The German Occupation of Kiev 
Kiev was captured by the Germans on September 19, 1941. Of 160,000 Jews there just prior to the German entry, 100,000 managed to flee. On September 26, officially in retaliation for sabotage activities in the city, the Germans, including Friedrich Jeckeln, Otto Rasch and Paul Blobel, decided to kill the Jews of Kiev. The actual killing was entrusted to Blobel's Sonderkommando 4a, which was reinforced by Ukrainian auxiliary police. |
The Murder of Jews 
On September 28 the Jews were ordered to appear the next morning, which they did. They were taken to the ravine, and as they approached the site, the Jews were forced to hand over any valuables in their possession, to take off all their clothes, and to advance to towards the ravine edge, in groups of ten. When they reached the edge, they were gunned down by automatic fire. At the end of the day, the bodies were covered by a thin layer of soil. In two days of shooting, 33,771 Jews were murdered. In the months that followed thousands more were taken to Babi Yar and shot. Many who tried to hide, were informed on by the Ukrainians.
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Other Victims 
Babi Yar served as a slaughterhouse for non - Jews as well, such as GYPSIES and Soviet Prisoners Of War. According to the estimate given by the Soviet research commission on Nazi crimes, 100,000 people were murdered there.
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Erasing Evidence 
In July 1943, Paul Blobel came back to Kiev, and working with SS - Gruppenfuhrer Dr. Max Thomas, was charged with erasing all evidence of the mass carnage as part of Aktion 1005. Jews were employed in the work, and on the morning of September 29, 1943, twenty five prisoners broke out. Fifteen succeeded in escaping.
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Establishing a Memorial 
It took a long time for a memorial to be erected at Babi Yar. Among those who made this demand were the writer Ilya Ehrenburg, and the poet Yevgeni Yevtushenko, who published a poem in 1961 - "Babi Yar." The next year, Dmitri Shostakovich, set the poem to music, incorporating it into his Thirteenth Symphony. The poem and symphony had a tremendous impact in the Soviet Union, and in 1974 a monument was finally erected. The monument was put in the wrong place and there was no mention of the Jewish victims. Finally, in early 1990s, two monuments for Jewish victims were erected
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