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administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential
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Record Group/Collection:
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Folder Title:
Babi Yar 8/1/91 [OA 8312] [1]
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26
21
5
6
dead the living me must witness
1980
United States
Holocaust Memorial Council
United States Holocaust Memorial Council
July 25, 2991
Ms Carol Blymire
Research
New Executive Office Building
Room 111-1/2
Washington, D.C. 20500
Dear Carol:
As requested on July 24 by phone, enclosed are xerox copies
of articles or excerpts from books related to the Babi Yar
massacre, September 29-30, 1941. Also enclosed are xerox copies
of the monument made from small photographs in our photo
archives. Additionally, two books are enclosed: The Survivor of
Babi Yar by Seiden, and Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a
Novel, by Kuznetsov.
The articles/excerpts are:
Hilberg: The Destruction of the European Jews, pp 296-8
Zentner & Beduerftig (ed): The Encyclopedia of the
Third Reich, entry on "Babi Yar," pg 61; entry on
"Einstazgruppen," pp 227-9
Snyder: Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, entry on "Babi
Yar" that includes part of famous Yevtushenko poem
Encyclopaedia Judaica: entry on "Babi Yar," pp 28-29
Gutman (ed) Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, entry on
"Babi Yar," pp 133-136; entry on "Blobel, Paul,"
pp 219-20
Arad, et al (eds) The Einsatzgruppen Reports, pp 171-4
Hillgruber: "War in the East and the Extermination of the
Jews," in: Yad Vashem Studies, Vol XVIII
Lozowick: "Rollbahn Mord: The Early Activities of
Einsatzgruppe C," in: Holocaust and Genocide Studies:
An International Journal, Vol 2, No. 2, 1987
2000 L Street NW, Suite 588, Washington, D.C. 20036-4907, (202) 653-9220
Page 2
Perl: The Holocaust Conspiracy: An International Policy
of Genocide, Chapter 5, pp 105-118.
Eisenberg: Witness to the Holocaust, pp 276-279
Gilbert: The Second World War: A Complete History,
pp237-239
Levin: The Holocaust: The Destruction of European
Jewry, 1933-1945, pp 253-259; full Yevtushenoko
poem
There are additional sources if these do not prove
sufficient. Please let us know if there are specific people or
ideas you want to focus upon.
The plaque at the Babi Yar monument is historically
incorrect. Recently the Ukrainian government has stated its
intent to correct it thus recognizing the Jewish victims. Miles
Lerman, Chairman of the Council's International Relations
Committee is deeply involved in this effort and would like to
speak with the person who will be writing the President's remarks
should he decide to go to Babi Yar.
609-691-
Sincerely,
7605
llarian
Marian S. Craig
Director
Days of Remembrance
Enclosures
T'O]
9760 West Pico Blvd.
Los Angeles, CA 90035-4792
(213) 553-9036
Facs (213) 553-8007
Simon Wiesenthal Center
Rabbi Marvin Hier
Dean
Rabbi Abraham Cooper
Associate Dean
September 20, 1991
Dr. Gerald Margolis
Director
Rabbi Meyer May
Executive Director
Ms. Carol Blymire
Susan Burden
Director of Administration
Old Executive Office Guilding
Marlene F. Hier
Director
Room 111½
Membership Development
Washington, D.C. 20500
Avra Shapiro
Director of Communications
Rabbi Daniel Landes
Dear Carol:
Director
National Education Projects
Richard Trank
Director
Though you might be interested in the enclosed (see page
Media Projects
39). With best regards from me and Rabbi Cooper, I am,
Martin Mendelsohn
Legal Counsel
Washington, D.C.
Regional Offices
New York
am Avra Shapiro
Rhonda Barad
Director
Eastern Region
Director of Communications
Chicago
Carol Wallace
Director
Community Relations
Toronto
Sol Littman
Canadian Representative
Smadar Peretz
Director for Development
Miami
Robert L. Novak
Director for Development
Southern Region
Jerusalem
Efraim Zuroff
Director
Paris
Shimon Samuels
European Director
Document No.
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
DATE:
7/30/91
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
SUBJECT: PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: THE MONUMENT AT BABI YAR
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
A
MCCLURE
SUNUNU
PETERSMEYER
SCOWCROFT
PORTER
DARMAN
ROGICH
BRADY
SMITH
BROMLEY
UNTERMEYER
CARD
ROGERS
DEMAREST
SNOW
FITZWATER
GRAY
HOLIDAY
REMARKS:
The attached has been forwarded to the President.
RESPONSE:
PHILLIP D. BRADY
Assistant to the President
and Staff Secretary
Ext. 2702
THE WHITE HOUSE
washington
July 30, 1991
MEMORANDUM FOR THE PRESIDENT
FROM:
TONY SNOW T7
SUBJECT:
REMARKS AT BABI YAR
I. SUMMARY
On Thursday, August 1, at 5:15 p.m., you will visit the
Holocaust Memorial at Babi Yar, and make brief remarks (6
minutes, on cards). You depart the Soviet Union immediately
after this ceremony.
Snow/Blymire
Babi
Draft Two
July 30, 1991
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: THE MONUMENT AT BABI YAR
AUGUST 2, 1991
(5:15 p.m.)
(Introductory acknowledgments.)
We come to Babi Yar to remember. We remember violence and
valor; we remember prejudice and selflessness.
At Babi Yar, in the vast quiet here, something larger than
life assails us: the shadows of past evil; the light of past
virtue. The wind that shakes the leaves bears a special weight,
as if whispering warnings and cautions; telling tales of victims
and villains; cowards and heroes.
Babi Yar stands as a monument to many things. It reminds us
that history gives our lives meaning and continuity, and that any
nation that tries to repudiate history -- tries to ignore the
actors and events that shaped it -- only repudiates itself.
For many years, the tragedy of Babi Yar went unacknowledged.
That has changed. You soon will place a plaque on this site that
acknowledges the genocide against the Jews, the slaughter of
gypsies; the wanton murder of communists, Christians -- of anyone
who dared question the Nazi madman's fantasies.
Babi Yar reminds us of the sheer stupidity of prejudice.
Here we think about people of great promise and talent -- young
men and women who would have become doctors or physicists;
2
athletes or artists; mothers, fathers. All died because a maniac
in Berlin wanted to exterminate their kind.
The statue here testifies to an important truth
Just
as
bricks and stones shape great monuments, families shape nations.
The love of parents, the trust of children, the blessings of life
and learning -- these things give life meaning; they give society
its character; they give nations a sense of destiny and purpose.
Here, at Babi Yar, Nazis set out to destroy families and
faiths -- set out to destroy the soul of a nation.
Here, on September 29, 1941, soldiers forced men, women and
children to undergo a ritual of humiliation and death. Victims
stopped first to empty their pockets, and place their valuables
in heaps on the ground. They moved forward to another place,
where they had to remove their clothing, which Nazis folded in
neat piles -- booty for the Fuehrer.
Then, the shivering Jews moved to the edge of the ravine,
where marksmen murdered their prey, letting the bodies tumble
into the long, deep pit. For 36 hours, rifle reports and shrill
human cries shattered the calm. Nazis tried to drown out the
horror by playing dance music over loudspeakers.
Despite this macabre ruse, the screams made their way into
the hearts of townspeople -- and the pages of history.
When the first round of shooting stopped, more than 33,000
bodies lay in the pit -- and many more people had committed
suicide rather than undergoing the humiliating execution rite.
Within 18 months, nearly 100,000 people perished here.
3
Miraculously, a few people managed to escape. Yelena
Yefimovna Borodyansky-Knysh (ye-LAY-nuh ye-FEEM-uv-nuh bor-oh-
DYAHN-skee KNISH] leaped into the pit with her young daughter,
shielding the child with her body. In the dead silent night, the
two worked their way through the piled-up corpses and slipped
past some would-be executioners.
Naked, scared, mother and daughter wriggled through ravines,
stumbled over roots, waded through a gamut of waving branches.
Eventually they found freedom -- and lived to tell of Babi Yar.
Abraham Lincoln once said, "We cannot escape history." And
Mikhail Gorbachev has promoted truth in history -- "not to settle
political scores, or cause suffering, but to render due tribute
to everything that was heroic in the past and to learn lessons
from mistakes and miscalculations."
Today we stand at Babi Yar, and wrestle with awful truth.
We marvel at the incredible extremes of human behavior. We make
solemn vows.
We VOW that this sort of murder will never happen again.
We VOW never to let the forces of bigotry and hatred assert
themselves without opposition.
We VOW to ensure a future dedicated to freedom and
individual liberty, rather than to mob violence and tyranny.
And we VOW that whenever our devotion to principle wanes, we
will think of this place. We will remember that evil flourishes
when good men and women refuse to defend virtue.
4
Let me quote the poet Yevgenni Yevtushenko, whose poem about
Babi Yar helped restore remembrance of this place, and of its
history. He wrote:
"On Babi Yar weeds rustle; the tall trees
Like judges loom and threaten
All screams in silence; I take off my cap
And feel that I am slowly turning gray.
And I too have become a soundless cry
Over the thousands that lie buried here.
I am each old man slaughtered, each child shot.
None of me will forget." II
None of us will ever forget.
The Holocaust occurred because good men and women averted
their eyes from unprecedented evil. The Nazis fell when people
opened their eyes / summoned their courage and faith / and
fought for democracy, liberty, decency and justice.
This memorial proves that eventually, the forces of good and
of truth will rise in triumph. No matter how bleak our lives may
seem, this fact should comfort us. But it also should inspire us
to spare future generations from the suffering, the evil, the
unspeakable fate that claimed nearly 100,000 souls here -- at
Babi Yar.
May God bless you.
#
#
#
#
WC-Am
top 30r4 American cities
w/ UKAM
Balto.
Cleve,
Buff.
Snow/Blymire
Babi
Draft One
July 25, 1991
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: THE MONUMENT AT BABI YAR
AUGUST 2, 1991
(TIME)
Introductory acknowledgments.
We come to Babi Yar today to remember. We remember violence
and valor; we remember prejudice and selflessness.
At Babi Yar, in the vast quiet here, something larger than
life accosts: the shadows of past evil; the light of past virtue.
The wind that shakes the leaves bears a special weight, as if it
were whispering warnings and cautions; as if it were telling
tales of victims and villains; heroes and cowards.
Babi Yar stands as a monument to many things. It reminds us
that history gives our lives meaning and continuity, and that any
nation that tries to repudiate history only repudiates itself.
We cannot grow as nations and people if we do not first
understand the actors and events that shaped us.
ignorance?
Babi Yar reminds us of the sheer stupidity of prejudice.
andwomen
Here, people of great promise and talent -- young men who would
have become doctors or physicists; athletes or artists; young
women who could have become professors or mayors; philosophers or
lanatic, maniac?
poets; all died because a crackpot in Berlin wanted to
exterminate their kind. Your society was poorer because these
2
men and women never had a chance to enrich their lives or yours;
it was poorer because it had to deal with the stain of Babi Yar -
- a tragedy that for many years went unacknowledged.
Fortunately, you will rectify that injustice soon, placing a
plaque on this site that acknowledges the genocide against the
whatwill
Jews, the senseless slaughter of gypsies; the wanton murder of
plague be
communists, Christians anyone who dared question the Nazi
madman's fantasies.
The statue here reminds us that societies grow to greatness
the same way monuments do: with small building blocks. Just as
bricks and stones shape great structures, families shape nations.
The love of parents, the trusting eagerness of children, the
blessings of life and learning -- these things give life meaning;
they give society its character; they give nations a sense of
destiny and purpose.
