Mournful Anniversary

September 29 is a horrible date in the many centuries of Kyiv's history: that was the beginning of mass- scale shootings of Jews, other civilians, and prisoners-of-war at Babyn Yar. On September 19, 1941, after over two months of defense, the capital of Ukraine was peacefully abandoned by the Soviet troops, and the circle of the enemy's advance closed for many dozens of kilometers east of the city on the Dnipro. SS and SD troops, together with police units, began to carry out roundups and shootings in Kyiv from the very first days of occupation. The first group of Soviet prisoners-of-war was executed in the Babyn Yar ravine on September 22.

And on September 24 the streets were strewn with leaflets carrying the city commandant's order that all ethnic Jews report to marshaling points set up on Dehtiarivska and Melnykov Streets. Most of the people believed the occupants: they had been taught to believe the authorities. The Germans spread rumors that the Jews would be deported to Germany. Many of the future victims even took away foodstuffs and water: they still hoped to survive.

The Nazis shot 195,000 people in Kyiv over the two odd years of occupation: Jews, Ukrainians, Russians, Poles; women, men, children, and elderly. These are official data of a special commission the Soviet authorities set up in 1945.

Future generations should by all means remember the bitter lessons of the past. Ethnic and racial intolerance always leads to tragedy. It has to be nipped in the bud well in advance, before the genies created on the basis of societal lumpenization, which turns people into the blind instruments of somebody's ill will, gives an impulse to new manifestations of cruelty and violence. In Germany everything started with a seemingly innocent beer hall putsch: the economic situation then so much resembled today's period in Ukraine referred to as “radical economic reforms.”