100112222214/http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |archive-date=12 January 2010 }} {{Cite web |url=http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |title=«Бабин Яр»: доля тексту та автора |access-date=28 August 2010 |archive-date=12 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100112222214/http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |url-status=usurped }} Літакцент, 2007-2009.</ref><ref>Yury Shapoval, "The Defection of Anatoly Kuznetsov", День, 18 January 2005.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://1000years.uazone.net/babyn_jar.htm |title=Бабин яр – Бабий яр – Babij jar – Babyn jar |publisher=1000years.uazone.net |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308235419/http://1000years.uazone.net/babyn_jar.htm |archive-date=8 March 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005421 |title=Kiev and Babi Yar |publisher=Ushmm.org |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119051904/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005421 |archive-date=19 January 2012 }}</ref> mostly civilians, were murdered by the Nazis there during ].<ref name="USHMM" /><ref name="Spector">Shmuel Spector, "Babi Yar," ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', Israel Gutman, editor in chief, ], Sifriat Hapoalim, New York: Macmillan, 1990. 4 volumes. {{ISBN|0-02-896090-4}}. An excerpt of the article is available at Ada Holtzman, " {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121230194729/http://www.zchor.org/BABIYAR.HTM |date=2012-12-30 }}", ''We Remember! Shalom!''.</ref> The ] was also built in the area, which was notorious for its cruelty<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=Aristov |first=Stanislav |date=2015 |title=Next to Babi Yar: The Syrets Concentration Camp and the Evolution of Nazi Terror in Kiev |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcv047 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=431–459 |via=Oxford Academic}}</ref> and execution of three ] football players who played in the ].<ref name="deathcamps.org">{{cite web |author=ARC |date=9 July 2006 |title=The KZ in Syrets |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/syrets.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029234230/http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/syrets.html |archive-date=29 October 2013 |access-date=28 October 2013 |work=Occupation of the East |publisher=Deathcamps.org}}</ref>

Mass executions at Babi Yar continued until the Nazis evacuated the city of Kyiv. On 10 January 1942 about 100 captured Soviet sailors were executed there after being forced to disinter and cremate the bodies of previous victims. In addition, Babi Yar became a place of execution of residents of five Gypsy camps. Patients of the Ivan Pavlov ] were gassed and then dumped into the ravine.{{citation needed|date=October 2011}} Thousands of other Ukrainians were murdered at Babi Yar.<ref> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070611172138/http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/babiyar_2.htm |date=11 June 2007 }} by Jennifer Rosenberg (about.com)</ref> Ukrainian poet and activist ] and her husband, and renowned ] ], were murdered there on 21 February 1942.<ref name="BYUnk1">Ludmyla Yurchenko, " {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814045451/http://www.cym.org/archives/olena_teliha.asp |date=2007-08-14 }}", Ukrainian Youth Association.</ref> Also murdered in 1941 were Ukrainian activist writer ], his sister, and his staff.

Upon the Soviet liberation of Kyiv in 1943, Soviet officials led Western journalists to the site of the massacres and allowed them to interview survivors. Among the journalists were ] of '']'' and ] of ]. Downs described in a report to '']'' what he had been told by one of the survivors, Efim Vilkis:

]]]

{{blockquote|However, even more incredible was the action taken by the Nazis between August 19 and September 28 last. Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 ], who were taken to the ravines. On August 19 these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar {{sic}} to form the foundation of a huge ]. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi machine guns.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Downs|first=Bill|title=Blood at Babii Yar – Kiev's Atrocity Story|journal=Newsweek|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_newsweek-us_1943-12-06_22_23/page/22/mode/1up|date=December 6, 1943|page=22}}</ref> }}

=== Number of people who were murdered ===
Estimates of the total number of people who were murdered at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation vary. At the ] in 1946, Soviet prosecutor ] claimed that approximately 100,000 corpses were lying in Babi Yar; he made this estimate using documents which were published by the ] which the Soviets set up in order to investigate Nazi crimes after the liberation of Kyiv in 1943.<ref name="Spector" /><ref>Materials of the Nuremberg Trial in Russian: {{lang|ru|Нюрнбергский процесс, т. III. M., 1958. с. 220–221.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Iosif |last=Kremenetsky |url=http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |title="Babi Yar – September 1941" |access-date=16 May 2007 |archive-date=29 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929083508/http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |url-status=dead }} {{Cite web |url=http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |title=Шоа. Информационно-аналитический портал - Бабий Яр - сентябрь 1941 |access-date=16 May 2007 |archive-date=29 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929083508/http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |url-status=dead }} {{in lang|ru}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://nurnbergprozes.narod.ru/011/6.htm |title=Из Сообщения Чрезвычайной Государственной Комиссии о Разрушениях и зверствах, Совершенных Немецко – Фашистскими Захватчиками в Городе Киеве |trans-title=From the Communication of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Destruction and Atrocities Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders in the City of Kyiv |access-date=29 August 2007 |archive-date=6 December 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071206193239/http://nurnbergprozes.narod.ru/011/6.htm |url-status=dead }} Нюрнбергский Процесс. Документ СССР-9. {{in lang|ru}}</ref>

In a recently published letter to the Israeli journalist, writer, and translator Shlomo Even-Shoshan which was dated 17 May 1965, ] commented on the Babi Yar ]:

{{blockquote|In the two years that followed, Ukrainians, Russians, Gypsies and people of all nationalities were murdered in Babi Yar. The belief that Babi Yar is an exclusively Jewish grave is wrong... It is an international grave. Nobody will ever determine how many and what nationalities are buried there, because 90% of the corpses were burned, their ashes were scattered in ravines and fields.<ref name=shapoval>Yury Shapoval, {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090113132258/http://www.day.kiev.ua/130699/ |date=January 13, 2009 }}, ''{{lang|uk|День}}'', 18 January 2005.</ref>}}

==Survivors==
] on the witness stand, 24 January 1946, at a Kyiv war-crimes trial of fifteen members of the German police responsible for the occupied Kyiv region]]