Here, at Babi Yar, Nazis deliberately tried to destroy
families and faiths. Yet despite their grim efficiency, they
failed. Some families magically survived. Some lived to
remember and tell.
fam survivors will say it's b/c God.
So we come to this place, where nearly 50 years ago, Nazis
rounded up the Jews of Kiev and began a slaughter of
unprecedented directness and brutality.
Here, on September 29, 1941, soldiers forced men, women and
children to empty their pockets and place the contents in heaps
on the ground. Then, the victims had to remove their clothing.
As the Jews stood shivering, naked, in the cold, soldiers
3
scrambled and folded the clothing into neat piles -- to be carted
off as booty for the fuehrer.
That done, marksmen murdered their prey, letting them tumble
two days
into a huge deep pit. For 36 hours, rifle reports and #MA Stet
quiet
human cries shattered the calm along the ravine at Babi Yar
Nazis tried to drown out the horror by playing dance music over
loud-
public speakers. Despite this macabre ruse the screams made
their way into the ears and minds and hearts of townspeople.
When the first round of shooting stopped, more than 33, 000 bodiespation
lay X in the pit at Babi Yar. Within the next 18 months, nearly
XX
Atthe endof 778 days of Nazi
Rabbi
liev , Neraine had become a mass for morethan more 100,000.
Cooper
100 000 innocents perished here Many more committed suicide,
miz
rather than facing such a humiliating death.
At the same time, a few people managed to escape. Yelena
Yefimovna Borodyansky-Knysh leaped into the pit with her young
jumped
daughter, shielding her child with her body. As bloody day
she was
turned into a dead silent night, she managed to work her way
in the pit
around
through the piled up bodies bodies and slip into the woods
crawled over the ravines
midnight.
beyond. Naked scared, the two managed stumbled over roots,
until
a
waded through a gamut of waving branches e Eventually they found
liveding Dasement food &
freedom -- and like the few other survivors, lived to tell of
foraged
Babi Yar.
my Comis.
While some in Kiev assisted the murders, others gave shelter
to Jews, Gypsies, party members and other targets of the
genocide. They gave shelter at the risk of death. They gave
food and clothing at the risk of death. They gave the gift of
start killing 9/29/41
holo. 1938. beganin
axns were old
axns
happened at Var
Babyar a
life at a time when no one knew of holocaust, no one knew
because in many ways the holocaust really began at Babi Yar.
Abraham Lincoln once said, "We cannot escape history."
Mikhail Gorbachev more recently observed that we need truthful
historical documents "not to settle political scores, or cause
suffering, but to render due tribute to everything that was
heroic in the past and to learn lessons from mistakes and
miscalculations."
Today we stand at Babi Yar, and marvel at past barbarity and
heroism. History this stark and stirring inspires us to make
solemn vows.
We VOW that this sort of murder will never happen again.
Never happen again.
We VOW never to let the forces of bigotry and hatred assert
themselves without opposition or qualification.
We vow to encourage virtue in ourselves and our neighbors;
to encourage productivity and creativity in ourselves and our
neighbors; to encourage friendship, cooperation and brotherhood
in ourselves and our neighbors.
We VOW to ensure a future dedicated to freedom and
individual liberty, rather than to mob violence and tyranny.
And we VOW that whenever our devotion to principle wanes, we
will think of this place, of its haunting reminder of what can
happen when men and women surrender their senses to blind
passions.
the Jews were promised
resettlement -tat's
why they there.
5
Yevgeny
In closing let me quote the poet Yevgenni Yevtushenko, whose
poem about Babi Yar helped restore remembrance of this place, and
of its history. He wrote:
"On Babi Yar weeds rustle; the tall trees
has
Like judges loom and threaten
polus
All screams in silence; I take off my cap
And feel that I am slowly turning gray.
And I too have become a soundless cry
Over the thousands that lie buried here.
maybe
I am each old man slaughtered, each child shot.
None of me will forget. "
just
srays
No, none of me will forget. None of us will ever forget.
For Babi Yar has burned its own lessons into our hearts and souls
-- and the silenced cries now inspire us not merely to avoid
repeating this horror, but to build a world in which we cast
aside prejudice and let people make the best of their own gifts,
their own genius.
The Holocaust occurred because good men and women averted
their eyes from unprecedented evil, and tried to believe that it
wasn't taking place. The Nazis fell, however, because good men
and women eventually opened their eyes / summoned their courage
and faith / and fought for democracy, liberty, decency and
justice.
6
This grim, stirring memorial proves that eventually, the
forces of good and of truth will triumph. No matter how bleak
our lives may seem, this fact always should comfort us -- and
also forge in our hearts a determination to fight for goodness
now, to avoid having to suffer again through a horror like the
one that befell nearly 100,000 people at this ravine -- at Babi
Yar.
Thank you. May God bless you.
#
#
#
#
Please use his numbers- -
They are The most reliable.
V
O
L
THE U
DESTRUCTION
M
OF THE
E
EUROPEAN
O
JEWS
REVISED AND DEFINITIVE EDITION
N
RAUL HILBERG E
HOLMES & MEIER
NEW YORK LONDON
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST
MEMORIAL MUSEUM
LIBRARY
Ref
D
80
J4
H5
1985
vol. 1
Published in the United States of America 1985 by
Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc.
VOLUME ONE
30 Irving Place
New York, N.Y. 10003
PREFACE ix
Great Britain:
Holmes & Meier Publishers, Ltd.
CHAPTER ONE 3
Unit 5 Greenwich Industrial Estate
PRECEDENTS
345 Woolwich Road Charlton, London SE7
CHAPTER TWO 29
ANTECEDENTS
Copyright © 1985 by Raul Hilberg
All rights reserved
CHAPTER THREE
THE STRUCTURE OF DES
Book design by Stephanie Barton
CHAPTER FOUR
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
DEFINITION BY DECREE
Hilberg, Raul, 1926-
The destruction of the European Jews.
CHAPTER FIVE {
EXPROPRIATION
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Dismissals 83
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) 2. Germany-
Aryanizations 94
Politics and government-1933-1945. I. Title.
Property Taxes 134
D810.J4H5 1985
940.53'15'03924
83-18369
Blocked Money 139
ISBN 0-8419-0832-X (set)
Forced Labor and Wage Regulations
Special Income Taxes 148
Manufactured in the United States of America
Starvation Measures 149
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
THE FIRST SWEEP
1941, an incomplete total of 45,000 victims. Einsatzgruppe C reported
HSSPf Mitte (Center):
on November 3, 1941, that it had shot 75,000 Jews.23 Einsatzgruppe D
OGruf. von dem Bach-Zelewski
reported on December 12, 1941, the killing of 55,000 people.
HSSPf Süd (South):
Although over a million Jews had fled and additional hundreds of
OGruf. Jeckeln (Prützmann)
thousands had been killed, it became apparent that many Jewish com-
Each Higher SS and Police Leader was in charge of a regiment of Order
munities had hardly been touched. They had been bypassed in the
Police and some Waffen-SS units.28 These forces helped out con-
hurried advance. To strike at these Jews while they were still stunned
siderably.
and helpless, a second wave of mobile killing units moved up quickly
In the northern sector the Higher SS and Police Leader (Prütz-
behind the Einsatzgruppen.
mann), assisted by twenty-one men of Einsatzkommando 2 (Ein-
From Tilsit, in East Prussia, the local Gestapo sent a Kommando
satzgruppe A), killed 10,600 people in Riga. In the center the Order
into Lithuania. These Gestapo men shot thousands of Jews on the
Police of Higher SS and Police Leader von dem Bach helped kill 2,278
other side of the Memel River.25 In Kraków the Befehlshaber der
Jews in Minsk³⁰ and 3,726 in Mogilev.31 (The beneficiary of this coopera-
Sicherheitspolizei und des SD (BdS) of the Generalgouvernement, SS-
tion was Einsatzgruppe B.) In the south Higher SS and Police Leader
Oberführer Schöngarth, organized three small Kommandos. In the
Jeckeln was especially active. When Einsatzkommando 4a (Ein-
middle of July these Kommandos moved into the eastern Polish areas
satzgruppe C) moved into Kiev, two detachments of Order Police Regi-
and, with headquarters in Lwów, Brest-Litovsk, and Białystok, re-
ment South helped kill over 33,000 Jews.³ The role of the regiment in
spectively, killed tens of thousands of Jews. In addition to the Tilsit
the Kiev massacre was so conspicuous that Einsatzkommando 4a
Gestapo and the Generalgouvernement Kommandos, improvised kill-
felt obliged to report that, apart from the Kiev action, it had killed
ing units were thrown into action by the Higher SS and Police Leaders.
14,000 Jews "without any outside help [ohne jede fremde Hilfe
In the newly occupied Soviet territories, Himmler had installed three
erledigt]."³³
of these regional commanders:
But Jeckeln did not confine himself to helping the Einsatzgruppen.
HSSPf Nord (North):
His mobile killing units were responsible for some of the greatest mas-
OGruf. Prützmann (Jeckeln)
sacres in the Ukraine. Thus when Feldmarschall Reichenau, com-
22. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 133 (60 copies), November 14,
mander of the Sixth Army, ordered the 1st SS Brigade to destroy
1941, NO-2825.
remnants of the Soviet 124th Division, partisans, and "supporters of
23. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 128 (55 copies), November 3,
the Bolshevik system" in his rear, Jeckeln led the brigade on a three-
1941, NO-3157. In addition, the Einsatzgruppe had shot 5,000 non-Jews.
day rampage, killing 73 Red Army men, 165 Communist party func-
24. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 145 (65 copies), December 12,
tionaries, and 1,658 Jews.³⁴ A few weeks later, the same brigade shot
1941, NO-2828.
25. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 19 (32 copies), July 11, 1941,
300 Jewish men and 139 Jewish women in Starokonstantinov "as a
NO-2934. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 26, July 18, 1941, NO-2941. The
Stahlecker mentions that the Tilsit unit had killed 5,500 persons. Stahlecker Report to
October 15, 1941, L-180.
28. Report by Major Schmidt von Altenstadt, May 19, 1941, NOKW-486.
26. Order by Commander, Rear Army Group Area South, Ic (signed von Roques),
29. RSHA, IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 156, January 16, 1942, NO-
July 14, 1941, NOKW-2597. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 43 (47
3405. The action took place on November 30, 1941.
copies), August 5, 1941, NO-2949. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 56 (48
30. RSHA, IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 92, September 23, 1941, NO-
copies), August 18, 1941, NO-2848. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 58,
3143. The army's Feldgendarmerie also participated in this action.
August 29, 1941, NO-2846. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 66, August 28,
31. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 133 (60 copies), November 14,
1941, NO-2839. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 67, August 29, 1941, NO-
1941, NO-2825.
2837. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 78 (48 copies), September 9, 1941,
32. RSHA, IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 101 (48 copies), October 2,
NO-2851. These reports, which do not cover all the operations of the three Kommandos,
1941, NO-3137.
mention 17,887 victims.
33. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 111 (50 copies), October 12,
27. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 129 (55 copies), November 4,
1941, NO-3155. Einsatzkommando 4a had a total of 51,000 victims by that time.
1941, NO-3159. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 141 (66 copies), Decem-
34. OGruf. Jeckeln to 6th Army, copies to Himmler, Army Group Rear Area South
ber 3, 1941, NO-4425. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 149 (65 copies),
(General von Roques), Commander of 6th Army Rear Area (Generalleutnant von Putt-
December 22, 1941, NO-2833.
kammer), and Chief of Order Police Daluege, August 1, 1941, NOKW-1165.
