Babyn Yar: 70 years after the tragedy

On September 29, exactly 70 years after the massacre of the civil population in the tract of Babyn Yar began the service for the dead and commemorated the victims of that horrible tragedy was held. In the morning the sky got covered with clouds and it rained all the time. The people who came to the National Historical and Memorial Complex of Babyn Yar for the requiem whispered to each other that “the sky is crying over the innocently killed people.” Hiding under umbrellas NGOs’ representatives, relatives of the victims and just not indifferent people lit candles, exchanged flowers and prayed. The service for the dead was headed by the leader of the Ukrainian Orthodox Church at the Kyiv Patriarchate Filaret. As soon as the requiem finished, the rain stopped and the sky got clear. After the service people laid flowers to the 20 monuments situated on the territory of the national Historical and Memorial Complex Babyn Yar.

Today the tract of Babyn Yar is a common grave where a hundred to two hundred thousand people lie. From September 29, 1941 there they shot only the Jewish living in Kyiv, then they started shooting the Gypsies, Karaites, Ukrainian nationalists, prisoners of war and priests. During the two first days over 34,000 Jewish were killed there. The youngest victim was only three days old: that baby had been born on September 26 and on September 29 it shared the tragic fate of its parents. The oldest victim lying in the tract was 103 years old.

“Babyn Yar was one of the most horrible tragedies of the last century,” reads the appeal of the Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the massacre. However, on September 29 the authorities did not come to the monument in Babyn Yar. The Ukrainian authorities including President Viktor Yanukovych will officially commemorate the victims of the tragedy on October 3: the representatives of the Jewish communities asked to change the date since it coincides with the Jewish New Year.

It should be noted that on the commemoration day of Babyn Yar victims the repairing work was held near the monuments to the prisoners of war and civil population. The workers hurried since they have to finish everything by October 3 so that the president could lay the flowers to the restored monument. That is why people who silently laid flowers to the monuments were at times hurried or even driven away not to hinder the workers.

Illia LEVITAS, President of the Ukrainian Jewish Council, President of the Foundation “Memory of Babyn Yar,” President of the National Communities Council of Ukraine:

“From September 29 to October 3 they shot only the Jewish, then there was a calm and after that they started killing everyone: prisoners of war, nationalists and everyone who disturbed them. That is why Israel suggested commemorating the killed Jewish on October 3 since now, during the Jewish New Year our religion prohibits any events.

“Today the Kyivites know a little about the tragedy in Babyn Yar. We should have “memory lessons” and every Kyivite has to visit the monuments in Babyn Yar: the monuments to the Jewish, nationalists, Tania Markus, to everyone. Probably, the younger generation can hardly perceive this tragedy as theirs. They are great-grand-children of those people. But we should remember about this tragedy. People have to know about it, especially the Kyivites since it happened in their city. In Kyiv people were killed not only in Babyn Yar but in the botanical gardens in Pechersk, near the monument “Rodina-Mat” and in Holosiivsky district… We want September 29 to be The Day of Remembrance for all victims.

“In Ukraine there are 630 places where the Jewish were killed. Some of them have monuments but those in fields and woods are not marked at all. Moreover, the Ukrainians do not respect themselves: during the war over two thousand villages and their inhabitants were burnt and there is no official remembrance day for those victims.

“As for the tragedy in Babyn Yar, on July 2, 1976, 35 years after the tragedy they erected the monument that does not embody the tragedy but is an example of the socialist realism. It is irrelevant since it had to be a symbol of sorrow. It is not situated at the place where people were shot since the ground was very soft there and the monument mockup nearly sank in it. During several last months of the Soviet rule they managed to install the Menorah, the seven-stick candelabrum which is the Jewish religious symbol. It is still at its place: not where the Jewish were killed but at the place of the old Jewish cemetery that used to be the largest in Europe. By the way, it passed into the Muslim and Karaites cemeteries. It was destroyed at the end of the 1950s. They built the TV tower, stadium and gas station there, just at the place where hundred thousand people lay…”

Vasyl SHEPELIUK, Head of the department of documents information use at the Central State Ukrainian Literature and Arts Archive-Museum:

“When I look through the documents of the regional archives, nearly all of them have some places of massacre in Vinnytsia and Volyn oblasts, in western Ukraine. The Ivano-Frankivsk regional archives gave us the photos of civil population shooting, in particular, the Jewish and priests. We have the documents of the Zhytomyr regional archive mentioning the town of Berdychiv where a lot of Jewish lived. There they started shooting them back in August 1941 when they still fought for Kyiv. In the southern part of Ukraine (in Odesa, Mykolaiv, and Kherson oblasts) where there were a lot of ethnic groups of people there were similar babyn yars.

“As an archivist I think that all the archives have to be open. There should not be anything secret related to this topic. Moreover, everything has to be presented in the collected documents about Babyn Yar in Kyiv and other places. After the war this topic was banned and only in the 1960s owing to the civil rights advocate and writer Viktor Nekrasov and our famous expert in literature Ivan Dziuba they started speaking about it. According to the archivists, tragedy witnesses and archeologists, nearly 200,000 people were killed in Babyn Yar during the period from September 1941 to October 1943.”

Nina TOPISHKO, Director, Central State H. Pshenychny Film and Photo Archives:

“The detailed study and comparison of the photo and paper documents give us the true history of this tragedy without rewriting or censoring it. Every time those who write books or publish analytic articles have to address the archives in order to analyze and compare the documents. We can reconsider the past events and discuss them from the point of today but we should rely on the archive documents.

“One should know and remember one’s history without putting the events on scales. Sometimes we hear that the tragedy of Babyn Yar is the tragedy of the Jewish people or the people of other nationalities. We discuss it and find the ways to establish the truth. It is important to know the truth that cannot differ today or tomorrow.”