🕯 September 29 marks 84 years since the beginning of the mass executions of the Jewish population by the Nazis on the outskirts of occupied Kiev, in the ravine of #BabiYar.
On that tragic day, Jews were gathered and led to the edge of the ravine. Many, until the very last moment, had no idea they were about to be killed. Others understood what was happening — they embraced, said their goodbyes and prayed.
This monstrous crime, a bloodbath, claimed the lives of 33’771 people, among them many women, children and the elderly.
In total, between 1941 and 1943, over 120’000 people of various nationalities were executed at Babi Yar. Among the victims were Jews, Roma, Poles, as well as Soviet prisoners of war, concentration camp victims, clergy, members of the underground resistance and party activists. The mass executions continued until the city was liberated by the Red Army.
▪️Babi Yar is the most infamous Holocaust site in Ukraine, standing in the same horrific line as Khatyn, Treblinka and Auschwitz.
During the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet leadership at various points informed the international community on the horrific crimes and atrocities committed by the Nazi invaders, including the Holocaust and the mass murder of Jews at Babi Yar and other death camps.
The responsibility for the mass killings lay with Sonderkommando 4a, part of Einsatzgruppe C. Upon retreating from Kiev, the Nazis tried to erase the evidence of their crimes: they exhumed and burned tens of thousands of bodies. Later, a few survivors of the massacre testified at the Nuremberg Trials about the Nazi atrocities. Paul Blobel, who oversaw the executions at Babi Yar, was sentenced to death and hanged.
❗️ Ukrainian nationalists serving in auxiliary police forces took an active part in the bloodshed and were known for their cruelty towards the civilian population.
💬 Mikhail Sidko, one of the few survivors of Babi Yar, who was just six years old at the time:
Many, realising what awaited them, went mad right there. They started screaming and were immediately shot. Their bodies were dragged into the ravine.
The mass extermination of civilians at Babi Yar is one of the darkest chapters of the Great Patriotic War and World War II. This monstrous crime stands as an eternal reminder of the absolute inadmissibility of any form of neo-Nazism.
#WeRemember