296
297
MOBILE KILLING OPERATIONS
THE FIRST SWEEP
reprisal measure for the uncooperative attitude of the Jews working for
MAP 2
the Wehrmacht.³
POSITIONS OF THE MOBILE KILLING UNITS
JULY 1941
Next Jeckeln struck at Kamenets-Podolsky, shooting there a total
of 23,600 Jews.³⁶ Another action followed in Berdichev, where Jeckeln
Baltic Sea
Leningrad
killed 1,303 Jews, "among them 875 Jewesses over twelve years of
Tallinn
Krasnogvardeisk
age. In Dnepropetrovsk, where Jeckeln slaughtered 15,000 Jews, the
local army command reported that to its regret it had not received prior
1a
A
notification of the action, with the result that its preparations to create
Staraya Russa
a ghetto in the city, and its regulation (already issued) to exact a "con-
2
Pskov
Riga
tribution" from the Jews for the benefit of the municipality, had come
Kalinin
o
Siauliai
1b
to naught.³⁸ Yet another massacre took place in Rovno, where the toll
Sta
O
Rzhev
o
Daugavpils
was also 15,000.39 In its report about Rovno, Einsatzgruppe C stated
3
Moscow
7a
o
that, whereas the action had been organized by the Higher SS and
Tilsit
9
Vitebsk
Vyazma
Kaunas
7b
Maloyaroslavets
Police Leader and had been carried out by the Order Police, a detach-
Vilna
B
ment of Einsatzkommando 5 had participated to a significant extent in
Orsha
Smolensk
BdS
Minsk
O
Tula
the shooting (an der Durchführung massgeblich beteiligt).
8
Mogilev
Bialystok
Baranowicze
Although the total number of Jews shot by the Higher SS and
Bobruysk
o
Bryansk
BdS
Slutsk
Police Leaders cannot be stated exactly, we know that the figure is
o
Orel
Warsaw
Brest-Litovsk
Gomel'
high. Thus in the single month of August the Higher SS and Police
O
o
Pinsk
C
Kursk
Leader South alone killed 44,125 persons, "mostly Jews."
O
Voronezh
Lublin
Chernigov
The mobile killing strategy was an attempt to trap the Jews in a
4a
o
5
o
Rovno
wave of Einsatzgruppen, immediately followed up by a support wave
6
BdS
Kiev
of Gestapo men from Tilsit, Einsatzkommandos from the General-
4b
Lwów
Zhitomir
Kharkov
gouvernement, and formations of the Higher SS and Police Leaders.
Tarnopol
Poltava
O
Vinnitsa
Cherkassy
Together, these units killed about five hundred thousand Jews in five
10b
o
O
O
Kremenchug
months. (The locations of the mobile killing units in July and Novem-
Hotin
Kamenets-Podolsky
o
Dnepropetrovsk
ber 1941 are shown on Maps 2 & 3.42)
Cernauti
10a
o
Stalino
Balti
Krivoi Rogo
Zaporozhe
D
11a
Taganrog
35. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 59 (48 copies), August 21, 1941,
Piatra
Nikolaev
Mariupol'
lasi
Chisinau
Rostov
NO-2847. For other killings by the 1st SS Brigade, see its activity reports for July-
Kherson
Odessa
September 1941, compiled by Europa Verlag, Unsere Ehre heisst Treue (Vienna-
Skadovsk
o
Frankfurt-Zurich, 1965).
Sea of Azov
36. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 80 (48 copies), September 11,
1941, NO-3154.
Bucharest
Simferopol
37. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 88 (48 copies), September 19,
Sevastopol'
1941, NO-3149.
Yalta
Black Sea
38. Report by Feldkommandantur 240/VII for period of September 15, 1941, to
October 15, 1941, Yad Vashem document 0-53/6. Sonderkommando 4a reported 10,000
Sta
Gestapo Tilsit
0
Units of BdS
killed in the city by Jeckeln on October 13, 1941. See RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report
50
100
200
300
400
BdS
Generalgouvernement
USSR No. 135 (60 copies), November 19, 1941, NO-2832.
Miles
June 22 starting line
39. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 143 (65 copies), December 8,
1941, NO-2827. The action took place on November 7-8, 1941.
COOPERATION WITH THE MOBILE KILLING UNITS
40. Ibid.
41. RSHA IV-A-1, Operational Report USSR No. 94 (48 copies), September 25,
Movement was the basic problem of the mobile killing units during the
1941, NO-3146.
first sweep. Once the killing units had arrived at a desired spot, how-
42. Locations are cited in almost every RSHA IV-A-1 operational report.
ever, they had to deal with a host of problems. The success of the
298
299
ENCYCLOPEDIA
of the
HOLOCAUST
Israel Gutman, Editor in Chief
Volume 1
Yad Vashem
The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes'
Remembrance Authority
Jerusalem
Sifriat Poalim Publishing House
Tel Aviv
MACMILLAN PUBLISHING COMPANY
NEW YORK
Collier Macmillan Publishers
LONDON
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST
MEMORIAL MUSEUM
Copyright © 1990 by Macmillan Publishing Company
A Division of Macmillan, Inc.
Foreword copyright © 1990 by Elirion Associates
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or
mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any
information storage and retrieval system, without
permission in writing from the Publisher.
FOREWO]
Macmillan Publishing Company
866 Third Avenue
New York, New York 10022
PREFACE
Collier Macmillan Canada, Inc.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
INTRODU
Printed in the United States of America
printing number
ACKNOW]
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
ALPHABE'
Encylopedia of the Holocaust / Israel Gutman, editor in chief.
DIRECTOR
p.
cm.
Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-02-896090-4 (set)
ENCYCLO]
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)-Dictionaries. I. Gutman,
Israel.
GLOSSAR'
D804.3.E53
1990
89-13466
940.53'18'-03-dc20
CIP
CHRONOL
Acknowledgments of sources
APPENDIX
and permissions to use previously published materials
Major Jewi:
are made in Acknowledgments, page xix.
Structure O.
Trials of W.
Estimated J
INDEX
BLOBEL, PAUL
219
route. On February 2, the survivors reached
the GROSS-ROSEN camp, where they remained
for five days before being moved to BUCHEN-
WALD. Several dozen prisoners who tried to
hide in Blechhammer during the evacuation
were discovered and killed on the spot.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Brown, J. In Durance Vile. London, 1981.
Piper, F. "Das Nebenlager Blechhammer." Hefte
von Auschwitz 10 (1967): 19-40.
SHMUEL KRAKOWSKI
BLITZKRIEG (lit., "lightning war"), theory of
the conduct of war, developed by the German
armed forces in World War II, aimed at
winning complete victory in as short a time as
possible, measured in days and weeks rather
The Blechhammer concentration camp.
than months and years. The term was first
used in connection with the German attack on
Poland in 1939. In the blitzkrieg, tanks and
Union (Operation "Barbarossa"), its failure
armored and other motorized vehicles for
there in late 1941 was the turning point of
transporting troops were concentrated, and
World War II and heralded the doom of the
massive attacks by dive-bombers and self-
Third Reich. The British also used the term
propelled artillery were directed at selected
"blitz" for the German terror air attacks on
enemy front-line positions. Dive-bombers also
British cities from September 1940 to May
attacked vital enemy localities in the rear.
1941.
These actions were calculated to create psy-
chological shock and resultant disorganiza-
BIBLIOGRAPHY
tion in the enemy forces and to prevent any
concerted reaction by the enemy high com-
Guderian, H. Achtung Panzer. Stuttgart, 1937.
mand.
Liddell Hart, B.H. Strategy: The Indirect Approach.
New York, 1967.
The tactics of blitzkrieg were evolved by the
Miksche, F. O. Blitzkrieg. London, 1941.
German general Heinz Guderian (who drew
most of his ideas from the writings of the
JEHUDA L. WALLACH
British military theorists Basil Henry Lid-
dell Hart and John Frederick Charles Fuller).
They consisted of a splitting thrust by ar-
mored columns on a narrow front and com-
BLOBEL KOMMANDO. See Aktion 1005.
plete disruption of the main enemy position
at the point of attack, followed by wide-
sweeping encirclement movements of fast-
BLOBEL, PAUL (1894-1951), SS officer. Born
moving armored spearheads, thus creating
into a Protestant family, Blobel attended a
large caldrons of entrapped and immobilized
vocational school, where he learned construc-
enemy forces.
tion and carpentry. In World War I he volun-
The blitzkrieg method was successfully ap-
teered for the army and served in the engi-
plied by the German Wehrmacht in the cam-
neering corps. After the war he resumed his
paigns against Poland, France, Denmark, Nor-
studies, became an architect, and settled in
way, Yugoslavia, and Greece. However, after
Solingen. In the depression he lost his job and
initial successes in the attack on the Soviet
could not find any other employment. He
220
BLOBEL, PAUL
Aktion in that area took place in KHARKOV,
where his unit murdered 21,685 Jews in
Drobitski Yar at the end of December 1941.
On January 13, 1942, Blobel was released
from his post for reasons of health-he suf-
fered from a liver ailment that was aggra-
vated by his excessive drinking. When he
recovered he was called to the REICHSSICHER-
HEITSHAUPTAMT (Reich Security Main Office;
RSHA) and put in charge of AKTION 1005, an
operation whose goal was to obliterate the
traces of the mass murders committed by the
Germans. Blobel established his headquarters
in Lódź; his direct superior was the Gestapo
chief, Heinrich MÜLLER, in Berlin.
Until the fall of 1943, the method Blobel
used was to cremate the bodies on huge pyres.
The first experiments to employ this method
were carried out in CHELMNO. The perma-
nent camps, such as AUSCHWITZ, were later
equipped with crematoria. In the fall of 1943
BLOBEL, Paul
Blobel set up special units, the Sonderkom-
mandos 1005, for the specific task of disin-
terring and cremating the bodies from the
Paul Blobel, SS-Standartenführer; member of the
mass graves in the German-occupied parts of
SD; commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe C's
the Soviet Union. These units were manned by
Sonderkommando 4a. [National Archives]
Jewish and other prisoners who were killed
when their work in a given place was done.
joined the Nazi party in October 1931, and in
Some of these prisoners, especially the Jews
January 1932 enlisted in the SS. In March 1933
among them, succeeded in escaping, notably
he entered service with the Staatspolizei
in Babi Yar, JANÓWSKA, the NINTH FORT
(Stapo) in Düsseldorf, and on June 1, 1934, he
in Kovno, PONARY, and Grabowka, near
transferred to the SD (Sicherheitsdienst; Secu-
Białystok. At the end of October 1944, when
rity Service) with the rank of Untersturm-
their tasks were completed, the German per-
führer and was appointed SD officer for the
sonnel who had served in the Sonderkomman-
Düsseldorf area. He advanced rapidly in the
dos 1005-men of the SD, Sicherheitspolizei
SS hierarchy and became a Standartenführer
(Security Police), and ORDNUNGSPOLIZEI (Ger-
on January 30, 1941.
man regular police)-all joined Einsatz-
At the beginning of June 1942, Blobel was
gruppe "Iltis," a new unit commanded by
summoned to Pretzsch, a town on the Elbe
Blobel. It was posted to Carinthia, on the
northeast of Leipzig, where candidates for ser-
Austro-Yugoslav border, to take part in fight-
vice in the EINSATZGRUPPEN were being as-
ing against the Yugoslav PARTISANS.
sembled to be deployed in German-occupied
Blobel was arrested after the war and was
territory in the Soviet Union. Blobel was
one of the principal defendants in The Einsatz-
appointed commanding officer of Sonder-
gruppen Case (Trial 9) at the SUBSEQUENT
kommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C, which was
NUREMBERG PROCEEDINGS. He was sentenced
assigned to the Ukraine. At the head of this
to death in 1948 and hanged at the Landsberg
unit Blobel went from Sokal to Kiev by way of
prison in Bavaria on June 8, 1951.
