Biography of Babi Yar

This tragedy has become a worldwide symbol of the Holocaust.

The Nazis killed the Jews to Babyeu Yar. However, it was Kyiv that became the first city in Europe where the entire Jewish community was destroyed. Ten days earlier, on September 19, the troops of the 6th German army entered Kyiv under the command of Field Marshal Walter von Reichenau. They moved towards Khreshchatyk with two columns - along the streets of Kirillovskaya and Bolshaya Vasilkovskaya.

The clouds immediately thickened over the Jews: the invaders rudely behaved with them on the streets, some were killed. None of the people of Kiev yet knew that two months earlier, in July, the Reichsmarshal Goering issued a directive about the development of measures to "final solving the Jewish issue in Europe." It was about the livestock extermination of the Jewish people.

It never occurred to anyone that it was Kyiv that would be the first who would have to experience this “decision”. Explosions on Khreshchatyk on September 24, organized by the Soviet sabotage group Kartashov, the Nazis attributed to Jews. This was a formal reason for mass executions - however, by no means a real reason. And the first to take off the corner house on the left on the air, where the Children's World department store was located later during the investigation, the Deputy Head of the Security Police of Kiev, Ebeling, explained: "On the orders of the Reichsfuhrer Himmler, all the Jews should have been shot right after the capture of Kyiv." Consequently, there would be no ill-fated explosions, would be attached to something else.

Determined the place of destruction of the Jews - Babi Yar. Its territory could accommodate tens of thousands of corpses - a length of more than 2.5 km, a depth of about 50 m. Red on the right is the place of collection of Jews on the morning of September 29 - the angle of Melnikov and Degtyarevskaya streets. The presence of the Kyiv -Lukyanovka railway station near the ravine was taken into account - on the corner of modern streets of Degtyarevskaya and Yakira.

So, you can pretend that Jews will be collected for transportation to safe places. A firing team was assigned, the area for cordoning the police and the number of Kyivans for sorting things, money, jewelry, withdrawn from the victims before death, was assigned. The announcements in which the Jews were ordered to gather on the morning of September 29 "on the corner of the Melnik - Docterivskaya St." were made up in three languages ​​- Ukrainian, Russian and German.

Why appear, did not explain. If anyone does not come, death. The Ukrainian text was written by a person who is not particularly knowledgeable in Kyiv toponymy. After all, the streets of docterivskaya in the city did not mean Degtyarevskaya. The name and the second street were erroneously presented. Sometimes it was really written as a "miller", but the official name is Melnikov. At the same time, the rumor was dissolved that the Jews "would be evacuated" - probably in Palestine.

On Monday, September 29, tens of thousands of people began to gather near the appointed place. Soviet censorship reduced the text almost doubled, because they did not want the truth from their dwellings “they left the darkness,” the writer Anatoly Kuznetsov, then the summer resident of Kurenevka, testified in the Babi Yar novel, to be early at the train and take places.

With roaring children, with old people, packed with ropes, rolled nodes. Plywood suitcases, paid wallets, boxes with carpentry instruments ... The old women carried, throwing through their neck like giant necklaces, wreaths of a bow - a supply of provisions on the road. " The endless human stream consisted of women, children, adolescents, old people, disabled people on carts, as well as the weak ones who could not move themselves - they were carried on a stretcher.

While male recruiting age was at the front. Once in the area, stained with barbed wire and the police, people lost the opportunity to return back - the trap slammed slammed. And even when, moving further forward, they heard the barking of dogs and shots, there was no more salvation. Others who did not manage to destroy were pushed into the garages of tank repair farm along the Street Lagellnaya.

The next day they were killed in Babi Yar. The things of the victims were taken to the warehouse, which was at the school on Nekrasovskaya Street, 4. The Nazis handed them over to the Volksduch. Such a second-hand on the blood in the beginning of October, the invaders organized a massive bypass of apartments. The Jews found were brought to the same garages, then they sent Yar to Babi and killed in trucks.

As of October 12, according to the reports of the executioners, the number of victims exceeded 51 thousand people. The conveyor of death continued. The destruction of Jews was the beginning of other mass killings. After that, people of different ethnic origin and age were destroyed in Babi Yar for two years. In this terrible place, more than thousands of people found their death in total.

But there were people who risk their own lives and the lives of their families, hid Jews in their own way. These are Ukrainians, Poles, Belarusians, Tatars, Russians, Armenians, Greeks and Germans. The honorary title of "Righteous Babier Yar" was awarded more than half a thousand people. Read also.