Babi Yar (russian: Ба́бий Яр) or Babyn Yar ( uk, Бабин Яр) is a

ravine A ravine is a landform that is narrower than a canyon and is often the product of streambank erosion.Ukrainian capital

Kyiv Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe. Kyi ...

and a site of massacres carried out by

Nazi Germany Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

's forces during its campaign against the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. The first and best documented of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, killing some 33,771

Jews Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

. The decision to murder all the Jews in Kyiv was made by the military governor '' Generalmajor'' Kurt Eberhard, the Police Commander for Army Group South, SS-''

Obergruppenführer ' (, "senior group leader") was a paramilitary rank in Nazi Germany that was first created in 1932 as a rank of the ''Sturmabteilung'' (SA) and adopted by the ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) one year later. Until April 1942, it was the highest commissio ...

'' Friedrich Jeckeln, and the ''Einsatzgruppe'' C Commander Otto Rasch. Sonderkommando 4a as the sub-unit of ''Einsatzgruppe'' C, along with the aid of the ''SD'' and

Order Police battalions The Order Police battalions were militarised formations of the German Order Police (uniformed police) during the Nazi era. During World War II, they were subordinated to the SS and deployed in German-occupied areas, specifically the Army Grou ...

with the

Ukrainian Auxiliary Police The ''Ukrainische Hilfspolizei'' or the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police ( ua, Українська допоміжна поліція, Ukrains'ka dopomizhna politsiia) was the official title of the local police formation (a type of hilfspolizei) set up b ...

backed by the ''

Wehrmacht The ''Wehrmacht'' (, ) were the unified armed forces of Nazi Germany from 1935 to 1945. It consisted of the ''Heer'' (army), the '' Kriegsmarine'' (navy) and the ''Luftwaffe'' (air force). The designation "''Wehrmacht''" replaced the previo ...

'', carried out the orders. Sonderkommando 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site. The massacre was the largest mass-murder under the auspices of the Nazi regime and its Ukrainian collaborators during the campaign against the Soviet Union, and it has been called "the largest single massacre in the history of

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

" to that particular date. It is only surpassed overall by the later

1941 Odessa massacre The Odessa massacre was the mass murder of the Jewish population of Odessa and surrounding towns in the Transnistria Governorate during the autumn of 1941 and the winter of 1942 while it was under Romanian control. It was one of the worst mass ...

of more than 50,000 Jews in October 1941 (committed by German and Romanian troops), and by ''

Aktion Erntefest Operation Harvest Festival (german: Aktion Erntefest) was the murder of up to 43,000 Jews at the Majdanek, Poniatowa and Trawniki concentration camps by the SS, the Order Police battalions, and the Ukrainian '' Sonderdienst'' on 3–4 Novem ...

'' of November 1943 in

occupied Poland ' ( Norwegian: ') is a Norwegian political thriller TV series that premiered on TV2 on 5 October 2015. Based on an original idea by Jo Nesbø, the series is co-created with Karianne Lund and Erik Skjoldbjærg. Season 2 premiered on 10 Octobe ...

with 42,000–43,000 victims. Victims of massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists, Roma and members of the

Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists The Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists ( uk, Організація українських націоналістів, Orhanizatsiya ukrayins'kykh natsionalistiv, abbreviated OUN) was a Ukrainian ultranationalist political organization esta ...

. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 people were murdered at Babi Yar during the German occupation.

Historical background

The Babi Yar (Babyn Yar) ravine was first mentioned in historical accounts in 1401, in connection to the sale of it by "baba" (an old woman) who was also the '' cantiniere'' in the Dominican Monastery.Anatoliy Kudrytsky, editor-in-chief, ''"Vulytsi Kyeva" (The Streets of Kyiv)'', Ukrainska Entsyklopediya , The word "yar" is Turkic in origin and means "gully" or "ravine". Over several centuries, the site was used for various purposes, including military camps and at least two cemeteries, including an Orthodox Christian cemetery and a Jewish cemetery. The latter was officially closed in 1937.