Volhynia, engaging in Aktionen along the
route, in LUTSK, Dubno, ZHITOMIR, BERDICHEV,
BIBLIOGRAPHY
and other places. When Kiev fell, he entered
the city and with his unit organized and
Tenenbaum, J. "The Einsatzgruppen." Jewish So-
carried out the murder of Kiev's Jews at BABI
cial Studies 17/1 (1955): 43-64.
YAR, on September 29 and 30, 1941. His last
SHMUEL SPECTOR
THE
EINSATZGRUPPEN
REPORTS
Selections from the Dispatches
of the Nazi Death Squads'
Campaign Against the Jews
July 1941 - January 1943
Edited by
Yitzhak Arad
Shmuel Krakowski
Shmuel Spector
3
HOLOCAUST LIBRARY
NEW YORK, NEW YORK
© 1989 Yad Vashem Martyrs' Remembrance Authority
Translated by Stella Schossberger
D
757.855
E567
1989
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
The Einsatzgruppen reports
1. Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) - Sources. I. Arad, Yitzhak,
1926-
II. Krakowski, Shmuel. III. Spector, Shmuel.
IV. Germany. Reichsfuhrer-SS.
D804.3.E46 1989 940.53'18
87-81220
ISBN: 0-89604-057-7 (Cloth)
ISBN: 0-89604-058-5 (Paperback)
Library of Congress Catalogue Card Number 87-81220
THE EINSATZGRUPPEN REPORTS is published by Holocaust Library
in cooperation with Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel.
Printed in the United States of America
The Chief of the Security Police
Berlin,
The Chief of the Security Police
Berlin,
and Security Service
October 5, 1941
and Security Service
October 7, 1941
48 copies
48 copies
(36th copy)
(36th copy)
Operational Situation Report USSR No. 104
Operational Situation Report USSR No. 106
Einsatzkommando D
Einsatzgruppe B
Location: Smolensk
Location: Nikolayev
The attitude of the [ethnic] Germans of Beresany toward the Jews,
Mood and general conduct of the population
for instance, is mostly indifferent. In this matter it is characteristic
that the ethnic Germans did not take any measures against the re-
maining Jews. After the German troops marched in, they declared
It can be observed that, just as before, the population in the area
that Jews were harmless and not dangerous.
of our activities abstains from any self-defense action against the
Jews. True, the population reports uniformly about the Jewish terror
against them during Soviet rule. They also complain to the German
The Jews had little influence in the village councils. Only in some
offices about new attacks from the side of the Jews (like unauthorized
cases, like, for example, in Rohrbach,¹ where a Jew had been the
return from the ghetto to their previous homes, or hostile remarks
chairman of a collective farm, he influenced the life in the village,
against the Germans made by the Jews). However, in spite of our en-
[in particular] education. A Jewish activist was director of the Ukrain-
ergetic attempts, they are not ready for any action against the Jews.
ian school in Waterloo. In all the other settlements, Jews were merely
The decisive reason here seems to be the fear of Jewish revenge in
grocers and tradesmen and had no political power. According to the
case of a return of the Reds. Even very active elements who help us
information provided by the ethnic Germans, the Jews were inform-
find Jewish Communists and members of the intelligentsia and show
ants of the NKVD.
themselves very efficient in their cooperation prefer to remain invis-
ible and anonymous in the decisive moments.
Reports on a stable, good mood in the population can be found only
in those areas where economic life is somewhat normal, as, for in-
stance, in the town Klintsy that has not been destroyed at all; also in
1. The German invaders promoted a policy of German colonization by means of settling
Vitebsk.
ethnic Germans in the Soviet Union. The (new) settlements were given German and non-
Slavic names.
-170-
-171-
Einsatzgruppe C
administration. Its main task was, for the time being, the supplying
Location: Kiev
of the most vital food. This economic staff supplied the required
transportation and, thus, the most urgent needs could be met by
I. Kiev
bringing in supplies from the nearby collective farms.
II. Executions and other measures
As a result of [war] destruction, especially of houses, and the forced
The population was extremely infuriated against the Jews because
order to evacuate endangered streets, about 23,000 persons became
of their preferential economical status under Soviet rule. It could also
homeless and were forced to spend the first days of the occupation
be proved that the Jews had participated in arson. The population ex-
in the open. They accepted this inconvenience quietly and did not
pected adequate reprisals from the Germans. For this purpose, in
cause panic.
agreement with the city military command, all the Jews of Kiev were
Meanwhile, locked and empty apartments, insofar as they had not
ordered to appear at a certain place on Monday, September 29, by
been burned and damaged, were put at the disposal of the popula-
6 o'clock. This order was publicized by posters all over the town by
tion. A corresponding number of apartments have also become avail-
members of the newly organized Ukrainian militia. At the same time,
able through the liquidation, thus far around 36,000 Jews on Septem-
oral information was passed that all the Jews of Kiev would be moved
ber 29 and 30, 1941. The housing of the homeless is assured and has
to another place. In cooperation with the HQ of EGC and two
also been taken care of in the meantime.
Kommandos of the police regiment South, Sonderkommando 4a ex-
The population of Kiev before the start of the war numbered
ecuted 33,771 Jews on September 29 and 30.¹ Gold and valuables,
around 850,000. For the time being, no exact indication concerning
linen, and clothing were secured. Part of it was given to the NSV
its national composition can be given. The number of Jews is said to
(National-Sozialistische Versorgung = Nazi Welfare) for the ethnic
have been about 300,000. The total number of ethnic Germans living
Germans, and part to the appointed city administration for distribu-
in Kiev is presently being counted by a Kommando. The final results
tion among the needy population. The action was carried out smooth-
will be available in ten days. The temporary appointed city admin-
ly and no incidents occurred. The population agreed with the plan
istration has begun immediately to register all the inhabitants of Kiev.
to move the Jews to another place. That they were actually liquidated
As a first measure, all males aged 15-60 must report.
has hardly been made known. However, according to the experience
Except for a small part, the non-Jewish population, as far as can
gained so far, this would not meet with any opposition. The army has
now be established, seems to welcome the German Army, or at least
also approved the measures taken. The Jews that have not yet been
to display loyal behavior. During the first days of the occupation, se-
caught or who will return will be treated accordingly. At the same
rious unrest could be detected within the population because of ru-
time, a number of NKVD men and commissars were arrested and fin-
mors that the German Army was leaving the city. These rumors were
ished off.
successfully squelched with proper official announcements. The pop-
The Bandera members lost power with the arrests made by the
ulation cooperates very readily by furnishing information on explo-
Kommandos. Their activity was restricted to the distribution of leaf-
sives or secret membership in the NKVD, the Party and the Red
lets and posters. Three arrests were made; more are pending.
Army. Unlike the first days, one could note that this information was
The HQ of EGC as well as Sonderkommando 4a and
90% correct. The reason for this is that the city inhabitants are less
Einsatzkommando 5, both stationed in Kiev, have made connections
frightened than is the rural population, since they do not fear the pos-
with the proper offices. Constant cooperation with these offices was
sibility of a return of the Bolsheviks. The supply situation in Kiev is
achieved, and imminent problems are discussed daily. Because of the
extremely poor. There are no food stocks and these must be provided.
A staff in charge of economic affairs was created by the appointed city
1. This took place in the ravine of Babi Yar outside Kiev.
-172-
-173-
vast amounts of information, each time [with each action] detailed
The Chief of the Security Police
Berlin,
operation reports must be submitted about the activity of the
and Security Service
October 8, 1941
Einsatzkommandos.
50 copies
III. Zhitomir, actions against the Jews
(36th copy)
The Militia headquarters, according to a suggestion of
Sonderkommando 4a, arranged a temporary, local concentration of
the Jews in Zhitomir. This resulted in a quieter atmosphere, for ex-
ample, in the markets, etc. At the same time, obstinate rumors di-
minished and it seemed that together with the concentration of the
Jews, the Communists, too, lost much ground. However, it became
obvious after a few days that concentration of the Jews without build-
ing a ghetto did not suffice, and that the old difficulties emerged again
Operational Situation Report USSR No. 107
after a short while. Complaints about the impertinence of the Jews
in their various places of work stemmed from several quarters. It was
noted that strong propaganda activity among the Ukrainians, claim-
ing that the Red Army would return very soon into the areas that had
been taken away from them, had their origin in the Jewish quarter.
Einsatzgruppe B
The local militia was shot at, at night, and even in daytime from an
Location: Smolensk
ambush. It was also established that Jews exchanged their belongings
for money in order to move into the Western Ukraine where a civil
administration already exists.
Oral Bolshevik-oriented propaganda continues as before. It is ob-
All these phenomena could be observed. However, it was possible
viously systematically carried out by enemy agents and partisans as
to get hold of the involved Jews only in the rarest cases, as they had
well as by the Jewish population. Together with the continually grow-
sufficient opportunities to evade arrest. Therefore, a conference was
ing rumors and, due to the lack of effective counter-propaganda, this
called together with military H.Q. on September 10, 1941. The re-
oral propaganda has the effects desired by the Bolsheviks.
sulting decision was the final and radical liquidation of the Jews of
Einsatzgruppe D
Zhitomir, since all the warnings [threats] and special measures [pun-
Location: Nikolayev
ishments] had not led to any perceptible change.
A small Vorkommando had entered Kherson on August 20, 1941,
On September 19, 1941, from 4 'clock [a.m.], the Jewish quarter
together with the army, and reported that the town was free of en-
was emptied after having been surrounded and closed the previous
emies. Consequently, a Kommando consisting of two officers and 13
evening by 60 members of the Ukrainian militia. The transport [de-
portation] was accomplished in 12 trucks, part of which had been sup-
men was sent to Kherson on August 22, 1941, in order to accomplish
plied by military headquarters and part by the city administration of
the task of Sonderkommando 11a. After the first two days, initial steps
Zhitomir. After the transport had been carried out and the necessary
were taken towards the solution of the Jewish question, the protec-
preparations made with the help of 150 prisoners, 3,145 Jews were
tion of the ethnic Germans, and the fight against Bolshevism. Then,
registered and shot.
a change occurred in the situation in this town of some 100,000 in-
About 25-30 tons of linen, clothing, shoes, dishes, etc. that had
habitants. Artillery fire began on August 24, 1941, at about 15
been confiscated in the course of the action were handed over to the
o'clock, and lasted, with some interruptions, until September 6,
officials of the NSV in Zhitomir for distribution. Valuables and money
1941, reaching on some days extraordinary force. Because of that sit-
were conveyed to the Sonderkommando 4a.
uation, a number of German officers left Kherson again.
-174-
-175-
a
VOLUME 29
Wilmot Proviso to Zygote
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA
AMERICANA
INTERNATIONAL EDITION
COMPLETE IN THIRTY VOLUMES
FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1829
GROLIER INCORPORATED
International Headquarters: Danbury, Connecticut 06816
676
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY-YEW
fracting telescope, completed in 1897, with an
YEVTUSHENKO, yef-ta-sheng'kō Yevgeni Aleks-
brevifolia, in most places a ratl
aperture of 40 inches and a focal length of 62
androvich (1933- ), Russian poet, known for
sometimes reaching a height
feet; this is the world's largest refractor. In addi-
his nonconformist works attacking prejudices and
the South, T. floridana.
abuses in Soviet society. He was born in Zima,
The tough, resilient wood
tion, there are two reflecting telescopes with
apertures of 24 inches, and a number of small
USSR, on July 18, 1933. Shortly after his birth
valued for bows wherever it Wi
instruments designed especially for photographic
his family moved to Moscow, but during World
bows of the English were m:
and spectroscopic studies of such atmospheric
War II he was evacuated to Zima, where he
possible, and the Scottish bota
phenomena as the aurora borealis. Since 1932 the
began to write before his return to Moscow in
las (1798-1834), on an early
University of Chicago has cooperated with the
1944. Yevtushenko's first poem was published
tion in America, reported that
University of Texas in the operation of the latter's
in 1949, and his first volume of poetry, The
Columbia River favored the \
McDonald Observatory at Fort Davis, Texas.
