From one of the biggest mass murders – Denník N

It has been 80 years since one of the greatest mass murders of the Jewish population in Holocaust history. On September 29, 1941, the Nazis murdered nearly 34,000 people in the Babyn Jar gorge outside Kiev, and there was silence for many years.

Three months after the invasion of the Soviet Union, German troops occupied Kiev on September 19, 1941.

Along with Wehrmacht soldiers, members of special Nazi units, the so-called Einsatzgruppen, whose task was to “cleanse” the occupied territories of Jews, Roma, prisoners of war or politically undesirable inhabitants. These units, together with members of the SS, carried out systematic persecutions and murders of the mentioned groups of the population.

In the morning hours of September 29, 1941, shortly before the Jewish holiday of Yom Kippur, thousands of Jews walked to a predetermined place, as reported by posters that Einsatzgruppen had pasted a few days after the occupation of Kiev. Posters called on Jews to bring personal documents, valuables, or warm clothes.

Approximately 150,000 Jews lived in the Ukrainian capital before the German occupation. Many of them escaped or joined the Red Army before the arrival of the Germans. Most of those who remained thought they were awaiting deportation. Until the last moment, they had no idea that only a cruel death awaited them.

They understood that it was their physical liquidation when they arrived at a gorge called Babyn Jar. After arriving at the 150-meter-long, 30-meter-wide, and about 15-meter-deep gorge, the Nazis called on the Jews to strip naked, hand over valuables and money. Then, in a constant beating, they drove them to the edge of the gorge, where they were gradually shot.

According to German records at the time, 33,771 people were shot dead during September 29 and 30, including children, women and the elderly.

The Bab Spring Spring massacre has become a major turning point in Holocaust history. For the first time, German troops carried out such a brutal mass murder and to such an extent. Little information was leaked about the massacre at that time, as the world was more interested in the Germans’ military advance on Moscow at the time. This later encouraged the Nazis to continue the systematic murder of Jews in gas chambers.

The occupation of Kiev lasted more than 100 weeks, during which the Nazis murdered others in Babo Jar, an estimated more than 100,000 people, including Jews, Roma, Ukrainians and Russians. (tasr)