The tragedy of Babyn Yar

• Journals

								
-On September 29, Ukraine commemorates the victims of the Nazi executions in Kyiv's Babyn Yar during World War II. Babyn Yar is a place of memory and a necropolis for about 100 thousand civilians and prisoners of war! -The Nazi ideology was based on the racial theory, according to which humanity was divided into races from the beginning of its existence, and the value of a person lies not in his or her individual traits, but in belonging to a racial group. The "Road of Death," which tens of thousands of people walked on September 29, ran from Lukianivska Square along Melnykova Street to the first gate of the Jewish cemetery, then to Kahatna (now Khokhlova Family) Street, then along Laharna (now Dorohozhytska) Street. At the entrance to the Bratske (Voinske) cemetery, money, jewelry, documents were taken away, and people were ordered to leave their belongings and outerwear behind. People were forced to strip naked, go down into a pit, and lie down face down, one on top of the other, while German police officers walked along the rows and shot them in the back of the head. By 6 p.m. that day, almost 22,000 people had been killed. The rest of the doomed were driven into empty garages on Laharna Street overnight. Then the sappers blew up the slopes so that the earth would cover the bodies and forced the prisoners of war to level the bottom of the ravine.

The killings at Babyn Yar took place in several stages.

The first, the daily executions of Jews, prisoners of war, and civilians, lasted from September 1941 to the spring of 1942. The peak occurred on September 29-30, when 33,771 people were killed.

The second stage was from the end of winter 1942 to mid-August 1943. The Syretsk concentration camp, which replaced the camp on Kerosynna Street (which was established in April-May 1942, and evacuated at the end of the second stage), was created at this time. Its prisoners are numerous victims of Babyn Yar.

 The third and final stage of regular executions took place against the backdrop of the destruction of corpses in Babyn Yar in August-September 1943 by prisoners of the Syretsk concentration camp. At the same time, the camp itself was being evacuated. Realizing that they could not hold on to Kyiv, the Germans began to cover up the traces of their crimes. The corpses were burned in front of the Syrets concentration camp. The main victims of the Nazis at Babyn Yar were Jews, who accounted for more than half of those executed. During the two years of German occupation, groups of people and individuals who were considered enemies of the Nazis for one reason or another were shot here.
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