Prospectors of the Future, appeared in 1952. He
yew for their bows. With the
Observational programs conducted with the
gained national recognition with his second book.
interest in archery, yew wood i.
telescopes at the Yerkes Observatory and with
Third Snow (1955), which was followed by a
purpose and is sometimes use
the 36-inch and 82-inch reflecting telescopes at
long autobiographical poem called Zima Station
paddles and in cabinetwork a
the McDonald Observatory make use of a variety
(1956).
ever, since the trees usually
The rebellious attitudes reflected in Yevtu-
through forests of other type
of photographic, photometric, and spectroscopic
shenko's poetry, although they provoked attacks
probably always be in limited
techniques. These studies, largely astrophysical,
include investigations of the physical properties of
by more orthodox Soviet writers and critics, won
Yews have traditionally bee
stars observed singly and in clusters, the structure
him great popularity, and his poems were soon
of long life and even immorta
translated into many languages. The first En-
were not available on Palm Su
of our galaxy, and the structure and dynamics of
other galaxies. There are other programs for the
glish translation of Yevtushenko's works was pub-
yew was sometimes substituted.
lished in 1962 as Selected Poems. It included
and cemeteries usually had a ye
observation of double stars, planets, comets, aster-
oids, and the aurora. The Yerkes Observatory is
Babi Yar, a bitter indictment of Soviet unconcern
them, and some of these trees
also a leading center for theoretical work in astro-
over the Nazi massacre of the Jews of Kiev.
age. Early poems on death freq
In 1960, Yevtushenko began a series of trips
"sad ewe. Yews are reputed t
physics.
PETER O. VANDERVOORT
abroad, visiting Africa, Europe, and the United
poisonous in all their parts, oft
The University of Chicago
States. In 1963 he published, in France, his
poisonous property (due to an
Precocious Autobiography. Its somewhat unfavor-
taxine) was so well known th
YESHIVA UNIVERSITY, ye-shē've, is a private
able portrayal of conditions in the USSR pre-
are part of the witches' brew in
liberal arts institution in New York City, combin-
vented its publication there and led to an official
BETTY V
ing the functions of the traditional Jewish yeshiva
rebuke by Premier Khrushchev. In 1965 the poet
-for the study of the sources of Hebrew culture-
published The Power Station of Bratsk, a senes
YEZD, yezd, or YAZD, yäzd, to
and a modern university. It began in 1886 as the
of poems concerned with Russian history. Stolen
the administrative district of Y
Yeshiva Eitz Chaim, a Jewish elementary school
Apples, a collection of poems with English and
Ostan (Isfahan and Yezd), in tl
adaptations by James Dickey, John Updike, Wild
the country, about 410 miles sout
on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. The
Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary was
others, appeared in 1971. His first novel,
lies at an altitude of about 4,(
Berries, was published in English in 1984.
alley bordered by high ranges
founded there 10 years later. In 1915 the two
incient Iranian word for "Goc
schools merged under the name of the seminary.
Bernard Revel was the first president and held
YEW, yoo, the common name for any of the
tuated on a major highway lead
this office until his death in 1940. Under his
species of Taxus, a genus of evergreen shrubs and
the extreme southeast of Iran
leadership, in 1928, Yeshiva College was added
in the family Taxaceae. Although the leaves
railway that parallels the hig
trees, needlelike, as in many conifers, and resemble their
irport is adjacent.
-the first liberal arts college in America under
are of the species of firs and hemlocks in
Yezd is the agricultural cent
Jewish auspices-and in 1929 the institution
moved to its present main center in the Wash-
some flattened two-ranked effect, the yews are not true nd
The which was formerly a separate 1
ington Heights section of Manhattan. Samuel
conifers since their fruits (arils) are bright main
mineral resources remain unexpl
district is generally far fro
Belkin was appointed president in 1943. The in-
and berrylike. Although dioecious
stitution achieved university status in 1945. A
and female flowers on
scanty that all crops must be
milestone in its subsequent history was the open-
sometimes have both sexes on
from this purpose is brought in un
ing (1955) of Albert Einstein College of
of the same plant.
Yews are particularly valued for their borth all
the snow-capped ranges in
Medicine, in the Bronx, the first such school
cultural possibilities. Varieties most often
There cently, derived from the flov
under Jewish auspices in America.
vated are from the Japanese yew (T. cuspidate
are many orchards in the Si
The main center of the university includes
the men's liberal arts college and teachers insti-
and the hardier English yew (T. baccata United
arpets, silk piece goods, and del
and cotton is also grown. I
tute, the theological seminary, graduate schools
latter States. being The more English popular yew is in found the southern from occurs England in the
Yezd is dominated by the lo
woven on family looms in
of Jewish studies and of science, and a training
to western Asia; the Japanese yew two
Bank the entrance to the 0
institute for cantors. In midtown Manhattan are
the women's liberal arts college and teachers in-
Orient. Horticultural forms
sque. Hundreds of tall win
stitute. The graduate schools of social work and
hybrids, range from low
mble the prevailing breezes int
of humanities and social sciences are in down-
shaped bushes with
minarets and have broug
town Manhattan.
tall, narrowly columnar forms
of the "abode of devotion.
The university confers bachelor's degrees in
Irish Yews are especially produce
yew). they stand clipping well and reason
anian The site is a very ancient on
arts, science, religious education, and Hebrew
times (3d to 7th centurie
literature, as well as master's and doctor's degrees
since dense, dark green For the same especially
conversion of Iran to the M
in various academic and professional areas. It
they have been
a stronghold of the
also fosters a secondary school system known as
in Éngland, for
waned as gardeners and irrig
Its colony of some 9,000
Yeshiva University High Schools, with two units
for boys and two for girls. Special programs and
shapes. adaptability to various soils
Because of their dark
life, moisture and shade, and their considered
the argest in the country. Their
services include a community service division:
elements within high-wall
projects for the study and teaching of disadvan-
from insects and disease, the yews are also nating
Pop. (1976) 135,978.
taged and mentally retarded youth; the Israel
excellent garden subjects. There are often
Institute, with courses stressing the relation be-
horticulturally. species, In eastern North
American but these are not as them
Do: SIDIZE /
tween Israel and the American Jewish community:
and a National Institute of Mental Health project.
T. a shrub with spreading branches; in
canadensis, commonly called the
inly a
developing mental health curriculums for rabbis.
area of Iraq
D810
.J4 J443 Y3
WH
The Holocaust
The Fate of
European Jewry,
1932-1945
LENI YAHIL
Translated from the Hebrew by
Ina Friedman and Haya Galai
New York Oxford
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1990
The Final Solution: The First S
256
Holocaust, 1941-1945
swiftly. The units moved systematically from place to place, assembling the Jews,
ation-the Babi Yar slaughter-was one of
conveying them outside towns and villages, and murdering them beside antitank
all. The Einsatzgruppen units reached the
trenches or pits dug especially for this purpose. The victims were ordered to strip
1941. At this time, Russian sappers set off tw
and to stand in groups by the pit where they were shot by automatic weapons, the
ing the German headquarters and a large p
dead and dying falling into the mass graves. Sometimes the victims were even
were left homeless. In retaliation, the Germa
forced to lie down in the pit in neat lines, head to toe alternately, and there they
of the Jews and called on them to assembl
were executed row by row by what the SS called the sardine method. Finally, the
30,000 Jews who assembled were taken to
pits were covered with earth. Rivers of blood flowed and the earth sometimes
course of two days. According to the Germ
heaved and trembled for days afterward.
It also emphasizes that "thanks to the outs
The Order Police (ORPO) took part in the operations under the command of
Jews believed up to the last moment that
the Higher SS and Police Leaders (HSSPF) and their local collaborators. But, to
homes. The local population-it is further
the surprise even of the SS, the army cooperated of its own volition, and in certain
gratified by it. Only post factum did the tr
areas army units played a very active role in mass murder. According to the pre-
having solved the housing problem by ev:
liminary planning, the local population was expected to collaborate. At first this
ments-that is, by exterminating approxir
method proved successful, but the readiness of the local population did not reach
man occupation, 175,000 Jews had lived i
the dimensions the Germans had anticipated. More successful was the activation
for only part of the Jewish community, wh
of local auxiliary police units under German command. The first wave of murders
and refugees. A large percentage of these J
came to an end around the beginning of winter, and it is estimated that by then
Germans arrived. Most of the victims were
more than seven hundred thousand Jews had been murdered in these actions: at
dren who had been left behind.¹⁵
least four hundred thousand of them in Soviet Russia, close to two hundred thou-
The Soviet evacuation of the Ukrair
sand in the Baltic states, and the remainder in the areas that had belonged to
including Jews, were evacuated with their
Poland before the war."
from Einsatzgruppe D, dated November 1'
For propaganda purposes the Germans constantly claimed that the Jews were
in Dnepropetrovsk, 70,000 fled before the
the main organizers of the partisan movement and hence must be exterminated,
1,000 were shot on the spot.¹⁶
an argument that was first broached by Hitler at the planning session of July 16.
Sometimes, economic considerations
1941. Stalin had just called for partisan activity behind the enemy lines, and Hitler
on December 2, 1941, by the representati
welcomed this statement as providing him with a pretext for German terror in the
ment of the Supreme Command (OK
occupied areas (see chap. 9). In fact, at this time the partisan movement was tiny
Thomas, who headed the department. Th
and unorganized and did not constitute a real threat to the German army. The
mainly urban, the report explained, and
claim that it was being run by the Jews was certainly baseless. In many cases the
of the population of a town. These Jews
mass murders were described as retaliation for the killing of German soldiers sup-
skilled trades, and even provided part of
industries." The murder operations in th
posedly carried out by Jews, the ratio being 1:100.
where else in the Soviet Union, but as
The commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe A, Franz W. Stahlecker, sent a
detailed report on January 31, 1942, about activities in the Baltic countries and
given to the interests of the economy."17
White Russia, covering the period from July 23 to October 15, 1941. According
Marshal Walther von Reichenau, su
to this report the overall number murdered was 135,567. Among them, the known
the southern army corps, was one of the
numbers of Jews killed are 80,311 in Lithuania, 30,025 in Latvia, 474 in Estonia,
supported National Socialism and Hit
and 7,620 in White Russia; to this should be added 5,500 Jews killed in pogroms
issued an order in which he noted tha
and 5,502 killed in the Tilsit (Sovetsk) sector and near the border with East Prus-
soldiers were to conduct themselves. "T
sia. There were undoubtedly also an unknown number of Jews among the 3,387
the Jewish-Bolshevik system is to total
"communists" and 748 mental patients mentioned in the report.¹
extirpate Asiatic influence on European
According to a report submitted by Einsatzgruppe B, 45,467 were killed up to
consequently German soldiers were fa
mid-November 1941, within its area of operation, that is, White Russia. 13 Owing
ventional framework of conduct of wa
to the slower advance of the army in the south, operations began there later.
the need for severe but just atonement
According to a report dated November 3, 1941, there were 80,000 Jews killed in
the customary agrument that all part
the Ukraine, a large proportion of them (namely 34,000) in Kiev. The Kiev Oper-
nized by the Jews, and the soldiers wer
The Final Solution: The First Stage-Einsatzgruppen
257
ation-the Babi Yar slaughter-was one of the bloodiest and most notorious of
all. The Einsatzgruppen units reached the city between September 19 and 25,
1941. At this time, Russian sappers set off two explosions, the second one destroy-
ing the German headquarters and a large part of the city center; 25,000 people
were left homeless. In retaliation, the German authorities demanded resettlement
of the Jews and called on them to assemble on September 29 for transfer. The
30,000 Jews who assembled were taken to the forest and slaughtered over the
course of two days. According to the German report, "there were no incidents."