Massacres of September 1941

Axis forces, mainly German, occupied Kyiv on 19 September 1941. Between 20 and 28 September, explosives planted by the

Soviet secret police The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

(the NKVD) caused extensive damage in the city, and on 24 September an explosion rocked Rear Headquarters Army Group South. Two days later, on 26 September, Maj. Gen. Kurt Eberhard, the military governor, and SS-''

'' Friedrich Jeckeln, the SS and Police Leader, met at Rear Headquarters Army Group South. There, they decided to exterminate the Jews of Kyiv, claiming that it was retaliation for the explosions. Also present were SS-'' Standartenführer'' Paul Blobel, commander of ''Sonderkommando 4a'' of Einsatzgruppe C, and his superior, SS-''

Brigadeführer ''Brigadeführer'' (, ) was a paramilitary rank of the Nazi Party (NSDAP) that was used between the years of 1932 to 1945. It was mainly known for its use as an SS rank. As an SA rank, it was used after briefly being known as ''Untergruppenf ...

'' Dr. Otto Rasch, commander of ''

Einsatzgruppe C (, ; also ' task forces') were (SS) paramilitary death squads of Nazi Germany that were responsible for mass murder, primarily by shooting, during World War II (1939–1945) in German-occupied Europe. The had an integral role in the im ...

''. The mass-murder was to be carried out by units under the command of Rasch and Blobel, who were ultimately responsible for many atrocities in Soviet Ukraine during the summer and autumn of 1941. The implementation of the order was entrusted to ''Sonderkommando 4a'' of Einsatzgruppe C commanded by Blobel, under the general command of Friedrich Jeckeln. This unit consisted of ''

Sicherheitsdienst ' (, ''Security Service''), full title ' (Security Service of the '' Reichsführer-SS''), or SD, was the intelligence agency of the SS and the Nazi Party in Nazi Germany. Established in 1931, the SD was the first Nazi intelligence organization ...

'' (SD) and '' Sicherheitspolizei'' (SiPo), the third company of the Special Duties

Waffen-SS The (, "Armed SS") was the combat branch of the Nazi Party's ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) organisation. Its formations included men from Nazi Germany, along with Waffen-SS foreign volunteers and conscripts, volunteers and conscripts from both occup ...

battalion, and a platoon of the 9th Police Battalion. ''Sonderkommando 4a'' of Einsatzgruppe C and Police Battalion 45, commanded by Major Besser, conducted the massacre, supported by members of a Waffen-SS battalion. Contrary to the " myth of the clean ''Wehrmacht''", the Sixth Army under the command of Field Marshal

Walter von Reichenau Walter Karl Ernst August von Reichenau (8 October 1884 – 17 January 1942) was a field marshal in the Wehrmacht of Nazi Germany during World War II. Reichenau commanded the 6th Army, during the invasions of Belgium and France. During Operation ...

worked together with the ''SS'' and ''SD'' to plan and execute the mass-murder of the Jews of Kyiv. On 26 September 1941, the following order was posted: Big-babijar14

On 29 and 30 September 1941, the Nazis and their collaborators murdered approximately 33,771

Jewish Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...

civilians at Babi Yar. The order to murder the Jews of Kyiv was given to ''Sonderkommando'' 4a of ''Einsatzgruppe'' C, consisting of ''SD'' and ''SiPo'' men, the third company of the Special Duties ''Waffen-SS'' battalion, and a platoon of the No. 9 police battalion. These units were reinforced by police battalions Nos. 45 and 303, by units of the Ukrainian auxiliary police, and supported by local collaborators. ''Sonderkommando'' 4a and the 45th Battalion of the German Order Police conducted the shootings. Servicemen of the 303rd Battalion of the German Order Police at this time guarded the outer perimeter of the execution site. The commander of the '' Einsatzkommando'' reported two days later: According to the testimony of a truck driver named Hofer, victims were ordered to undress and were beaten if they resisted: The crowd was large enough that most of the victims could not have known what was happening until it was too late; by the time they heard the

machine gun A machine gun is a fully automatic, rifled autoloading firearm designed for sustained direct fire with rifle cartridges. Other automatic firearms such as automatic shotguns and automatic rifles (including assault rifles and battle rifles) ar ...

fire, there was no chance to escape. All were driven down a corridor of soldiers, in groups of ten, and then shot. A truck driver described the scene. In the evening, the Germans undermined the wall of the ravine and buried the people under the thick layers of earth. According to the Einsatzgruppe's Operational Situation Report, 33,771 Jews from Kyiv and its suburbs were systematically shot dead by machine-gun fire at Babi Yar on 29 and 30 September 1941. The money, valuables, underwear, and clothing of the murdered were turned over to the local ethnic Germans and to the Nazi administration of the city. Wounded victims were buried alive in the ravine along with the rest of the bodies.

