Babiy Yar: 75 years of unalleviated pain

We have been killed at Babiy Yar. Thousands and tens of thousands. For 75 years we remember this, our pain does not alleviate.

 

The ravine in the old Kiev between Lukyanovka and Syrets got sad, though worldwide “fame” as the site of massacres during the Nazi occupation. Here were killed Gypsies, prisoners of war, Ukrainians and Russians, but we were killed foremost, and in the most horrendous quantities.

 

A bit of history. In the Middle Ages at this tract was the tavern. It was owned by "Baba"; in the old Ukrainian this word meant the mistress of a pub. In 1401 she gave this land to the monastery. Then, until the XVIII century, the tract was called by the people "Crazy Baba" or "Devil’s Baba". That name which mystical meaning became clear only in the mid-twentieth century.

 

On September 19th, 1941 the Germans occupied Kiev. In late September, the occupation authorities arrested nine chief rabbis of Kiev and ordered them to announce to the community: "After sanitation, all Jews and their children, as an elite nation will be sent to a safe place..." On September 28th the entire city was sealed up with ads saying that on September 29th all the Jews should gather by 8 o'clock at the corner of Melnikova and Dokterivsky streets, with documents and valuable things.

At this time all Kiev groundskeepers were ordered to mislead the population about the intention of the occupation authorities saying that the aim is to conduct a census with later resettlement of Jews. At the appointed place the Germans set up a checkpoint and clerical office. People were passed in groups by 30-40 people, their personal belongings were taken away, people were ordered to undress, and then they were trot off their legs by sticks to the edge of the ravine 20-25 meters deep where they were shot.

 

To muffle the shots and not to create panic among those Jews awaiting their fate, the Germans put the music on and started a plane to the sky, which circled over the ravine, seeing the martyrs’ final journey. After filling the moat with 2-3 layers of bodies, they were covered with soil. For the whole day, the Nazis did not manage to shoot all Jews who arrived at the place of execution, so the rest were placed for a time in military garages.

On September 29-30, the Germans, under the command of standartenfuhrer Paul Blobel, with the participation of the Kiev battalion of the Ukrainian auxiliary police under the command of P. Zakhvalinsky killed 33 771 people at Babiy Yar. Mass killings continued until the departure of the Nazis from the city.

 

The witnesses of this terrible crime testified that the German Nazis have taken babies from mothers, begging not to kill their children, and threw them alive into the ravine. The youngest victim of the tragedy was three days old: the child was born on 26th of September, and on 29th of September it shared the tragic fate of its parents. The oldest victim, resting on the bottom of the cliff, was 103 years old.

 

At Babiy Yar also were killed 100 sailors of the Dnieper squad of Pinsk flotilla, executed in 1942, 621 members of the OUN, among which were the Ukrainian poetess Elena Teliga and her husband, and five Gypsy camping grounds.

 

After the war the Soviet authorities strongly suppressed a Jewish tragedy of Babiy Yar: in 1950 by the decision of the city government the tract was filled with liquid waste from the nearby brick factories. A ravine was blocked by earthen rampart to prevent flooding of residential areas. The characteristics of shaft and the throughput of the drainage did not meet even minimum safety standards.

 

On the morning of Monday, March 13th, 1961, due to heavy melting of snow, the shaft did not resist the water pressure, and the resulting debris flow height up to 14 meters flossed Kurenevka. Goo flooded an area of over 30 hectares, destroyed more than 30 buildings and the tram depot named after Krasin. This event is called Kurenevska tragedy, which scope had been also suppressed for many years.

 

The famous poem of Yevtushenko of 1961, which linked Babiy Yar and the Holocaust and translated into most languages of the world, have forced the government to abandon the construction of houses on the site of the shooting and to put a monument in rusty-propagandist aesthetics of Soviet monumentalism. It says nothing about the Jewish aspect of the tragedy, of course – not a word.

 

Today, 75 years after the tragedy, in the tract were set about three dozen of different monuments, including a Jewish menorah. Memorial date of the tragedy is celebrated at the highest governmental level with participation of presidents of Ukraine and Israel.

ICF "Jewish Hesed "Bnei Azriel" invites its wards to commemorate the victims of Babi Yar at our memorial events.

 

On September 27th at Hesed Club at 12-30 will begin the program "Ashes of Babi Yar beat in our hearts" — songs and poems about Babi Yar and the Holocaust. The volunteer Zoe Gutnik with the participation of Emil Krupnik, Vitaly Novikov, Boris Kesselman and theatre Studio "Dreidel" will tell about the history of the massacre.

 

On September 29th at the Palace "Ukraine" will be held a theatrical memorial evening with participation of the Turetsky Men's Choir and Tamara Gverdtsiteli – the invitation cards for wards can be obtained from the curators of the Fund.

 

On September 30th, Hesed Club invites wards to a theatrical performance about Babiy Yar, which will be shown by the 5th year students of the actors Department of Theater University named after Karpenko-Kary. Artistic Director - Nicholai Rushkowski, beginning at 12-00.

We are looking forward to meet You. Blessed be the memory of the innocent victims. Zichronam le'braha.