It also emphasizes that "thanks to the outstandingly efficient organization," the
Jews believed up to the last moment that they were being taken to their new
homes. The local population-it is further reported-believed the story and were
gratified by it. Only post factum did the truth emerge. The Germans boasted of
having solved the housing problem by evacuating a suitable number of apart-
ments-that is, by exterminating approximately 35,000 Jews.¹⁴ Before the Ger-
man occupation, 175,000 Jews had lived in the city; thus the victims accounted
for only part of the Jewish community, which had comprised both local residents
and refugees. A large percentage of these Jews had made their escape before the
Germans arrived. Most of the victims were the old, the sick, and women and chil-
dren who had been left behind.¹⁵
The Soviet evacuation of the Ukraine was more organized and workers,
including Jews, were evacuated with their factories. Thus, for example, a report
from Einsatzgruppe D, dated November 19, 1941, states that of the 100,000 Jews
in Dnepropetrovsk, 70,000 fled before the Germans arrived; of those remaining,
1,000 were shot on the spot.¹
Sometimes, economic considerations were brought up, as witness a report sent
on December 2, 1941, by the representative of the Industrial Armaments Depart-
ment of the Supreme Command (OKW) in the Ukraine to General Georg
Thomas, who headed the department. The Jewish population of the Ukraine was
mainly urban, the report explained, and often constituted more than 50 percent
of the population of a town. These Jews "carried out almost all the work in the
skilled trades, and even provided part of the labor for small- and medium-sized
industries." The murder operations in the Ukraine were vaster in scope than any-
where else in the Soviet Union, but as the report states, "no consideration was
given to the interests of the economy."¹⁷
Marshal Walther von Reichenau, supreme commander of the Sixth Army in
the southern army corps, was one of the high-ranking officers who wholeheartedly
supported National Socialism and Hitler personally. On October 10, 1941, he
issued an order in which he noted that vague concepts were still rife as to how
soldiers were to conduct themselves. "The main objective of this campaign against
the Jewish-Bolshevik system is to totally destroy the potential for power and to
extirpate Asiatic influence on European cultural life." He went on to explain that
consequently German soldiers were faced with tasks above and beyond the con-
ventional framework of conduct of warfare, "The soldier must fully understand
the need for severe but just atonement of the Jewish subhumans." There follows
the customary agrument that all partisan activities behind the front were orga-
nized by the Jews, and the soldiers were exhorted to refrain from treating the par-
May 5 / Administration of Ronald Reagan, 1985
Remarks at a Commemorative Ceremony at Bergen-Belsen
Concentration Camp in the Federal Republic of Germany
May 5, 1985
Chancellor Kohl and honored guests, this
vors feel to this day and what they will feel
painful walk into the past has done much
as long as they live. What we've felt and are
more than remind us of the war that con-
expressing with words cannot convey the
sumed the European Continent. What we
suffering that they endured. That is why
have seen makes unforgettably clear that no
history will forever brand what happened
one of the rest of us can fully understand
as the Holocaust.
the enormity of the feelings carried by the
Here, death ruled, but we've learned
victims of these camps. The survivors carry
something as well. Because of what hap-
a memory beyond anything that we can
pened, we found that death cannot rule for-
comprehend. The awful evil started by one
ever, and that's why we're here today.
man, an evil that victimized all the world
We're here because humanity refuses to
with its destruction, was uniquely destruc-
accept that freedom of the spirit of man
tive of the millions forced into the grim
can ever be extinguished. We're here to
abyss of these camps.
commemorate that life triumphed over the
Here lie people-Jews-whose death was
tragedy and the death of the Holocaust-
inflicted for no reason other than their very
overcame the suffering, the sickness, the
existence. Their pain was borne only be-
testing and, yes, the gassings. We're here
cause of who they were and because of the
today to confirm that the horror cannot out-
God in their prayers. Alongside them lay
last hope, and that even from the worst of
many Christians-Catholics and Protestants.
all things, the best may come forth. There-
For year after year, until that man and
fore, even out of this overwhelming sad-
his evil were destroyed, hell yawned forth
ness, there must be some purpose, and
its awful contents. People were brought
there is. It comes to us through the trans-
here for no other purpose but to suffer and
forming love of God.
die-to go unfed when hungry, uncared for
We learn from the Talmud that: "It was
when sick, tortured when the whim struck,
only through suffering that the children of
and left to have misery consume them
Israel obtained three priceless and coveted
when all there was around them was
gifts: The Torah, the Land of Israel, and the
misery.
World to Come." Yes, out of this sickness-
I'm sure we all share similar first
as crushing and cruel as it was-there was
thoughts, and that is: What of the young-
hope for the world as well as for the world
sters who died at this dark stalag? All was
to come. Out of the ashes-hope, and from
gone for them forever-not to feel again
all the pain-promise.
the warmth of life's sunshine and promise,
So much of this is symbolized today by
not the laughter and the splendid ache of
the fact that most of the leadership of free
growing up, nor the consoling embrace of a
Germany is represented here today. Chan-
family. Try to think of being young and
cellor Kohl, you and your countrymen have
never having a day without searing emo-
made real the renewal that had to happen.
tional and physical pain-desolate, unre-
Your nation and the German people have
lieved pain.
been strong and resolute in your willingness
Today, we've been grimly reminded why
to confront and condemn the acts of a
the commandant of this camp was named
hated regime of the past. This reflects the
"the Beast of Belsen." Above all, we're
courage of your people and their devotion
struck by the horror of it all-the mon-
to freedom and justice since the war. Think
strous, incomprehensible horror. And that's
how far we've come from that time when
what we've seen but is what we can never
despair made these tragic victims wonder if
understand as the victims did. Nor with all
anything could survive.
our compassion can we feel what the survi-
As we flew here from Hanover, low over
564
Administration of Ronald Reagan, 1985 / May 5
the greening farms and the emerging
build up my hopes on a foundation consist-
springtime of the lovely German country-
ing of confusion, misery, and death. I see
side, I reflected, and there must have been
the world gradually being turned into a wil-
a time when the prisoners at Bergen-Belsen
derness. I hear the ever approaching thun-
and those of every other camp must have
der which will destroy us too; I can feel the
el
felt the springtime was gone forever from
suffering of millions and yet, if I looked up
re
their lives. Surely we can understand that
into the heavens I think that it will all come
e
when we see what is around us-all these
right, that this cruelty too will end and that
ny
children of God under bleak and lifeless
peace and tranquility will return again."
ed
mounds, the plainness of which does not
Eight months later, this sparkling young life
even hint at the unspeakable acts that cre-
ended here at Bergen-Belsen. Somewhere
ated them. Here they lie, never to hope,
here lies Anne Frank.
ed
p-
never to pray, never to love, never to heal,
Everywhere here are memories-pulling
)r-
never to laugh, never to cry.
us, touching us, making us understand that
And too many of them knew that this was
they can never be erased. Such memories
y.
take us where God intended His children to
to
their fate, but that was not the end.
go-toward learning, toward healing, and,
an
Through it all was their faith and a spirit
above all, toward redemption. They beckon
to
that moved their faith.
us through the endless stretches of our
ne
Nothing illustrates this better than the
heart to the knowing commitment that the
story of a young girl who died here at
life of each individual can change the world
ne
Bergen-Belsen. For more than 2 years Anne
and make it better.
re
Frank and her family had hidden from the
We're all witnesses; we share the glisten-
it-
Nazis in a confined annex in Holland where
of
ing hope that rests in every human soul.
she kept a remarkably profound diary. Be-
Hope leads us, if we're prepared to trust it,
e-
trayed by an informant, Anne and her
toward what our President Lincoln called
d-
family were sent by freight car first to
nd
the better angels of our nature. And then,
Auschwitz and finally here to Bergen-
rising above all this cruelty, out of this
is-
Belsen.
tragic and nightmarish time, beyond the an-
Just 3 weeks before her capture, young
guish, the pain and the suffering for all
as
of
Anne wrote these words: "It's really a
time, we can and must pledge: Never again.
ed
wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals
he
because they seem so absurd and impossible
Note: The President spoke at 12:10 p.m.
to carry out. Yet I keep them because in
after laying a wreath at a camp memorial.
spite of everything I still believe that
Following his remarks, the President and
as
-ld
people are good at heart. I simply can't
Chancellor Kohl traveled to Bitburg.
m
by
ee
Remarks at a Joint German-American Military Ceremony at Bitburg
in-
Air Base in the Federal Republic of Germany
ve
May 5, 1985
en.
ve
ess
Thank you very much. I have just come
40 years of peace, freedom, and reconcilia-
a
from the cemetery where German war
tion among our nations.
he
dead lay at rest. No one could visit there
This visit has stirred many emotions in
on
without deep and conflicting emotions. I
the American and German people, too. I've
nk
felt great sadness that history could be filled
received many letters since first deciding to
en
with such waste, destruction, and evil, but
come to Bitburg cemetery; some support-
if
my heart was also lifted by the knowledge
ive, others deeply concerned and question-
that from the ashes has come hope and that
ing, and others opposed. Some old wounds
ver
from the terrors of the past we have built
have been reopened, and this I regret very
565
May 5 / Administration of Ronald Reagan, 1985
much because this should be a time of heal-
machine? We do not know. Many, however,
ing.
we know from the dates on their tomb-
To the veterans and families of American
stones, were only teenagers at the time.
servicemen who still carry the scars and
There is one boy buried there who died a
feel the painful losses of that war, our ges-
week before his 16th birthday.
ture of reconciliation with the German
There were thousands of such soldiers to
people today in no way minimizes our love
whom nazism meant no more than a brutal
and honor for those who fought and died
end to a short life. We do not believe in
for our country. They gave their lives to
collective guilt. Only God can look into the
rescue freedom in its darkest hour. The alli-
human heart, and all these men have now
ance of democratic nations that guards the
met their supreme judge, and they have
freedom of millions in Europe and America
been judged by Him as we shall all be
today stands as living testimony that their
judged.
noble sacrifice was not in vain.