Further massacres

Luftwaffe aerial photograph of Babi Yar, 1943

In the months that followed, thousands more were seized and taken to Babi Yar where they were shot. It is estimated that more than 100,000 residents of Kyiv of all ethnic groups, mostly civilians, were murdered by the Nazis there during

.Shmuel Spector, "Babi Yar," ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', Israel Gutman, editor in chief,

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

, Sifriat Hapoalim, New York: Macmillan, 1990. 4 volumes. . An excerpt of the article is available at Ada Holtzman,
Babi Yar: Killing Ravine of Kiev Jewry – WWII
", ''We Remember! Shalom!''. A concentration camp was also built in the area. Mass executions at Babi Yar continued until the Nazis evacuated the city of Kyiv. On 10 January 1942 about 100 captured Soviet sailors were executed there after being forced to disinter and cremate the bodies of previous victims. In addition, Babi Yar became a place of execution of residents of five Gypsy camps. Patients of the Ivan Pavlov

Psychiatric Hospital Psychiatric hospitals, also known as mental health hospitals, behavioral health hospitals, are hospitals or wards specializing in the treatment of severe mental disorders, such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, eating disorders, dissociat ...

were gassed and then dumped into the ravine. Thousands of other Ukrainians were murdered at Babi Yar. Among those murdered were 621 members of the

(OUN). Ukrainian poet and activist

Olena Teliha Olena Ivanivna Teliha ( uk, Олена Іванівна Теліга, July 21, 1906 – February 21, 1942) was a Ukrainian poet and Ukrainian activist of Ukrainian and Belarusian ethnicity. Biography Olena Teliha was born in the village of Ilyi ...

and her husband, and renowned

bandurist A banduryst ( uk, бандури́ст) is a person who plays the Ukrainian plucked string instrument known as the bandura. Types of performers There are a number of different types of bandurist who differ in their particular choice of instrumen ...

Mykhailo Teliha, were murdered there on 21 February 1942.Ludmyla Yurchenko,
Life is not to be sold for a few pieces of silver: The life of Olena Teliha
", Ukrainian Youth Association. Also murdered in 1941 was Ukrainian activist writer

Ivan Rohach Ivan Rohach ( uk, Іван Андрійович Рогач) (29 May 1913 – 21 February 1942) was a Ukrainian journalist, poet, writer, and political activist born in Velykyi Bereznyi ( hu, Nagyberezna), Ung county, Austria-Hungary (modern-day Uk ...

, his sister, and his staff. Upon the Soviet liberation of Kyiv in 1943, Soviet officials led Western journalists to the site of the massacres and allowed them to interview survivors. Among the journalists were Bill Lawrence of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' and

Bill Downs William Randall Downs, Jr. (August 17, 1914 – May 3, 1978) was an American broadcast journalist and war correspondent. He worked for CBS News from 1942 to 1962 and for ABC News beginning in 1963. He was one of the original members of the te ...

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

. Downs described in a report to ''

Newsweek ''Newsweek'' is an American weekly online news magazine co-owned 50 percent each by Dev Pragad, its president and CEO, and Johnathan Davis, who has no operational role at ''Newsweek''. Founded as a weekly print magazine in 1933, it was widely ...

'' what he had been told by one of the survivors, Efim Vilkis: Paul Blobel

Number of people who were murdered

Estimates of the total number of people who were murdered at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation vary. At the

Nuremberg trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

in 1946, Soviet prosecutor

Lev Smirnov Lev Nikolaevich Smirnov (June 21, 1911, Saint Petersburg – March 23, 1986, Moscow) was a Soviet lawyer, Chairman of the Supreme Court of the Soviet Union in 1972–1984, Chairman of the Association of Soviet Lawyers, Hero of Socialist Labo ...

claimed that approximately 100,000 corpses were lying in Babi Yar, he made this estimate by using documents which were published by the

Extraordinary State Commission The Extraordinary State Commission for the Establishment and Investigation of the Atrocities of the German Fascist Invaders and Their Accomplices and the Damage They Caused to Citizens, Collective Farms, Public Organizations, State Enterprises and ...

which the Soviets set up in order to investigate Nazi crimes after the liberation of Kyiv in 1943. In a recently published letter to the Israeli journalist, writer, and translator Shlomo Even-Shoshan which was dated 17 May 1965,

Anatoly Kuznetsov Anatoly Vasilievich Kuznetsov (russian: Анато́лий Васи́льевич Кузнецо́в; August 18, 1929, Kiev, USSR – June 13, 1979, London) was a Russian-language Soviet writer who described his experiences in German-occupied Kie ...

commented on the Babi Yar

atrocity Atrocity or ''Atrocities'' or ''Atrocious'' may refer to: * Atrocity (band), a German metal band * ''Atrocities'' (album), the fourth album by Christian Death * Mass atrocity crimes, international crimes of genocide, war crimes, and crimes agains ...

