The Road to Babyn Yar

On 29 September 1941, Jews in Kyiv began gathering at the place named in German notices posted around the city. The orders, issued in Russian, German, and Ukrainian, required them to bring documents, money, valuables, and warm clothing. They were told to appear near the Jewish cemetery by 7:00 a.m. and warned that failure to comply would be punishable by death. Many thought they were being assembled for evacuation or resettlement. Instead, German personnel organized them into groups and marched them toward Babyn Yar, a ravine just outside the city.

The German occupation had begun less than two weeks earlier. Two major explosions had destroyed German headquarters and other buildings in central Kyiv, killing German soldiers and officials. Soviet forces had left mines behind; the Germans used the explosions as a pretext to murder the Jews who remained in the city. Before the invasion, Kyiv had held about 160,000 Jewish residents. By the occupation, about 60,000 remained.

At Babyn Yar, the victims were forced to undress and enter the ravine. Sonderkommando 4a, a detachment of Einsatzgruppe C led by SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel, shot them in small groups. SS and German police units and their auxiliaries carried out the massacre under the guidance of members of Einsatzgruppe C. The killings continued through 30 September. Reports sent to Einsatzgruppen headquarters in Berlin recorded 33,771 Jews murdered during the two days.

Behind the figure were families who had been driven from their homes, ordered to assemble, and made to walk to the site. Most of the Jews still in Kyiv were women, children and old people. Among those killed was seven-year-old Mania Halef, born in Kyiv in 1934. Babyn Yar was one of the largest mass killings at a single location during the war.

The ravine did not cease to be a killing site when the two-day massacre ended. Germans continued to murder Jews and non-Jews there until 1943. But on 29 September, Kyiv’s Jewish population was summoned under threat of death and marched to the ravine where they were shot. The order had made the gathering appear administrative. Its destination made its purpose clear.