One of the most often-cited parts of ]'s documentary novel ] is the testimony of ], an actress of the ], and a survivor.<ref name="Brandon">{{cite book|author1=Ray Brandon|title=The Shoah in Ukraine: history, testimony, memorialisation|author2=Wendy Lower|publisher=Indiana University Press|year=2008|isbn=978-0-253-35084-8|page=12|author-link2=Wendy Lower}}</ref> She was one of those ordered to march to the ravine, to be forced to undress and then be shot. Jumping before being shot and falling on other bodies, she played dead in a pile of corpses. She held perfectly still while the Nazis continued to shoot the wounded or gasping victims. Although the SS had covered the mass grave with earth, she eventually climbed through the soil and escaped. Since it was dark, she had to avoid the torches of the Nazis finishing off the remaining victims still alive, wounded, and gasping in the grave. She was one of the very few survivors of the massacre and later related her story to Kuznetsov.<ref>" {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080314025912/http://www.pbs.org/wnet/heritage/episode8/documents/documents_13.html|date=2008-03-14}}," ''Heritage: Civilization and the Jews'' (]). Gilbert (1985): 204–205.</ref> At least 29 survivors are known.<ref>{{cite web|title=Рувим Штейн, чудом спасшийся с места казни: "Наверное, я настоящий умер там, в Бабьем Яре" Янина Соколовская (Киев) |trans-title=Reuben Stein, who miraculously escaped from the place of execution: "Probably, I really died there, in Babi Yar" |first=Янина (Yanina) |last=Соколовская (Sokolovskaya) |url=http://www.izvestia.ru/hystory/article3096753/|url-status=live|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080217041238/http://www.izvestia.ru/hystory/article3096753/|archive-date=17 February 2008|access-date=17 February 2008}}</ref>

In 2006, ] and other Jewish organisations started a project to identify and name the Babi Yar victims. However, so far, only 10% have been identified. Yad Vashem has recorded the names of around 3,000 Jews murdered at Babi Yar, as well as those of some 7,000 Jews from ] who were murdered during ].{{cn|date=September 2022}}

==Concealment of the crimes==
Before the Nazis retreated from Kyiv ahead of the Soviet offensive of 1944, they were ordered by ] to conceal their atrocities in the East. ], who had been in control of the mass murders in Babi Yar two years earlier, supervised the ] in eliminating its traces. The ''Aktion'' was carried out earlier in all ]s. The bodies were exhumed, burned and the ashes scattered over farmland in the vicinity.<ref name="YV"> {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151108194719/http://www.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205721.pdf |date=8 November 2015 }} Yad Vashem. Shoa Resource Centre. Retrieved 25 April 2013.</ref> Several hundred prisoners of war from the Syrets concentration camp were forced to build funeral pyres out of Jewish gravestones and exhume the bodies for cremation.<ref>{{cite book|last=Lawrence|first=Bill|title=Six Presidents, Too Many Wars|url=https://archive.org/details/sixpresidentstoo00lawr|url-access=registration|year=1972|publisher=Saturday Review Press|location=New York|page=|isbn=9780841501430}}</ref>

== Trials ==
] at the ], March 1948]]

In the aftermath of the war, several SS commanders who had planned and supervised the massacre were arrested and put on trial. ], the overall commander of the SS unit responsible for the massacre, was sentenced to death by the ] in the ]. He was hanged on 7 June 1951 at ].<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Nuremberg SS-Einsatzgruppen Trial, 1945–1958: Atrocity, Law, and History|last=Earl|first=Hilary Camille|publisher=Cambridge University Press|year=2009|pages=293}}</ref> ] was also indicted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial but his case was discontinued for health reasons, and he died in prison in 1948. ] was convicted of war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in the ], sentenced to death, and hanged on 3 February 1946. ] was arrested by US authorities but committed suicide while in custody in 1947.<ref>{{cite book | url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Mt0mEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Kurt+Eberhard%22+suicide&pg=PT365 | isbn=9781526742278 | title=Myths and Legends of the Eastern Front: Reassessing the Great Patriotic War | date=19 January 2020 | publisher=Pen and Sword }}</ref>

In January 1946, 15 former members of the German police (including ]) were tried in Kyiv over their roles in the massacre and other atrocities. Twelve of them were sentenced to death (Fritz Beckenhof, Karl Burckhardt, Georg Heinisch, Wilhelm Hellerforth, Hans Isenmann, Emil Jogschat, Emil Knoll, Willi Meier, Paul von Scheer, Eckart Hans von Tschammer und Osten, Georg Truckenbrod, and Oskar Walliser). The other three received prison sentences. Those condemned to death were publicly hanged in the town square of Kyiv on 29 January 1946.<ref>Documentary '']'' 2021, director ], {{IMDb title|qid=Q109264697}}.</ref> ], who had been '']'' of Ukraine at the time, was tried and sentenced to death by a Polish court for his atrocities in occupied Poland. However, he was never tried for his crimes in occupied Ukraine. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1986.<ref name="USHMM" />

Two additional perpetrators were given prison sentences at the ].<ref name="USHMM" /> In 1967, 11 men were charged for participating in the massacre in a German court in ]. After a 14 month trial, seven were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging between four and fifteen years.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/7-ex-nazis-including-babi-yar-murderers-sentenced-to-prison-for-1941-killings |title=7 Ex-nazis, Including Babi Yar Murderers, Sentenced to Prison for 1941 Killings |work=www.jta.org |date=3 December 1968 |access-date=1 March 2022}}</ref> In 1971, three more former German police officials were put on trial in ].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.jta.org/archive/three-ex-nazis-charged-with-organizing-massacre-of-jews-at-babi-yar-go-on-trial |title=Three Ex-nazis, Charged with Organizing Massacre of Jews at Babi Yar, Go on Trial |work=www.jta.org |date=7 May 1971 |access-date=1 March 2022}}</ref> The vast majority of the perpetrators were never tried for their roles in the massacre.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.timesofisrael.com/80-years-after-babi-yar-lawyer-seeks-trial-for-last-living-alleged-perpetrator/ |title=80 years after Babi Yar, lawyer seeks trial for last living alleged perpetrator |work=www.timesofisrael.com |access-date=1 March 2022}}</ref>