Our duty today is to mourn the human
No, their sacrifice was not in vain. I have
wreckage of totalitarianism, and today in
to tell you that nothing will ever fill me
Bitburg cemetery we commemorated the
with greater hope than the sight of two
potential good in humanity that was con-
former war heroes who met today at the
sumed back then, 40 years ago. Perhaps if
Bitburg ceremony; each among the bravest
that 15-year-old soldier had lived, he would
of the brave; each an enemy of the other 40
have joined his fellow countrymen in build-
years ago; each a witness to the horrors of
ing this new democratic Federal Republic
war. But today they came together, Ameri-
of Germany, devoted to human dignity and
can and German, General Matthew B. Ridg-
the defense of freedom that we celebrate
way and General Johanner Steinhoff, recon-
ciled and united for freedom. They reached
today. Or perhaps his children or his grand-
over the graves to one another like brothers
children might be among you here today at
the Bitburg Air Base, where new genera-
and grasped their hands in peace.
tions of Germans and Americans join to-
To the survivors of the Holocaust: Your
terrible suffering has made you ever vigi-
gether in friendship and common cause,
lant against evil. Many of your are worried
dedicating their lives to preserving peace
that reconciliation means forgetting. Well, I
and guarding the security of the free world.
promise you, we will never forget. I have
Too often in the past each war only plant-
just come this morning from Bergen-Belsen,
ed the seeds of the next. We celebrate
where the horror of that terrible crime, the
today the reconciliation between our two
Holocaust, was forever burned upon my
nations that has liberated us from that cycle
memory. No, we will never forget, and we
of destruction. Look at what together we've
say with the victims of that Holocaust:
accomplished. We who were enemies are
Never again.
now friends; we who were bitter adversar-
The war against one man's totalitarian
ies are now the strongest of allies.
dictatorship was not like other wars. The
In the place of fear we've sown trust, and
evil war of nazism turned all values upside
out of the ruins of war has blossomed an
down. Nevertheless, we can mourn the
enduring peace. Tens of thousands of Amer-
German war dead today as human beings
icans have served in this town over the
crushed by a vicious ideology.
years. As the mayor of Bitburg has said, in
There are over 2,000 buried in Bitburg
that time there have been some 6,000 mar-
cemetery. Among them are 48 members of
riages between Germans and Americans,
the SS-the crimes of the SS must rank
and many thousands of children have come
among the most heinous in human history-
from these unions. This is the real symbol of
but others buried there were simply sol-
our future together, a future to be filled
diers in the German Army. How many
with hope, friendship, and freedom.
were fanatical followers of a dictator and
The hope that we see now could some-
willfully carried out his cruel orders? And
times even be glimpsed in the darkest days
how many were conscripts, forced into serv-
of the war. I'm thinking of one special
ice during the death throes of the Nazi war
story-that of a mother and her young son
566
Administration of Ronald Reagan, 1985 / May 5
living alone in a modest cottage in the
clock far from home, always ready to
middle of the woods. And one night as the
defend freedom. We're grateful, and we're
Battle of the Bulge exploded not far away,
very proud of you.
and around them, three young American
Four decades ago we waged a great war
soldiers arrived at their door-they were
to lift the darkness of evil from the world,
standing there in the snow, lost behind
to let men and women in this country and
enemy lines. All were frostbitten; one was
in every country live in the sunshine of
badly wounded. Even though sheltering the
liberty. Our victory was great, and the Fed-
enemy was punishable by death, she took
eral Republic, Italy, and Japan are now in
them in and made them a supper with
the community of free nations. But the
some of her last food. Then, they heard
struggle for freedom is not complete, for
another knock at the door. And this time
today much of the world is still cast in to-
four German soldiers stood there. The
talitarian darkness.
woman was afraid, but she quickly said with
Twenty-two years ago President John F.
a firm voice, "There will be no shooting
Kennedy went to the Berlin Wall and pro-
here." She made all the soldiers lay down
claimed that he, too, was a Berliner. Well,
their weapons, and they all joined in the
today freedom-loving people around the
makeshift meal. Heinz and Willi, it turned
world must say: I am a Berliner. I am a Jew
out, were only 16; the corporal was the
in a world still threatened by anti-Semitism.
oldest at 23. Their natural suspicion dis-
solved in the warmth and the comfort of
I am an Afghan, and I am a prisoner of the
Gulag. I am a refugee in a crowded boat
the cottage. One of the Germans, a former
foundering off the coast of Vietnam. I am a
medical student, tended the wounded
American.
Laotian, a Cambodian, a Cuban, and a Mis-
But now, listen to the rest of the story
kito Indian in Nicaragua. I, too, am a poten-
tial victim of totalitarianism.
through the eyes of one who was there,
now a grown man, but that young lad that
The one lesson of World War II, the one
had been her son. He said: "The Mother
lesson of nazism, is that freedom must
said grace. I noticed that there were tears
always be stronger than totalitarianism and
in her eyes as she said the old, familiar
that good must always be stronger than
words, 'Komm, Herr Jesus. Be our guest.'
evil. The moral measure of our two nations
And as I looked around the table, I saw
will be found in the resolve we show to
tears, too, in the eyes of the battle-weary
preserve liberty, to protect life, and to
soldiers, boys again, some from America,
honor and cherish all God's children.
some from Germany, all far from home."
That is why the free, democratic Federal
That night-as the storm of war tossed
Republic of Germany is such a profound
the world-they had their own private ar-
and hopeful testament to the human spirit.
mistice. And the next morning, the German
We cannot undo the crimes and wars of
corporal showed the Americans how to get
yesterday nor call back the millions back to
back behind their own lines. And they all
life, but we can give meaning to the past by
shook hands and went their separate ways.
learning its lessons and making a better
That happened to be Christmas Day, 40
future. We can let our pain drive us to
years ago.
greater efforts to heal humanity's suffering.
Those boys reconciled briefly in the midst
Today I've traveled 220 miles from
of war. Surely we allies in peacetime should
Bergen-Belsen, and, I feel, 40 years in time.
honor the reconciliation of the last 40 years.
With the lessons of the past firmly in our
To the people of Bitburg, our hosts and
minds, we've turned a new, brighter page
the hosts of our servicemen, like that gener-
in history.
ous woman 40 years ago, you make us feel
One of the many who wrote me about
very welcome. Vielen dank. [Many thanks.]
this visit was a young woman who had re-
And to the men and women of Bitburg
cently been bas mitzvahed. She urged me
Air Base, I just want to say that we know
to lay the wreath at Bitburg cemetery in
that even with such wonderful hosts, your
honor of the future of Germany. And that is
job is not an easy one. You serve around the
what we've done.
567
May 5 / Administration of Ronald Reagan, 1985
On this 40th anniversary of World War II,
in Asia, in the slow movement toward
any
we mark the day when the hate, the evil,
peace in the Middle East, and in the
Eu
and the obscenities ended, and we com-
strengthening alliance of democratic na-
This
memorate the rekindling of the democratic
tions in Europe and America that the light
has 1
spirit in Germany.
from that dawn is growing stronger.
indiv
There's much to make us hopeful on this
Together, let us gather in that light and
was
historic anniversary. One of the symbols of
walk out of the shadow. Let us live in
cello
that hate-that could have been that hope,
peace.
how
a little while ago, when we heard a German
Thank you, and God bless you all.
and
band playing the American National
to m
Anthem and an American band playing the
Note: The President spoke at 3:33 p.m. after
movi
German National Anthem. While much of
laying a wreath in a nearby military ceme-
creat
the world still huddles in the darkness of
tery in Bitburg. He was accompanied by
the ]
oppression, we can see a new dawn of free-
Chancellor Kohl. Following the ceremony,
arms
dom sweeping the globe. And we can see in
the President returned to Schloss Gymnich
WI
the new democracies of Latin America, in
in Bonn, where he stayed during his visit to
whic
the new economic freedoms and prosperity
Germany.
the S
have
struc
forw:
Toast at the State Dinner in Bonn, Federal Republic of Germany
could
nucle
May 5, 1985
al Re
ways
President and Mrs. von Weizsäcker,
burdens. You've been inspiring in your offer
tecti
Chancellor and Mrs. Kohl, honored guests,
of hope. I remember so vividly my visit to
pable
Nancy and I want to thank you for your
the great city of Berlin in 1982. Your
incap
warm and gracious hospitality. Our visit to
achievement in restoring confidence and
To
the Federal Republic of Germany has been
hope to democracy's city was a service to
30th
a wonderful and enriching experience.
the entire West.
entry
Today was especially moving. We cannot
The camaraderie of this evening, the
effor
fully understand the long road we've all
good will that we've enjoyed, reflect the
NAT
traveled since 1945 unless we remember
deep and abiding friendship between our
the F
the beginnings. By standing before mass
two peoples, an affection that overcame the
It's
graves at a spot such as Bergen-Belsen, we
bitterness of war. The passage penned by
versa
could begin-but only begin-to feel the
Schiller in "Wilhelm Tell" says, "What's old
grati
suffering of so many innocent people and to
collapses, times change and new life blos-
indus
sense the horror which confronted our lead-
soms in the ruins." Forty years ago, our
eral ]
ers 40 years ago. And by joining Chancellor
friendship blossomed in the ruins. Today
ic iss
Kohl in Bitburg, we could better under-
the bond between us is a powerful force for
elect
stand the price paid by the German people
good, improving the material well-being of
for the crimes of the Third Reich.
our peoples, helping keep us at peace, and
Today, as 40 years ago, the thought up-
protecting our freedom. In this year, stud-
permost in our minds must remain: Never
ded with anniversaries, let us remember to
Ren
again. You, Mr. President, embody the
celebrate the beginning of friendship as
May
values which we're working to protect
well as the end of war.
today. Your distinguished career in business
You, Mr. President, and Chancellor Kohl
Ch
and politics, your engagement in church af-
have been among the most thoughtful
fairs, are exemplary. Over the years, Ameri-
spokesmen for the spirit of the Federal Re-
youn
dank
cans have been especially moved by our
public. Through you we've experienced the
ability to articulate the soul of the German
warmth and depth of German-American
very
nation. You have been eloquent in your
solidarity. By working together as friends
the i
message of sorrow over Germany's historic
and allies we have accomplished more than
today
568
D810
J4G52
WH
GILBERT
L BIOGRAPHY
THE
ar, 1914-1916
two parts)
l, 1917-1922
HOLOCAUST:
three parts)
h, 1922-1939
1-1929 (documents)
-1935 (documents)
-1939 (documents)
39-1941
1942-1945
1965 (in preparation)
A History of the Jews of Europe
during the Second World War
rd Gott)
10-1945
nent
Vars (documents)
" of Hurtwood (documents)
MARTIN GILBERT
ate Secretary (documents)
fa Diplomat
Portrait
sophy
ies
wish Statehood
iet Jewry Today
838-1898
n Nazi Europe
-1960
S
\tlas
,ry in Maps
S and Photographs
Atlas
Atlas
ups and Photographs
HOLT, RINEHART AND WINSTON
NEW YORK
1941
'A CRIME WITHOUT A NAME' 201
father. Later he had heard the chief executioner, the Lithuanian
Ostrovakas, singing with his fellow executioners as they drank to
their successful work.
Just beyond the Jewish cemetery were a number of Christian
homes. Michalowski knew them all. Naked, covered with blood, he
knocked on the first door. The door opened. A peasant, he later
recalled, was holding a lamp which he had looted earlier in the day
from a Jewish home. 'Please let me in,' Zvi pleaded. The peasant
lifted the lamp and examined the boy closely. 'Jew, go back to the
grave where you belong!' he shouted at Zvi and slammed the door
in his face. Zvi knocked on other doors, but the response was the
same.
Near the forest lived a widow whom Michalowski also knew. He
decided to knock on her door. The old widow opened the door.
She was holding in her hand a small, burning piece of wood. 'Let
me in!' begged Michalowski. 'Jew, go back to the grave at the old
cemetery!' She chased him away with the burning piece of wood as
if exorcising an evil spirit.
Michalowski, desperate for shelter, returned. 'I am your Lord,
Jesus Christ,' he said. 'I came down from the cross. Look at me- the
blood, the pain, the suffering of the innocent. Let me in.' The widow
crossed herself and fell at his bloodstained feet. 'Boze moj, Boze
moj,' 'My God, my God,' she kept crossing herself and praying. The
door was opened.
