Kharkiv’s Bykivnia
For a few decades the former Jewish Cemetery in Kharkiv Komsomolsky Park, Academician Pavlov St., was mentioned by locals only in a whispers. There were rumors among old-timers that there is a big grave next to their houses, which in the 1930s became the last repose for thousands of Kharkiv residents shot at the Kharkiv oblast NKVD prison and buried there from August 1937 to March 1938. Only recently did Ukrainian scholars conduct field research to finally confirm or disprove the fact of the execution.
The research was done by Kyiv’s specially organized state enterprise, Memorials of Ukraine, which is now chief executor of the Complex Program for Search and Ordering the Burial Sites of the Victims of War and Political Repression. The works were authorized by the Kharkiv City Executive Committee in consultation with the Kharkiv Oblast State Administration and monitored by the oblast Committee on the Perpetuation of the Memory of the Victims of War and Political Repression.
The subject of research was a territory of about five hectares, designated by Kyiv researchers according to archive documents. The investigated lot proved to be waste ground with a number of young trees on it. The first exploratory shafts made on August 11, 2003 immediately disclosed the existence of an additional 2.5 meters layer of ground mixed with construction materials and garbage, which was scattered over in the years after burying the victims of political repression. At a depth of four to five meters researchers discovered the upper layer of human remains in a mass grave. In general, the depth of burial pits together with the masking layer reached seven meters.
In general, in the process of field research the experts made 75 exploratory shafts, discovering six mass burial sites, each representing a ditch two meters wide and five to ten meters long. The estimated number of bodies is around 4000, from 500 to 1000 in each ditch. Simultaneously, Kyiv experts discovered separate burial pits 2x3 meters. A detailed research confirmed the sad truth about mass shootings. The bodies in the ditches as well as in pits were placed chaotically. According to the evidence, they failed to find a single intact skeleton as usually happens with separate graves. In the shooting place spent bullets of 7.62 mm or larger caliber were found.
In late August the Kharkiv Oblast Forensic Bureau gave its opinion on forensic and criminal medical examination of two sculls of persons unknown found at the investigated lot. Relying, among other facts, on the injuries caused by 7.62 caliber firearms, the experts determined the date of burial as over fifty years. Thus, final results gave grounds to date the said mass burial place with 1937-1938, which was also reflected in penal institution documents.
The most outrageous thing that strike both researchers and numerous eyewitnesses was an open burial pit 3 by 2.5 meters containing human remains, mostly children’s, with no bullet wounds in the sculls. This place was found due to evidence from a Kharkivan who told back in the 1980s about being witness to burying bodies of children who died during the Manmade Famine of the 1932-1933. The fragments of children’s bodies were sent by the Kharkiv Moskovsky Rayon Prosecutor’s Office for forensic examination.
This field research was the final stage of a series of researches. According to Ukrainian experts, they completely confirmed the results of archaeographic research conducted last year by the editors’ and publishers’ group of the Kharkiv volume of the Rehabilitated by History series. The research in Kharkiv Komsomolsky Park finally proved the existence of the mass burial place of the victims of political repressions in 1937-1938 and the Manmade Famine of the 1932- 1933. Final calculation of the number of human bodies is possible only under condition of full exhumation. However, this process will require much more time (one to three full field seasons) and substantial money. Documents collected by the editors’ and publishers’ group of the Kharkiv volume of the Rehabilitated by History series together with the results obtained by Kyiv’s Memorials of Ukraine will be used in the immediate future as the real basis for constructing a Memorial to the victims of political repressions of the 1930s and Manmade Famine of the 1932-1933 in Komsomolsky Park. However, it is still unknown when exactly Kharkivans and guests of the city will be able to visit it and pay homage to the memory of innocent victims of the Soviet system. Meanwhile, this “black place” reminds local residents of the horrible thirties.