==Remembrance== ==Remembrance==
{{Main|Babi Yar memorials|Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center}}
]
]

After the war, specifically Jewish and Roma commemoration efforts encountered difficulty because of the Soviet Union's emphasis on secular remembrances honoring all nationalities of the Soviet Union, so memorials (including at Babi Yar) would generally refer to "peaceful victims of fascism." Memorials were not explicitly forbidden, but successive Soviet leaders preferred instead to emphasise the wide-ranging origins of those murdered at the site. This meant that both Jewish and Roma peoples were not specifically memorialised at the Babi Yar site until the Soviet Union collapsed.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Kotljarchuk |first=Andrej |date=2022-04-30 |title=Babi Yar and the Nazi Genocide of Roma: Memory Narratives and Memory Practices in Ukraine |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/DF98FCF821384B0FDCE6A437D70F2ACA/S0090599221000040a.pdf/div-class-title-babi-yar-and-the-nazi-genocide-of-roma-memory-narratives-and-memory-practices-in-ukraine-div.pdf |journal=Nationalities Papers |volume=50 |issue=3 |page= |pages=452-453}}</ref> Indeed, ]'s 1961 poem on Babi Yar begins "Над Бабьим Яром памятников нет/Nad Babim Yarom pamyatnikov nyet" ("Over Babi Yar there are no monuments"); it is also the first line of ]'s ].

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, several memorials were erected on the site and elsewhere. The events also formed a part of literature. Babi Yar is located in ] at the juncture of today's ], ] and ] ], between Kyrylivska, Melnykov, and Olena Teliha streets and ]. After the ], President ] of Ukraine hosted a major commemoration of the 65th anniversary in 2006, attended by Presidents ] of ], ] of ], ] of ] and ] of ] Rabbi ]. Rabbi Lau pointed out that if the world had reacted to the massacre of Babi Yar, perhaps the Holocaust might never have happened. Implying that this impunity emboldened Hitler, Lau speculated:

{{blockquote|Maybe, say, this Babi Yar was also a test for Hitler. If on 29 September and 30 September 1941 Babi Yar may happen and the world did not react seriously, dramatically, abnormally, maybe this was a good test for him. So a few weeks later in January 1942, near Berlin in Wannsee, a convention can be held with a decision, a final solution to the Jewish problem&nbsp;... Maybe if the very action had been a serious one, a dramatic one, in September 1941 here in Ukraine, the ] would have come to a different end, maybe.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.worldholocaustforum.org/eng/past_events/2/speech/meir_lau.php |title=Rabbi Lau's Statement at the International Forum 'Let My People Live!', Kyiv, September 27, 2006; World Holocaust Forum |publisher=Worldholocaustforum.org |access-date=2012-03-07 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130620221724/http://www.worldholocaustforum.org/eng/past_events/2/speech/meir_lau.php |archive-date=June 20, 2013 }}</ref>}}

In 2006, a message was also delivered on behalf of ], Secretary-General of the United Nations,<ref>{{cite web |author= |url=http://www.worldholocaustforum.org/eng/past_events/2/letters/2274/ |title=Message of Kofi Annan, UN Secretary General, delivered by Francis O'Donnell, UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine |publisher=Worldholocaustforum.org |date=27 September 2006 |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120311042451/http://www.worldholocaustforum.org/eng/past_events/2/letters/2274/ |archive-date=11 March 2012 }} {{Cite web |url=http://www.worldholocaustforum.org/eng/past_events/2/letters/2274/ |title=WORLD HOLOCAUST FORUM &#124; Past Events &#124; International Forum 'Let My People Live!', September 27, 2006 &#124; Message of the UN Secretary-General delivered by Mr. Francis O'Donnell, UN Resident Coordinator in Ukraine |access-date=15 December 2010 |archive-date=11 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120311042451/http://www.worldholocaustforum.org/eng/past_events/2/letters/2274/ |url-status=dead}}</ref> by his representative, ] ], who added a Hebrew prayer {{not a typo|O'seh}} Shalom,<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.un.org.ua/en/information-centre/news/420-2006-09-28 |title=Full text with post-script by O'Donnell |publisher=Un.org.ua |date=27 September 2006 |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120315163636/http://www.un.org.ua/en/information-centre/news/420-2006-09-28 |archive-date=15 March 2012 }} {{Cite web |url=http://www.un.org.ua/en/information-centre/news/420-2006-09-28 |title=The Secretary-General message commemorating the 65th anniversary of the tragedy of Babi Yar - United Nations in Ukraine |access-date=1 December 2010 |archive-date=15 March 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120315163636/http://www.un.org.ua/en/information-centre/news/420-2006-09-28 |url-status=dead }}</ref> from the Mourners' ].

==Mudslide==
{{Main|Kurenivka mudslide}}

In the spring of 1961, Babi Yar was the site of a massive ]. An earthen dam in the ravine was used to hold ] pulp which had been pumped from the local ] factories without sufficient drainage over the course of ten years. The dam collapsed after it was hit by a heavy rainstorm, resulting in a mudslide that swept away the low-lying ] neighborhood and several other areas. The death toll was estimated to be between 1,500 and 2,000 people.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Smoliy|first1=V. A.|last2=Goryak|first2=G. V.|last3=Danilenko|first3=V. M.|title=Куренівська трагедія 13 березня 1961 р. у Києві: причини, обставини, наслідки. Документи і матеріали|date=2012|publisher=Institute of Ukrainian History NAN Ukraine|isbn=978-966-02-6392-5|pages=18|url=https://www.archives.gov.ua/Publicat/Kurenivska_tragediya.php|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170928005649/http://www.archives.gov.ua/Publicat/Kurenivska_tragediya.php|archive-date=28 September 2017|access-date=20 December 2017}}</ref>