Survivors

One of the most often-cited parts of

's documentary novel ''Babi Yar'' is the testimony of Dina Pronicheva, an actress of the Kyiv Puppet Theatre, and a survivor. She was one of those ordered to march to the ravine, to be forced to undress and then be shot. Jumping before being shot and falling on other bodies, she played dead in a pile of corpses. She held perfectly still while the Nazis continued to shoot the wounded or gasping victims. Although the SS had covered the mass grave with earth, she eventually climbed through the soil and escaped. Since it was dark, she had to avoid the torches of the Nazis finishing off the remaining victims still alive, wounded, and gasping in the grave. She was one of the very few survivors of the massacre and later related her story to Kuznetsov. At least 29 survivors are known. In 2006,

and other Jewish organisations started a project to identify and name the Babi Yar victims. However, so far, only 10% have been identified. Yad Vashem has recorded the names of around 3,000 Jews murdered at Babi Yar, as well as those of some 7,000 Jews from

who were murdered during

Syrets concentration camp

In the course of the German occupation, the Syrets concentration camp was set up in Babi Yar. Interned

communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a s ...

, Soviet prisoners of war (POWs), and captured resistance members were murdered there, among others. On 18 February 1943, three

Dynamo Kyiv Football Club Dynamo Kyiv (, ) is a Ukrainian professional football club based in Kyiv. Founded in 1927 as a Kyivan football team of republican branch of the bigger Soviet Dynamo Sports Society, the club as a separate business entity was officia ...

football players (Trusevich, Klimenko, and Kuzmenko) who took part in the Match of Death with the German ''

Luftwaffe The ''Luftwaffe'' () was the aerial-warfare branch of the German ''Wehrmacht'' before and during World War II. Germany's military air arms during World War I, the ''Luftstreitkräfte'' of the Imperial Army and the '' Marine-Fliegerabtei ...

'' team were also murdered in the camp.

Concealment of the crimes

Before the Nazis retreated from Kyiv ahead of the Soviet offensive of 1944, they were ordered by Wilhelm Koppe to conceal their atrocities in the East. Paul Blobel, who had been in control of the mass murders in Babi Yar two years earlier, supervised the

Sonderaktion 1005 ' 1005 (, 'Special Action 1005'), also called ''Aktion'' 1005 or ' (, 'Exhumation Action'), was a top-secret Nazi operation conducted from June 1942 to late 1944. The goal of the project was to hide or destroy any evidence of the mass murder ...

in eliminating its traces. The ''Aktion'' was carried out earlier in all

extermination camp Nazi Germany used six extermination camps (german: Vernichtungslager), also called death camps (), or killing centers (), in Central Europe during World War II to systematically murder over 2.7 million peoplemostly Jewsin the Holocaust. The v ...

s. The bodies were exhumed, burned and the ashes scattered over farmland in the vicinity.Aktion 1005.
Jewish Virtual Library. Retrieved 25 April 2013.Aktion 1005.
Yad Vashem. Shoa Resource Centre. Retrieved 25 April 2013. Several hundred prisoners of war from the Syrets concentration camp were forced to build funeral pyres out of Jewish gravestones and exhume the bodies for cremation.

Trials

In the aftermath of the war, several SS commanders who had planned and supervised the massacre were arrested and put on trial. Paul Blobel, the overall commander of the SS unit responsible for the massacre, was sentenced to death by the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He was hanged on 7 June 1951 at Landsberg Prison. Otto Rasch was also indicted in the Einsatzgruppen Trial but his case was discontinued for health reasons, and he died in prison in 1948. Friedrich Jeckeln was convicted of war crimes by a Soviet military tribunal in the

Riga Trial The Riga Trial was a war crimes trial held in front of a Soviet military tribunal between 26 January and 3 February 1946 in Riga, Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, Soviet Union against six high ranking Wehrmacht officers, Höheren SS- und Polizeif ...

