On the 19th September 1941 the German army, in the the form of SS Einzatzguppen soldiers, marched into the Ukrainian city of Kiev. They were welcomed as an army of liberation. For many Ukrainian nationalists this was true. For Jews, gypsies, psychiatric patients, prisoners of war and thousands of civilians it was not.
Over the next week several explosions occurred. The bombs were thought to have been planted by Russian NKVD agents, who had remained behind, after the soviet army had fled the city in the wake of the German advance.The German High Command decided that reprisals would be taken. On the 28th September a notice was posted throughout the town.
All Jews living in the city of Kiev and its vicinity are to report by 8 o'clock on the morning of Monday, September 29th, 1941, at 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.
On the morning of the 29th, thousands assembled with their belongings. Most thought they were going to be put aboard a train and deported. They waited for hours as they shuffled forward. Mothers tried to comfort crying children and swaddled babies as they waited.
As they reached the gates of the cemetery they were told to leave their belongings, before being marched on. Up ahead could be heard the sound of machine gun fire.When they reached the head of the line they were counted out, by the German soldiers, in groups of ten, and pushed and marched in-between a column of more soldiers.Many became aware of what was happening, so attempted escape, but were met by brutal blows from sticks, whips, knuckledusters, clubs and batons, wielded by the soldiers, who it was said laughed and joked as if it was a game.
As the men, women and children were pushed through the corridor of soldiers more brutal blows were reined down upon them. Anybody who hesitated were sadistically beaten. Crying, frightened children were kicked and beaten. Babies were ripped from the arms of their screaming mothers, thrown to the ground and kicked and beaten to death.
When they eventually exited the column they were ordered to undress. Anybody who hesitated had their clothes ripped off them or they would be summarily executed.. They were then marched across a grassed area, in groups of ten, to the edge of a ravine. The ravine was known as Babi Yar.
They were made to stand at the ravines edge. A survivor of the massacre said that he remembers looking down on a mass of writhing bloodied bodies below.
Then they were machine gunned or shot with rifles or revolvers. They fell or were kicked into the ravine below.
On the 29th and 30th September 1941, Einsatzgruppen reports record that 33,771 men, women and children were murdered at Babi Yar, of which the majority were Jewish. Many were not fatally shot and either suffocated or were finished off by German soldiers
But the killing did not stop there. Next the gypsies were rounded up, followed by the Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital being emptied of patients, who were subsequently gassed in mobile units and then dumped into the ravine.Thousands of civilians became the next victims.Mass shootings, in retaliation for minor misdemeanor's, were undertaken. Nazi collaborators, many from the local police force, and Ukrainian nationalists carried out summary executions, often raping women before killing them.
During the Nazi occupation of Kiev over 100,000 men, women and children were murdered and buried in mass graves.
(Included in this number are Jews that were murdered by Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN), and other Nazi collaborators during the 1941 Kiev pogroms).
A picture paints a thousand words.
Naked women wait at the ravine. Some cradling children.
Mother and child being executed by German soldier.
German soldiers killing the wounded.
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Jewish civilians being marched towards Babi Yar.
Open Grave at Babi Yar
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Naked victims waiting to be executed. A young child stands in the middle of the line.
Although I believe I have not infringed copywrite by reproducing these photographs (if I have I will happily remove them immediately), I felt it was important to include them as they are a stark representation of the evil that men do, and demonstrates mankind's base inhumanity. These atrocities may have been committed over 70 yrs ago, but in light of events currently occurring in eastern Europe, it is easy to appreciate that to cross over into evil is a very small step indeed.
Some say that Babi Yar was a test and that if world leaders did not react seriously to this atrocity Adolf Hitler would be emboldened.
The leaders of the world did not react.
In January 1942, a meeting was held in Wannsee, near Berlin.
The topic that was discussed: The Final Solution.
"Those who do not know history are doomed to repeat it."
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