==2022 Russian bombing==
{{Main|Russian invasion of Ukraine}}
{{See|Ukrainian cultural heritage during the 2022 Russian invasion}}


On 1 March 2022, during the ] the site was struck by Russian forces while they were trying to destroy the nearby ]. The attack resulted in the death of at least five people.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.jpost.com/international/article-699034|title=Russians attack Babyn Yar Holocaust massacre site in Kyiv|date=1 March 2022|website=]|access-date=1 March 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220301173043/https://www.jpost.com/international/article-699034|archive-date=1 March 2022}}</ref><ref name="Smithsonian 2022">{{cite web | last=Veidlinger| first=Jeffrey | title=What Happened at Babi Yar, the Ukrainian Holocaust Site Reportedly Struck by a Russian Missile? | website=Smithsonian Magazine | date=8 March 2022 | url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/babi-yar-ukraine-massacre-holocaust-180979687/ | access-date=30 September 2022}}</ref><ref name="Wertheimer 2022">{{cite news| last=Wertheimer | first=Tiffany | title=Babyn Yar: Anger as Kyiv's Holocaust memorial is damaged | website=BBC News | date=3 March 2022 | url=https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60588885 | access-date=30 September 2022}}</ref>
When the ] retook the city on ], ] Syretsk Concentration Camp was used as an internment camp for German ] until ]. Subsequently the camp was demolished and in 1950-s and 60-s an apartment complex and a park were constructed adjacent to the site.


==See also==
After the war the Soviet leadership was not keen to commemorate massacres of an ethnic nature and several attempts to build a memorial at Babi Yar were thus overruled. The ravine was dammed and flooded with muddy water from brick quarries in late 1950's in order to fill it with mud settling to the bottom. The dam collapsed after spring rains on March 13, 1961 sending a wall of mud and water to northern parts of Kiev. A large number of people perished with the floodwaters. ] and ] visited the site soon after the flood.
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* '']''
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* ]
* Symphony No. 1 ] by ] (1945)
* ] by ], which includes a setting of ]'s poem ''{{ill|Babi Yar (Yevtushenko poem)|ru|Бабий Яр (поэма)|lt=Babi Yar}}''
* ]
* ]
* ] (landform and Nazi massacre site in Poland]]


==Explanatory notes==
An official memorial for Soviet citizens shot at Babi Yar was finally erected in 1976. A memorial for the Jewish victims was placed at Babi Yar in 1991.
{{Notelist}}


== Citations ==
The massacre of Jews at Babi Yar inspired a ] of the same name written by a Russian poet ] which was set to ] by ] in his ]. ''Babi Yar'' is also the title of a Ukrainian ] portraying the massacre and of ]'s celebrated novel. The massacre was also shown in the TV-] '']''.
{{Reflist|30em}}


== General and cited sources ==
== References ==
*Kuznetsov (Anatoli A.), trans. David Floyd, (1970), ''Babi Yar'', Jonathan Cape Ltd. ISBN 0-671-45135-9 * A. Anatoli (]), trans. David Floyd (1970), '']'', Jonathan Cape Ltd. {{ISBN|0-671-45135-9}}
*"Babi Yar in the mirror of science, or the map of Bermuda Triangle", an article in ] (''the Mirror Weekly''), July 2005, available online and * "Babi Yar in the mirror of science, or the map of Bermuda Triangle", an article in '']'' (''The Mirror Weekly''), July 2005, {{In lang|uk}}
*


==Further reading==
== External links==
* ]
*
* {{section link|Bibliography of Ukrainian history|Holocaust}}
*http://sphygmoma.livejournal.com/1056.html
* To reach this park, take the ] to the Dorohozhychi station http://www.metro.kiev.ua/
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* http://www.lib.ru/PROZA/KUZNECOW_A/babiyar.txt
* http://www.zchor.org/BABIYAR.HTM


==External links==
{{coor title dm|50|28|N|30|27|E|}}
{{commons category|Babi Yar}}
* on the ] website
* on the ] website
* ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060721222347/http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/aa080799.htm |date=21 July 2006 }}) (history1900s.about.com)
*
* (historyplace.com)
* ({{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121230194729/http://www.zchor.org/BABIYAR.HTM |date=30 December 2012 }}) (zchor.org)
* (berdichev.org)
* by Tatyana Yevstafyeva {{in lang|ru}}, 15 August 2002 (a reprint from '']'')


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Latest revision as of 12:08, 26 December 2024

Ravine and massacre site in Kyiv For other uses, see Babi Yar (disambiguation).

Babi Yar
Soviet POWs being used by Germany to cover the mass grave after the massacre, 1 October 1941
Also known asBabyn Yar
LocationKyiv, Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union
50°28′17″N 30°26′56″E / 50.47139°N 30.44889°E / 50.47139; 30.44889
Date29–30 September 1941
Incident typeGenocide, mass murder
PerpetratorsFriedrich Jeckeln, Otto Rasch, Paul Blobel, Kurt Eberhard and others
OrganizationsEinsatzgruppen, Order Police battalions, Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, Sonderkommando 4a, Wehrmacht
CampSyrets concentration camp
Victims
  • 33,771 Jews in initial two-day massacre (29 survived)
  • 100,000–150,000 Jews, Soviet prisoners of war and Romani on later dates
MemorialsOn site and elsewhere
NotesPossibly the largest two-day massacre during the Holocaust. Syrets concentration camp was also located in the area. Massacres occurred at Babi Yar from 29 September 1941 to 6 November 1943, when Soviet forces liberated Kyiv.
Immovable Monument of National Significance of Ukraine
Official nameКомплекс пам'яток на місці масового знищення мирного населення та військовополонених в урочищі Бабин Яр під час гітлерівської окупації
TypeHistory
Reference no.260033-Н

Babi Yar (Russian: Бабий Яр) or Babyn Yar (Ukrainian: Бабин Яр) is a ravine in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by Nazi Germany's forces during its campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, in which some 33,771 Jews were murdered. Other victims of massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists and Romani people. It is estimated that a total of between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.