, sentenced to death, and hanged on 3 February 1946. Kurt Eberhard was arrested by US authorities but committed suicide while in custody in 1947. In January 1946, 15 former members of the German police (including

Paul Scheer Paul Christian Scheer (born January 31, 1976) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, director, and podcaster. Scheer is a SAG award-winning actor known for his roles in Showtime's comedy series '' Black Monday'' and FX/ FXX's '' The ...

) were tried in Kyiv over their roles in the massacre and other atrocities. Twelve of them were sentenced to death (Fritz Beckenhof, Karl Burckhardt, Georg Heinisch, Wilhelm Hellerforth, Hans Isenmann, Emil Jogschat, Emil Knoll, Willi Meier, Paul von Scheer, Eckart Hans von Tschammer und Osten, Georg Truckenbrod, and Oskar Walliser). The other three received prison sentences. Those condemned to death were publicly hanged in the town square of Kyiv on 29 January 1946. Erich Koch, who had been ''

Reichskommissar (, rendered as "Commissioner of the Empire", "Reich Commissioner" or "Imperial Commissioner"), in German history, was an official gubernatorial title used for various public offices during the period of the German Empire and Nazi Germany. Ger ...

'' of Ukraine at the time, was tried and sentenced to death by a Polish court for his atrocities in occupied Poland. However, he was never tried for his crimes in occupied Ukraine. His death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment, and he died in prison in 1986. Two additional perpetrators were given prison sentences at the

Nuremberg Trials The Nuremberg trials were held by the Allies against representatives of the defeated Nazi Germany, for plotting and carrying out invasions of other countries, and other crimes, in World War II. Between 1939 and 1945, Nazi Germany invaded m ...

. In 1967, 11 men were charged for participating in the massacre in a German court in Darmstadt. After a 14 month trial, seven were convicted and sentenced to prison terms ranging between four and fifteen years. In 1971, three more former German police officials were put on trial in Regensburg. The vast majority of the perpetrators were never tried for their roles in the massacre.

Remembrance

After the war, specifically Jewish commemoration efforts encountered serious difficulty because of the Soviet Union's policies.

Yevgeny Yevtushenko Yevgeny Aleksandrovich Yevtushenko ( rus, links=no, 1=Евге́ний Алекса́ндрович Евтуше́нко; 18 July 1933 – 1 April 2017) was a Soviet and Russian poet. He was also a novelist, essayist, dramatist, screenwriter, ...

's 1961 poem on Babi Yar begins "Nad Babim Yarom pamyatnikov nyet" ("Over Babi Yar there are no monuments"); it is also the first line of

Shostakovich Dmitri Dmitriyevich Shostakovich, , group=n (9 August 1975) was a Soviet-era Russian composer and pianist who became internationally known after the premiere of his First Symphony in 1926 and was regarded throughout his life as a major compo ...

’s Symphony No. 13. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, several memorials were erected on the site and elsewhere. The events also formed a part of literature. Babi Yar is located in

at the juncture of today's Kurenivka, Lukianivka and Syrets districts, between Kyrylivska, Melnykov, and Olena Teliha streets and St. Cyril's Monastery. After the

Orange Revolution The Orange Revolution ( uk, Помаранчева революція, translit=Pomarancheva revoliutsiia) was a series of protests and political events that took place in Ukraine from late November 2004 to January 2005, in the immediate afterm ...

, President

Viktor Yushchenko Viktor Andriyovych Yushchenko ( uk, Віктор Андрійович Ющенко, ; born 23 February 1954) is a Ukrainian politician who was the third president of Ukraine from 23 January 2005 to 25 February 2010. As an informal leader of th ...

of Ukraine hosted a major commemoration of the 65th anniversary in 2006, attended by Presidents

Moshe Katsav Moshe Katsav ( he, מֹשֶׁה קַצָּב; born 5 December 1945) is an Israeli former politician who was the eighth President of Israel from 2000 to 2007. He was also a leading Likud member of the Israeli Knesset and a minister in its cabine ...

Israel Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...

Filip Vujanović Filip Vujanović ( Montenegrin Cyrillic: Филип Вујановић, ; born 1 September 1954) is a Montenegrin politician who served as the President of Montenegro from 2003 to 2018. Early life and career Born and raised in Belgrade, Vujano ...

Montenegro ) , image_map = Europe-Montenegro.svg , map_caption = , image_map2 = , capital = Podgorica , coordinates = , largest_city = capital , official_languages = M ...

