The massacre in the Ukrainian gorge shocks with its brutality: More than 33,000 dead, people have turned gray from fear – Topky.sk

Similar massacres took place in other parts of the former Soviet Union, but the one in Babyn Spring was exceptional in its size, speed and brutality. About 150,000 Jews lived in Kiev at that time. Some of them were saved by evacuation to the east or joining the Red Army, some of which were hidden by Ukrainian neighbors. Ten days after the arrival of the Nazis, a decree appeared throughout the city in Russian, Ukrainian and German: “All Jews of the city of Kiev and its surroundings are obliged to arrive on Monday, September 29, 1941, at eight o’clock in the morning on the corner of Melnykova and Dokterivska streets (near the cemetery). They will take their documents, money and valuables, warm clothes and underwear with them. Anyone who disobeys this order and is caught elsewhere will be shot. Anyone who breaks into empty Jewish apartments with the intention of stealing will be shot. ” Some believed rumors that it was just a call for deportation.

On Sept. 29-30, 1941, Nazi Germany perpetrated single largest massacre of Jews since WW2 began.

33,771 Ukrainian Jews were killed in #BabiYar.

Nazis were aided by local collaborators.

After war, USSR refused to allow memorial to Jewish victims.

We must never, ever, forget. pic.twitter.com/Wp5YMb8lsh

– David Harris (@DavidHarrisAJC) September 29, 2019

The site of the terrible event was the 150-meter-long, 30-meter-wide and 15-meter-deep Babyna Gorge, which was located near the Orthodox and Jewish cemeteries. In addition to the Einsatzgruppen, units of the police battalion and the Ukrainian militia also took part in the event. People who came there were invited to undress and hand over valuables. Then, in a constant beating, they were pushed to the edge of the gorge, where they were shot. Their limp bodies fell straight into the gorge. Others were forced to lie on their bodies and the Nazis shot them in the back of their necks one by one. According to German records, more than 30,000 people were shot dead in the gorge in two days.

People turned gray in fear

Only a few people managed to survive the massacre. “People turned gray for a few seconds, mothers lost their minds when the Nazis snatched their children from their arms and threw them over an embankment of sand. They lined up naked people in crowds of two or three and led them behind a dike. described the horrors of the time by Kiev actress Dina Pronicheva, one of the few eyewitnesses to the massacre who survived. The plane was constantly circling over the whole area for both days, so that the noise of the engines drowned out the shooting. Most people in Kiev initially thought that the Jews had been deported. Some murderers allegedly had psychological problems mainly due to the killing of women, the elderly and children. However, part of the command rather criticized the unnecessary loss of ammunition during this type of execution, and these considerations eventually led to the formation of gas chambers.

The massacre was organized by Nazi commanders

Executions continued in the gorge even later. In addition to Jews, the victims were mainly Soviet soldiers, Roma, psychiatric patients and Ukrainians. A death camp was set up near Babyn Jar, in the Syrec district of Kiev, where surviving prisoners after the war claimed that the Nazis had burned 150,000 to 180,000 bodies dug out of the gorge when they tried to ignore their crime when they left Kiev in 193. The main organizers of the massacre, Nazi commanders Kurt Eberhard, Friedrich Jeckeln, Otto Rasch and Paul Blobel, ended up in court after the war. Eberhard committed suicide in 1947, Jeckeln was executed in 1946, Rasch died in prison in 1948, and Blobel was executed in 1951.

After the war, the Soviet leadership refused to acknowledge the Jewish character of the massacre, and it was not until the 1970s that a memorial to the victims was erected at the site of the tragedy, dedicated to “Soviet people, prisoners, and Soviet soldiers.” It was not until 1991 that a dignified monument was erected on the site. Last year, the director of the memorial commemorating the victims of the massacre, Max Jakover, announced that a synagogue would be built on the site.