The decision to murder all the Jews in Kyiv was made by the military governor Generalmajor Kurt Eberhard, the Police Commander for Army Group South, SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, and the Einsatzgruppe C Commander Otto Rasch. Sonderkommando 4a as the sub-unit of Einsatzgruppe C, along with the aid of the SD and Order Police battalions with the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police backed by the Wehrmacht, carried out the orders. Sonderkommando 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site.

The massacre was the largest mass-murder by the Nazi regime during the campaign against the Soviet Union, and it has been called "the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust" to that particular date. It is only surpassed overall by the later October 1941 Odessa massacre of more than 50,000 Jews (committed by German and Romanian troops), and by Aktion Erntefest of November 1943 in occupied Poland with 42,000–43,000 victims.

Historical background

The Babi Yar (Babyn Yar) ravine was first mentioned in historical accounts in 1401, in connection to the sale of it by "baba" (an old woman) who was also the cantiniere in the Dominican Monastery. The word "yar" is Turkic in origin and means "gully" or "ravine". Over several centuries, the site was used for various purposes, including military camps and at least two cemeteries, including an Orthodox Christian cemetery and a Jewish cemetery. The latter was officially closed in 1937.

Massacres of September 1941

See also: Battle of Kiev (1941)

Axis forces, mainly German, occupied Kyiv on 19 September 1941. Between 20 and 28 September, explosives planted by the Soviet secret police (the NKVD) caused extensive damage in the city, and on 24 September an explosion rocked Rear Headquarters Army Group South. Two days later, on 26 September, Maj. Gen. Kurt Eberhard, the military governor, and SS-Obergruppenführer Friedrich Jeckeln, the SS and Police Leader, met at Rear Headquarters Army Group South. There, they decided to exterminate the Jews of Kyiv, claiming that it was retaliation for the explosions. Also present were SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, commander of Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, and his superior, SS-Brigadeführer Dr. Otto Rasch, commander of Einsatzgruppe C. The mass murder was to be carried out by units under the command of Rasch and Blobel, who were ultimately responsible for many atrocities in Soviet Ukraine during the summer and autumn of 1941.

The implementation of the order was entrusted to Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C commanded by Blobel, under the general command of Friedrich Jeckeln. This unit consisted of Sicherheitsdienst (SD) and Sicherheitspolizei (SiPo), the third company of the Special Duties Waffen-SS battalion, and a platoon of the 9th Police Battalion. Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C and Police Battalion 45, commanded by Major Besser, conducted the massacre, supported by members of a Waffen-SS battalion. Contrary to the "myth of the clean Wehrmacht", the Sixth Army under the command of Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau worked together with the SS and SD to plan and execute the mass-murder of the Jews of Kyiv.

On 26 September 1941, the following order was posted:

All Yids of the city of Kiev and its vicinity must appear on Monday, 29 September, by 8 o'clock in the morning at the corner of Mel'nikova and Dokterivskaya streets (near the Viis'kove cemetery). Bring documents, money and valuables, and also warm clothing, linen, etc.

Any Yids who do not follow this order and are found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilians who enter the dwellings left by Yids and appropriate the things in them will be shot.

— Order posted in Kyiv in Russian, Ukrainian, and German on or around 26 September 1941
Notice dated 28 September 1941 in Russian, Ukrainian with German translation ordering all Kyivan Jews to assemble for supposed resettlement

On 29 and 30 September 1941, the Nazis and their collaborators murdered approximately 33,771 Jewish civilians at Babi Yar. The order to murder the Jews of Kyiv was given to Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, consisting of SD and SiPo men, the third company of the Special Duties Waffen-SS battalion, and a platoon of the No. 9 police battalion. These units were reinforced by police battalions Nos. 45 and 303, by units of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, and supported by local collaborators. Sonderkommando 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site.

The commander of the Einsatzkommando reported two days later:

The difficulties resulting from such a large scale action—in particular concerning the seizure—were overcome in Kiev by requesting the Jewish population through wall posters to move. Although only a participation of approximately 5,000 to 6,000 Jews had been expected at first, more than 30,000 Jews arrived who, until the very moment of their execution, still believed in their resettlement, thanks to an extremely clever organization.

According to the testimony of a truck driver named Hofer, victims were ordered to undress and were beaten if they resisted:

I watched what happened when the Jews—men, women and children—arrived. The Ukrainians led them past a number of different places where one after the other they had to give up their luggage, then their coats, shoes and over-garments and also underwear. They also had to leave their valuables in a designated place. There was a special pile for each article of clothing. It all happened very quickly and anyone who hesitated was kicked or pushed by the Ukrainians to keep them moving.

— Michael Berenbaum: "Statement of Truck-Driver Hofer describing the murder of Jews at Babi Yar"

The crowd was large enough that most of the victims could not have known what was happening until it was too late; by the time they heard the machine gun fire, there was no chance to escape. All were driven down a corridor of soldiers, in groups of ten, and then shot. A truck driver described the scene.

Once undressed, they were led into the ravine which was about 150 metres long and 30 metres wide and a good 15 metres deep ... When they reached the bottom of the ravine they were seized by members of the Schutzpolizei and made to lie down on top of Jews who had already been shot ... The corpses were literally in layers. A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a submachine gun ... I saw these marksmen stand on layers of corpses and shoot one after the other ... The marksman would walk across the bodies of the executed Jews to the next Jew, who had meanwhile lain down, and shoot him.

In the evening, the Germans undermined the wall of the ravine and buried the people under the thick layers of earth. According to the Einsatzgruppe's Operational Situation Report, 33,771 Jews from Kyiv and its suburbs were systematically shot dead by machine-gun fire at Babi Yar on 29 and 30 September 1941. The money, valuables, underwear, and clothing of the murdered were turned over to the local ethnic Germans and to the Nazi administration of the city. Wounded victims were buried alive in the ravine along with the rest of the bodies.

