The Babi Yar Atrocity of 1941 was Finally Commemorated Today with a Monument in Kiev.  

The Babi Yar Massacre: Extermination of the Kiev Jewish Community by Occupying Nazis and Ukrainian Collaborators

 Article by Michael Streich from January 2010

By the end of 1943 Nazi atrocities were being reported with greater frequency and accuracy. On November 29, 1943 New York Times journalist W. H. Lawrence disclosed one of the worst atrocities and possibly the largest mass killing perpetrated by SS mobile killing units. His story detailed the massacres at Babi Yar, a ravine northwest of Kiev that began in September 1941 when over 30,000 Jews were machine-gunned and buried. Later executions of the Roma, political prisoners, and communists raised the toll to between 80-100,000 people. Immortalized in a haunting poem by Russian writer Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Babi Yar must never be forgotten.

 The Truth Reaches the West

 Newsweek reporter Bill Downs may have been one of the first western journalists to be taken to Babi Yar after Soviet forces drove out the Germans. In a December 6, 1943 story, he recounted what he saw and gave his readers the historical background of the atrocity. It began in September 1941 when Nazi officials ordered all of Kiev’s Jews to Lukyanouka. Most of Kiev’s Jews had already fled. Those left behind were women, children, the elderly, and the sick.

 The Jews expected to be transported to another location. But at Lukyanouka their suitcases and possessions were taken and they were ordered to undress. Marched in small groups between corridors of SS soldiers, they were led to the ravine and shot. The killings were carried out by Einsatzgruppe C, one of several so-called mobile killing units operating on the Eastern Front. Although the mass killings were, according to Nazi officials, revenge for earlier anti-German partisan acts of violence, the atrocity corresponded to what historian Arno J. Mayer calls the “radicalization of the war against the Jews.”

 The Attempt to Hide the Truth

 Sources differ as to the exact numbers of people murdered at Babi Yar between 1941 and 1943. They may be as high as 100,000 people. This included tens of thousands of Roma, members of Gypsy communities. As the Germans were put on the defensive following the battle of Stalingrad and began to retreat, they attempted to obliterate all evidence of their atrocities.

 At Babi Yar, Russian prisoners of war were used to “disinter all the bodies in the ravine” (Bill Downs, Newsweek). The remains were burned atop headstones removed from a nearby Jewish cemetery that had been arranged as a marble stage for the pyre. The ashes were then taken and scattered in fields near the ravine. Reporter Bill Downs, however, relates that he saw, “bits of hair, bones, and a crushed skull with bits of flesh and hair still attached.” According to Downs, the Nazi efforts to hide their war crimes pointed to their fears of “the possibility of defeat.”

 Never Forget! Remembering Babi Yar

 In 1961 Yevgeny Yevtushenko penned Babi Yar. Although not Jewish himself, he decried the anti-Semites and “pogrom bullies.” Of Babi Yar he wrote: “And I myself am one massive, soundless scream above the thousand buried here. I am each old man here shot dead. I am every child here shot dead. Nothing in me shall ever forget.”

 His poem is both the monument that, in 1961, did not exist as well as the exposure of a lie. While the Nazi SS murdered tens of thousands, they had assistance from local Ukrainians he identifies as anti-Semites. There is also the pervasive silence of others – neighbors and friends that shuttered their windows when the Jews were being led away. The poem was Russian and in his final stanza, Yevtushenko identifies himself as such but links that identification to solidarity with the Russian Jews. Remembering the victims of Babi Yar is a universalization of peoples everywhere in a common cause.

 Sources:

 Robert H. Abzug, America Views the Holocaust 1933-1945: A Brief Documentary History (Boston: Bedford/St. Martins, 1999)

Bill Downs, “Blood at Babii Yar – Kiev’s Atrocity Story,” Newsweek, December 6, 1943, p. 22

W. H. Lawrence, “50,000 Kiev Jews Reported Killed,” New York Times, November 29, 1943, page 3

Arno J. Mayer, Why Did the Heavens Not Darken?: The “Final Solution” in History (New York: Pantheon Books, 1988)

Yevgeny Yevtushenko, Babi Yar

(Copyright of this article is owned by Michael Streich; any reprints in any format require written permission from the author)