Stjepan Mesić Stjepan "Stipe" Mesić (; born 24 December 1934) is a Croatian lawyer and politician who served as President of Croatia from 2000 to 2010. Before serving two five-year terms as president, he was prime minister of SR Croatia (1990) after the fir ...

Croatia , image_flag = Flag of Croatia.svg , image_coat = Coat of arms of Croatia.svg , anthem = "Lijepa naša domovino"("Our Beautiful Homeland") , image_map = , map_caption = , capit ...

and Chief Rabbi of

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

Rabbi

Yisrael Meir Lau Yisrael Meir Lau ( he, ישראל מאיר לאו; born 1 June 1937) served as the Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv, Israel, and chairman of Yad Vashem. He previously served as the Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1993 to 2003. Biography Early life ...

. Rabbi Lau pointed out that if the world had reacted to the massacre of Babi Yar, perhaps the Holocaust might never have happened. Implying that this impunity emboldened Hitler, Lau speculated: In 2006, a message was also delivered on behalf of

Kofi Annan Kofi Atta Annan (; 8 April 193818 August 2018) was a Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh secretary-general of the United Nations from 1997 to 2006. Annan and the UN were the co-recipients of the 2001 Nobel Peace Prize. He was the founde ...

, Secretary-General of the United Nations, by his representative, Resident Coordinator

Francis Martin O'Donnell Francis Martin O'Donnell, GCMM, GCEG, KC*SG, KM, KCHS, KCMCO, (born in 1954), an Irish citizen, has served abroad as an international diplomat in senior representative positions with the United Nations until retirement, and later with the S ...

, who added a Hebrew prayer Shalom, from the Mourners'

Kaddish Kaddish or Qaddish or Qadish ( arc, קדיש "holy") is a hymn praising God that is recited during Jewish prayer services. The central theme of the Kaddish is the magnification and sanctification of God's name. In the liturgy, different version ...

Mudslide

In the spring of 1961, Babi Yar was the site of a massive mudslide. An earthen dam in the ravine was used to hold loam pulp which had been pumped from the local brick factories without sufficient drainage over the course of ten years. The dam collapsed after it was hit by a heavy rainstorm, resulting in a mudslide that swept away the low-lying Kurenivka neighborhood and several other areas. The death toll was estimated to be between 1,500 and 2,000 people.

2022 Russian bombing

On 1 March 2022, during Russia's invasion of Ukraine the site was struck by Russian forces while they were trying to destroy the nearby

Kyiv TV Tower The Kyiv TV Tower ( uk, Телевізійна вежа, translit=Televiziyna vezha) is a lattice metal tower on Oranzhereina Street, Kyiv, Ukraine, and is the tallest structure in the country. The tower was built in 1973 while Kyiv was the ca ...

. The attack resulted in the death of at least five people.

Notes

References

Sources

*A. Anatoli (

), trans. David Floyd, (1970), '' Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel'', Jonathan Cape Ltd. *"Babi Yar in the mirror of science, or the map of Bermuda Triangle", an article in

Dzerkalo Tyzhnia ''Dzerkalo Tyzhnia'' ( ua, Дзеркало тижня), usually referred to in English as the ''Mirror Weekly'', was one of Ukraine's most influential analytical weekly-publisher newspapers, founded in 1994.available online

External links

The Invasion of the Soviet Union and the Beginnings of Mass Murder
on the

website
Marking 70 Years to Operation Barbarossa
on the

website
Babi Yar: Mass Murder
(history1900s.about.com)

(historyplace.com)

( Jewish Virtual Library)
Babi Yar: Killing Ravine of Kyiv Jewry – WWII
(zchor.org)

(berdichev.org) *
History. Geography. Memory
by Tatyana Yevstafyeva. 15 August 2002 (a reprint from newspaper "Jewish Observer") {{Authority control 1941 in the Soviet Union Eastern Front (World War II) Einsatzgruppen 1940s in Kyiv Jewish Ukrainian history Mass graves in Ukraine Massacres in 1941 Massacres in the Soviet Union Nazi war crimes in Ukraine Reichskommissariat Ukraine World War II massacres World War II sites in Ukraine World War II sites of Nazi Germany 1941 in Ukraine Ravines September 1941 events Execution sites 1941 in Judaism Massacres of Ukrainians during World War II Holocaust locations in Ukraine Holocaust massacres and pogroms in Ukraine