Further massacres

Luftwaffe aerial photograph of Babi Yar, 1943

In the months that followed, thousands more were seized and taken to Babi Yar where they were shot. It is estimated that more than 100,000 residents of Kyiv of all ethnic groups, mostly civilians, were murdered by the Nazis there during World War II. The Syrets concentration camp was also built in the area, which was notorious for its cruelty and execution of three Dynamo Kyiv football players who played in the Match of Death.

Mass executions at Babi Yar continued until the Nazis evacuated the city of Kyiv. On 10 January 1942 about 100 captured Soviet sailors were executed there after being forced to disinter and cremate the bodies of previous victims. In addition, Babi Yar became a place of execution of residents of five Gypsy camps. Patients of the Ivan Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital were gassed and then dumped into the ravine. Thousands of other Ukrainians were murdered at Babi Yar. Ukrainian poet and activist Olena Teliha and her husband, and renowned bandurist Mykhailo Teliha, were murdered there on 21 February 1942. Also murdered in 1941 were Ukrainian activist writer Ivan Rohach, his sister, and his staff.

Upon the Soviet liberation of Kyiv in 1943, Soviet officials led Western journalists to the site of the massacres and allowed them to interview survivors. Among the journalists were Bill Lawrence of The New York Times and Bill Downs of CBS. Downs described in a report to Newsweek what he had been told by one of the survivors, Efim Vilkis:

A barbed wire fence of the Syrets concentration camp

However, even more incredible was the action taken by the Nazis between August 19 and September 28 last. Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 Russian war prisoners, who were taken to the ravines. On August 19 these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar [sic] to form the foundation of a huge funeral pyre. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi machine guns.

Number of people who were murdered

Estimates of the total number of people who were murdered at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation vary. At the Nuremberg trials in 1946, Soviet prosecutor Lev Smirnov claimed that approximately 100,000 corpses were lying in Babi Yar; he made this estimate using documents which were published by the Extraordinary State Commission which the Soviets set up in order to investigate Nazi crimes after the liberation of Kyiv in 1943.

In a recently published letter to the Israeli journalist, writer, and translator Shlomo Even-Shoshan which was dated 17 May 1965, Anatoly Kuznetsov commented on the Babi Yar atrocity:

In the two years that followed, Ukrainians, Russians, Gypsies and people of all nationalities were murdered in Babi Yar. The belief that Babi Yar is an exclusively Jewish grave is wrong... It is an international grave. Nobody will ever determine how many and what nationalities are buried there, because 90% of the corpses were burned, their ashes were scattered in ravines and fields.

Survivors

Dina Pronicheva on the witness stand, 24 January 1946, at a Kyiv war-crimes trial of fifteen members of the German police responsible for the occupied Kyiv region

One of the most often-cited parts of Anatoly Kuznetsov's documentary novel Babi Yar is the testimony of Dina Pronicheva, an actress of the Kyiv Puppet Theatre, and a survivor. She was one of those ordered to march to the ravine, to be forced to undress and then be shot. Jumping before being shot and falling on other bodies, she played dead in a pile of corpses. She held perfectly still while the Nazis continued to shoot the wounded or gasping victims. Although the SS had covered the mass grave with earth, she eventually climbed through the soil and escaped. Since it was dark, she had to avoid the torches of the Nazis finishing off the remaining victims still alive, wounded, and gasping in the grave. She was one of the very few survivors of the massacre and later related her story to Kuznetsov. At least 29 survivors are known.

In 2006, Yad Vashem and other Jewish organisations started a project to identify and name the Babi Yar victims. However, so far, only 10% have been identified. Yad Vashem has recorded the names of around 3,000 Jews murdered at Babi Yar, as well as those of some 7,000 Jews from Kyiv who were murdered during the Holocaust.

Concealment of the crimes

Before the Nazis retreated from Kyiv ahead of the Soviet offensive of 1944, they were ordered by Wilhelm Koppe to conceal their atrocities in the East. Paul Blobel, who had been in control of the mass murders in Babi Yar two years earlier, supervised the Sonderaktion 1005 in eliminating its traces. The Aktion was carried out earlier in all extermination camps. The bodies were exhumed, burned and the ashes scattered over farmland in the vicinity. Several hundred prisoners of war from the Syrets concentration camp were forced to build funeral pyres out of Jewish gravestones and exhume the bodies for cremation.

Trials

Paul Blobel at the subsequent Nuremberg trials, March 1948

In the aftermath of the war, several SS commanders who had planned and supervised the massacre were arrested and put on trial. Paul Blobel, the overall commander of the SS unit responsible for the massacre, was sentenced to death by the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He was hanged on 7 June 1951 at Landsberg Prison. Otto Rasch was also indicted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial but his case was discontinued for health reasons, and he died in prison in 1948. Friedrich Jeckeln was convicted of war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in the Riga Trial, sentenced to death, and hanged on 3 February 1946. Kurt Eberhard was arrested by US authorities but committed suicide while in custody in 1947.

In January 1946, 15 former members of the German police (including Paul Scheer) were tried in Kyiv over their roles in the massacre and other atrocities. Twelve of them were sentenced to death (Fritz Beckenhof, Karl Burckhardt, Georg Heinisch, Wilhelm Hellerforth, Hans Isenmann, Emil Jogschat, Emil Knoll, Willi Meier, Paul von Scheer, Eckart Hans von Tschammer und Osten, Georg Truckenbrod, and Oskar Walliser). The other three received prison sentences. Those condemned to death were publicly hanged in the town square of Kyiv on 29 January 1946. Erich Koch, who had been Reichskommissar of Ukraine at the time, was tried and sentenced to death by a Polish court for his atrocities in occupied Poland. However, he was never tried for his crimes in occupied Ukraine. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1986.

Two additional perpetrators were given prison sentences at the Nuremberg Trials. In 1967, 11 men were charged for participating in the massacre in a German court in Darmstadt. After a 14 month trial, seven were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging between four and fifteen years. In 1971, three more former German police officials were put on trial in Regensburg. The vast majority of the perpetrators were never tried for their roles in the massacre.

Remembrance

Main articles: Babi Yar memorials and Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center
Ukrainian postage stamp, released on the 70th anniversary of the massacre in Babi Yar
The ravine in 2003

After the war, specifically Jewish and Roma commemoration efforts encountered difficulty because of the Soviet Union's emphasis on secular remembrances honoring all nationalities of the Soviet Union, so memorials (including at Babi Yar) would generally refer to "peaceful victims of fascism." Memorials were not explicitly forbidden, but successive Soviet leaders preferred instead to emphasise the wide-ranging origins of those murdered at the site. This meant that both Jewish and Roma peoples were not specifically memorialised at the Babi Yar site until the Soviet Union collapsed. Indeed, Yevgeny Yevtushenko's 1961 poem on Babi Yar begins "Над Бабьим Яром памятников нет/Nad Babim Yarom pamyatnikov nyet" ("Over Babi Yar there are no monuments"); it is also the first line of Shostakovich's Symphony No. 13.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, several memorials were erected on the site and elsewhere. The events also formed a part of literature. Babi Yar is located in Kyiv at the juncture of today's Kurenivka, Lukianivka and Syrets districts, between Kyrylivska, Melnykov, and Olena Teliha streets and St. Cyril's Monastery. After the Orange Revolution, President Viktor Yushchenko of Ukraine hosted a major commemoration of the 65th anniversary in 2006, attended by Presidents Moshe Katsav of Israel, Filip Vujanović of Montenegro, Stjepan Mesić of Croatia and Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau. Rabbi Lau pointed out that if the world had reacted to the massacre of Babi Yar, perhaps the Holocaust might never have happened. Implying that this impunity emboldened Hitler, Lau speculated:

Maybe, say, this Babi Yar was also a test for Hitler. If on 29 September and 30 September 1941 Babi Yar may happen and the world did not react seriously, dramatically, abnormally, maybe this was a good test for him. So a few weeks later in January 1942, near Berlin in Wannsee, a convention can be held with a decision, a final solution to the Jewish problem ... Maybe if the very action had been a serious one, a dramatic one, in September 1941 here in Ukraine, the Wannsee Conference would have come to a different end, maybe.

In 2006, a message was also delivered on behalf of Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, by his representative, Resident Coordinator Francis Martin O'Donnell, who added a Hebrew prayer O'seh Shalom, from the Mourners' Kaddish.

Mudslide

Main article: Kurenivka mudslide

In the spring of 1961, Babi Yar was the site of a massive mudslide. An earthen dam in the ravine was used to hold loam pulp which had been pumped from the local brick factories without sufficient drainage over the course of ten years. The dam collapsed after it was hit by a heavy rainstorm, resulting in a mudslide that swept away the low-lying Kurenivka neighborhood and several other areas. The death toll was estimated to be between 1,500 and 2,000 people.

2022 Russian bombing

Main article: Russian invasion of Ukraine Further information: Ukrainian cultural heritage during the 2022 Russian invasion

On 1 March 2022, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine the site was struck by Russian forces while they were trying to destroy the nearby Kyiv TV Tower. The attack resulted in the death of at least five people.

See also

Explanatory notes

  1. The order was posted in German, Ukrainian, and in the largest letters, Russian. In only the Russian version is the defamatory word "zhid" (жид) used for Jews. The respectful Russian word is "yevrey" (еврей). The word "zhyd" (жид) in Ukrainian was at the time not defamatory at all, as noted by Nikita Khrushchev in his memoirs: "I remember that once we invited Ukrainians, Jews and Poles ... to a meeting at the Lvov opera house. It struck me as very strange to hear the Jewish speakers at the meeting refer to themselves as 'yids.' 'We yids hereby declare ourselves in favour of such-and-such.' Out in the lobby after the meeting I stopped some of these men and demanded, 'How dare you use the word "yid?" Don't you know it's a very offensive term, an insult to the Jewish nation?' 'Here in the Western Ukraine it's just the opposite,' they explained. 'We call ourselves yids' ... Apparently what they said was true. If you go back to Ukrainian literature ... you'll see that 'yid' isn't used derisively or insultingly."
  2. ^ While the witness referred to "he Ukrainians" there has only been one documented Ukrainian speaker at Babi Yar, and that was Second Lieutenant Joseph Muller, an ethnic German from Galicia. Thus, it is more accurate to describe these people as "Ukrainian speakers". A German policeman who guarded Babi Yar testified in 1965 that "the Jews were guarded by Wehrmacht units and by a Hamburg Police Battalion, which, as far as I can remember, carried the number 303."

Citations

  1. Hoffman, Avi (23 October 2011). "A Museum for Babi Yar". The Jerusalem Post. Archived from the original on 26 June 2013.
  2. "Zionism and Israel – Encyclopedic Dictionary: Babi Yar". Archived from the original on 27 December 2014. Retrieved 26 December 2014.
  3. ^ Ludmyla Yurchenko, "Life is not to be sold for a few pieces of silver: The life of Olena Teliha Archived 2007-08-14 at the Wayback Machine", Ukrainian Youth Association.
  4. Magocsi, Paul Robert (1996). A History of Ukraine. University of Toronto Press. p. 633. ISBN 978-0-8020-7820-9.
  5. Karel C. Berkhoff (2008). Babi Yar Massacre. The Shoah in Ukraine: History, Testimony, Memorialization. Indiana University Press. p. 303. ISBN 978-0253001597. Retrieved 23 February 2013.
  6. "Holocaust in Kiev and the Tragedy of Babi Yar | www.yadvashem.org". historical-background3.html. Archived from the original on 4 August 2019. Retrieved 1 August 2019.
  7. ^ Wette, Wolfram (2005). Die Wehrmacht: Feindbilder, Vernichtungskrieg, Legenden (in German) (revised ed.). Frankfurt am Main: Fischer-Taschenbuch-Verlag. pp. 115–128. ISBN 3596156459.
  8. ^ "Military Tribunal Volume IV "The Einsatzgruppen Case"" (PDF). Library of Congress.
  9. ^ Kruglov, Aleksandr Iosifovič (2011). Круглов А. Трагедия Бабьего Яра в немецких документах. Днепропетровск: Центр «Ткума»; ЧП «Лира ЛТД», 2011. – 140 с. [Kruglov A. The tragedy of Babi Yar in German documents. – Dnepropetrovsk: Center "Tkuma"; PE "Lira LTD", 2011. 140 p.] (PDF). Ткума. ISBN 978-966-383-346-0.
  10. ^ "Трагедія Бабиного Яру крізь призму архівних документів Служби безпеки України / Т.О. Євстаф'єва // Архіви України. 2011. № 5. С. 137–158. Бібліогр.: 76 назв. укр" [The tragedy of Babyn Yar through the prism of archival documents of the Security Service of Ukraine / Т.О. Evstafieva // Archives of Ukraine. 2011. № 5. 137–158. Bibliography: 76 titles. ukr.] (PDF).
  11. ^ "Бабин Яр: масове убивство і пам′ять про нього. Матеріали міжнародної наукової конференції 24–25 жовтня 2011 р., м. Київ / В. Нахманович, А. Подольський, М. Тяглий. Український центр вивчення історії Голокосту; Громадський комітет для вшанування пам'яті жертв Бабиного Яру. – К., 2012. – 256 с." [Babyn Yar: mass murder and memory. Proceedings of the International Scientific Conference October 24–25, 2011, Kyiv / V. Nakhmanovych, A. Podolsky, M. Tyagly. Ukrainian Center for Holocaust History Studies; Public Committee to Commemorate the Victims of Babyn Yar. K., 2012. 256 p.] (PDF).
  12. Wolfram Wette (2006). The Wehrmacht: History, Myth, Reality. Harvard University Press. p. 112. ISBN 9780674022133.
  13. Lower, Wendy (2007). "From Berlin to Babi Yar. The Nazi War Against the Jews, 1941–1944" (PDF). Journal of Religion & Society. 9. The Kripke Center, Towson University. hdl:10504/64569. ISSN 1522-5658. Archived from the original (PDF) on 5 March 2009. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  14. Browning, Christopher R. (1992–1998). "Arrival in Poland" (PDF file, direct download 7.91 MB complete). Ordinary Men: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the Final Solution in Poland. Penguin Books. pp. 135–142. Archived (PDF) from the original on 19 October 2013. Retrieved 24 May 2013.
  15. Anatoliy Kudrytsky, editor-in-chief, "Vulytsi Kyeva" (The Streets of Kyiv), Ukrainska Entsyklopediya, ISBN 5-88500-070-0
  16. "Remembering the Kyiv Inferno, 1941". Kyiv Post. 25 September 2016.
  17. "1941: Mass Murder". Archived from the original on 29 October 2013. The Holocaust Chronicle. p. 270
  18. Khrushchev, Nikita (1971). Khrushchev Remembers. New York: Bantam Books. p. 145.
  19. ^ Berenbaum, Michael. The World Must Know, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, this edition 2006, pp. 97–98.
  20. ^ "Kiev and Babi Yar". Holocaust Encyclopedia. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on 3 January 2007.
  21. Prusin, Alexander V. (Spring 2007). "A Community of Violence: The SiPo/SD and Its Role in the Nazi Terror System in Generalbezirk Kiew". Holocaust and Genocide Studies. 21: 1–30. doi:10.1093/hgs/dcm001. ISSN 1476-7937. S2CID 146390847.
  22. "The Holocaust Chronicle: Massacre at Babi Yar". The Holocaust Chronicle. Archived from the original (web site) on 29 October 2013. Retrieved 17 December 2007.
  23. Khiterer, Victoria (2004). "Babi Yar: The tragedy of Kiev's Jews" (PDF). Brandeis Graduate Journal. 2: 1–16. Archived (PDF) from the original on 28 November 2007. Retrieved 20 January 2008.
  24. Gutman, Israel (1990). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. Vol. 1. Macmillan. pp. 133–136.
  25. ^ Gilbert, Martin (1985). The Holocaust: A History of the Jews of Europe During the Second World War. Holt, Rinehart and Winston. p. 202. ISBN 0-03-062416-9.
  26. Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Einsatzgruppen trial, Judgment, at page 426, quoting exhibit NO-3157.
  27. "The dark secrets of Babi Yar". Kyiv Post. 2 October 1998. Archived from the original on 18 February 2015. Retrieved 14 March 2018.
  28. Longerich, Peter, ed. (1989). Die Ermordung der europäischen Juden: Eine umfassende Dokumentation der Holocaust 1941–1945 (in German). Munich and Zurich: Piper. p. 123. ISBN 9783492110600. OCLC 1198514341.
  29. "Statement of Truck-Driver Hofer describing the murder of Jews at Babi Yar". Archived from the original on 6 June 2007. Retrieved 9 January 2006. Cited in Berenbaum, Michael (1997). Witness to the Holocaust. New York: HarperCollins. pp. 138–139.
  30. Operational Situation Report No. 101 Archived 7 December 2006 at the Wayback Machine (einsatzgruppenarchives.com)
  31. Nuremberg Military Tribunal, Einsatzgruppen trial, Judgment, at p. 430.
  32. Lawrence, Bill (1972). Six Presidents, Too Many Wars. New York: Saturday Review Press. p. 93. ISBN 9780841501430.
  33. Barkat, Amiram; et al. (September 2006). "Yad Vashem tries to name Babi Yar victims, but only 10% identified". Haaretz. Archived from the original on 23 May 2011. Retrieved 3 August 2010.
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