Michalowski walked in. He promised the widow that he would
bless her children, her farm, and her, but only if she would keep his
visit a secret for three days and three nights and not reveal it to a
living soul, not even the priest. She gave Michalowski food and
clothing and warm water to wash himself. Before leaving the house
three days later, he once more reminded her that the Lord's visit
must remain a secret, because of His special mission on earth.
Dressed in a farmer's clothing, with a supply of food for a few
days, the young man made his way to the nearby forest. He was to
survive the war in hiding, and as a partisan.⁵⁴
Since the German occupation of Kiev on September 19, the Jews
had waited, uncertain of their fate, noting, as the sixteen-year-old
Konstantin Miroshnik later recalled, the 'joyful faces' of some of the
1941
'A CF
202 THE HOLOCAUST
1941
Ukrainians who stood watching the German troops arrive. On the
formed a corridor and
second day of the occupation, Ukrainian policemen appeared on
towards the huge glade, wh
the streets, wearing armbands announcing that they belonged to the
who were tearing the people
'Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists'. For nine days the Jews
undress, to form columns in
columns in twos towards the I
were unmolested. But both they and the Ukrainians had a sense that
all was not well. Miroshnik later recalled how one of their Ukrai-
nian neighbours said to his grandfather, 'Well, Leib, your Jewish
At the mouth of the ravine, the wat
power has come to an end, the new order will begin now, so keep in
mind, you'll be reckoned with ,55
they found themselves
On September 21, as Golda Glozman was told by one of her
precipice, twenty to twenty-fi
Jewish neighbours, her father Shlomo Glozman, one of the Jewish
opposite side there were the
community leaders in Kiev, was murdered. As she later learned
killed, wounded and half-aliv
smashed there. Then the nex
from neighbours:
everything repeated again. The
the Nazis put him and nine other most honourable old
the legs and threw them alive d
Jews in a lorry, forced them to put on their prayer vestments,
and drove them through the town until dinner-time. They
That day the watchman witnessed
repeated this procedure several days in succession. The people
and despair'. In the evening, he no
in the streets were laughing. On one of these days Nazis came
the wall of ravine and buried the p
to their house after the dinner and drove him in the direction of
earth. But the earth was moving lor
Konstantinovskaya Street. There, nearby the cinema, 'Udar-
still alive Jews were still moving. C
nik', he was beaten badly and only just managed to reach his
why do they pour the sand into my e
house afterwards. However, on the next day he was forced
After the war, a Jewish doctor, Da
again, together with others, to stand on the 'chariot of dis-
of his Aunt Lisa, who had been so f
grace'.
she had been unable to leave Kiev in t
A few days later Shlomo Glozman left his house in order to visit
the Germans arrived in the city. 'Aun
his son. As he crossed Kiev, a drunken SS man attacked him in the
neighbour after the war, 'and her S
street and beat him to death. 56
Babi Yar. She was so horrified and fr
At Kiev, on September 27 and 28, posters throughout the city
birth. Driven by the Germans and po
demanded the assembly of Jews for 'resettlement'. More than thirty
with her son and the newborn child
thousand reported. Because of 'our special talent of organisation',
Babi Yar and perished there in pangs
the commander of the Einsatzkommando reported two days later,
The horrors of Babi Yar were endl
'the Jews still believed to the very last moment before being
was over, Victoria Shyapeltoh learne
executed that indeed all that was happening was that they were
ordered to assemble, her neighbour,
being resettled.'
lived in the same apartment with thei
The Jews of Kiev were brought to Babi Yar, a ravine just outside
her seventy-year-old father, Yakov-
the city. There, they were shot down by machine-gun fire. Im-
apartment into the street, and handed
mediately after the war, a non-Jew, the watchman at the old Jewish
old man was wearing his prayer sh
cemetery, near Babi Yar, recalled how Ukrainian policemen:
driven to Babi Yar, 'praying all the W
to tell something of the
se who perished, and are
41
1941
'A CRIME WITHOUT A NAME'
203
the
formed a corridor and drove the panic-stricken people
on
towards the huge glade, where sticks, swearings, and dogs,
the
who were tearing the people's bodies, forced the people to
undress, to form columns in hundreds, and then to go in the
WS
columns in twos towards the mouth of the ravine.
hat
:ai-
ish
At the mouth of the ravine, the watchman recalled:
in
they found themselves on the narrow ground above the
her
precipice, twenty to twenty-five metres in height, and on the
ish
opposite side there were the Germans' machine guns. The
ned
killed, wounded and half-alive people fell down and were
smashed there. Then the next hundred were brought, and
everything repeated again. The policemen took the children by
old
the legs and threw them alive down into the Yar.
nts,
hey
That day the watchman witnessed 'horrible scenes of human grief
ple
and despair'. In the evening, he noted, 'the Germans undermined
tme
n of
the wall of ravine and buried the people under the thick layers of
lar-
earth. But the earth was moving long after, because wounded and
his
still alive Jews were still moving. One girl was crying: "Mammy,
ced
why do they pour the sand into my eyes?" ,58
dis-
After the war, a Jewish doctor, David Rosen, was told of the fate
of his Aunt Lisa, who had been so far advanced in pregnancy that
she had been unable to leave Kiev in the last evacuation trains before
visit
the Germans arrived in the city. 'Aunt Lisa', Dr Rosen was told by a
the
neighbour after the war, 'and her six-year-old son Tolik went to
Babi Yar. She was so horrified and frightened that she began giving
city
birth. Driven by the Germans and policemen to the ravine, together
irty
with her son and the newborn child in her arms, she fell down into
on',
Babi Yar and perished there in pangs.
iter,
The horrors of Babi Yar were endless and obscene. When the war
eing
was over, Victoria Shyapeltoh learned that when the Jews had been
vere
ordered to assemble, her neighbour, a Ukrainian woman who had
lived in the same apartment with them for many years, had dragged
side
her seventy-year-old father, Yakov-Pinhas Zindelivich, from the
Im-
apartment into the street, and handed him over to the Germans. The
wish
old man was wearing his prayer shawl. Still wearing it, he was
driven to Babi Yar, 'praying all the way'. 60
204 THE HOLOCAUST
1941
1941
'A
One of the few Jews to escape from the pit at Babi Yar was Dina
Pronicheva. After the war, she told her story to the Russian writer
struggle in a state of uncont
Anatoli Kuznetsov, who published it, first in Russia in 1966, and
to be shot rather than be bu
then, under the name A. Anatoli, in Britain in 1970. Dina Proni-
With her left hand, the g
cheva, like hundreds of those who were shot during these mas-
sand off herself, scarcely dar
sacres, was not in fact killed. But unlike most of those who fell into
coughing; she used what stre
back. She began to feel a little
the pit alive, she managed to avoid being suffocated, and to escape
from under the earth.
undetected:
The Ukrainian policemen
after a hard day's work, too 1:
All around and beneath her she could hear strange sub-
and once they had scattere
merged sounds, groaning, choking and sobbing: many of the
shovels and went away. Dina
people were not dead yet. The whole mass of bodies kept
pitch dark and there was the 1.
moving slightly as they settled down and were pressed tighter
of fresh corpses.
by the movements of the ones who were still living.
Dina could just make out th
Some soldiers came out on to the ledge and flashed their
started slowly and carefully m
torches down on the bodies, firing bullets from their revolvers
she stood up and started maki
into any which appeared to be still living. But someone not far
left hand. In that way, presse
from Dina went on groaning as loud as before.
made steps and so raised herse
Then she heard people walking near her, actually on the
moment to fall back into the p
bodies. They were Germans who had climbed down and were
There was a little bush at th
bending over and taking things from the dead and occasionally
hold of. With a last desperate
firing at those which showed signs of life.
as she scrambled over the led:
Among them was the policeman who had examined her
nearly made her jump back.
papers and taken her bag: she recognized him by his voice.
'Don't be scared, lady! I'm ai
One SS-man caught his foot against Dina and her appear-
It was a small boy in vest and
ance aroused his suspicions. He shone his torch on her, picked
she had done. He was tremblin;
her up and struck her with his fist. But she hung limp and gave
'Quiet!' she hissed at him. 'C'
no signs of life. He kicked her in the breast with his heavy boot
And they crawled away silen:
and trod on her right hand so that the bones cracked, but he
didn't use his gun and went off, picking his way across the
Dina Pronicheva survived. The bo
corpses.
as they sought to leave the area, he
A few minutes later she heard a voice calling from above:
'Don't move, lady, there's German:
'Demidenko! Come on, start shovelling!'
words. Luckily for Dina Pronicheva
There was a clatter of spades and then heavy thuds as the
earth and sand landed on the bodies, coming closer and closer
stand them. But hearing him speak, t
The courage of Motyn was rec
until it started falling on Dina herself.
Her whole body was buried under the sand but she did not
because a Russian writer, a non-Jew
move until it began to cover her mouth. She was lying face
the past. He recorded also an episc
upwards, breathed in some sand and started to choke, and
'running down the street, shooting fr.
then, scarcely realizing what she was doing, she started to
German officers, 'then shot herself'. 62
her deed survives, and then, only by CI
0286
1941
1941
'A CRIME WITHOUT A NAME' 205
Dina
riter
struggle in a state of uncontrollable panic, quite prepared now
to be shot rather than be buried alive.
and
oni-
With her left hand, the good one, she started scraping the
sand off herself, scarcely daring to breathe lest she should start
mas-
into
coughing; she used what strength she had left to hold the cough
back. She began to feel a little easier. Finally she got herself out
cape
from under the earth.
The Ukrainian policemen up above were apparently tired
after a hard day's work, too lazy to shovel the earth in properly,
sub-
and once they had scattered a little in they dropped their
f the
shovels and went away. Dina's eyes were full of sand. It was
kept
pitch dark and there was the heavy smell of flesh from the mass
ghter
of fresh corpses.
Dina could just make out the nearest side of the sandpit and
their
started slowly and carefully making her way across to it; then
olvers
she stood up and started making little foot-holds in it with her
ot far
left hand. In that way, pressed close to the side of the pit, she
made steps and so raised herself an inch at a time, likely at any
n the
moment to fall back into the pit.
were
There was a little bush at the top which she managed to get
onally
hold of. With a last desperate effort she pulled herself up and,
as she scrambled over the ledge, she heard a whisper which
d her
nearly made her jump back.
ce.
'Don't be scared, lady! I'm alive too.'
opear-
It was a small boy in vest and pants who had crawled out as
picked
she had done. He was trembling and shivering all over.
3 gave
'Quiet!' she hissed at him. 'Crawl along behind me.'
V boot
And they crawled away silently, without a sound.
but he
SS the
Dina Pronicheva survived. The boy, Motyn, stayed with her, but
as they sought to leave the area, he called that danger was near.
ove:
'Don't move, lady, there's Germans here!' - those were Motyn's
words. Luckily for Dina Pronicheva, the Germans did not under-
as the
closer
stand them. But hearing him speak, they killed him on the spot. 61
The courage of Motyn was recorded only by chance: only
did not
because a Russian writer, a non-Jew, was in search of facts about
ig face
the past. He recorded also an episode, in Kiev, of a Jewish girl
te, and
"running down the street, shooting from a revolver'. She killed two
rted to
German officers, 'then shot herself. 62 Her name is not known. Only
her deed survives, and then, only by chance.
612 THE HOLOCAUST
1943
1943
'A PAGE OF GLORY
The destruction of the evidence of mass murder now followed in
working at this gruesome task, 1
the wake of the murders themselves, or at the sites of earlier killings.
finished they would be killed. T
To Ponar, the death pits near Vilna, was brought a group of seventy
their ankles, guarded by sixty SS
Jews, nine Russian prisoners-of-war, and a young Polish peasant
and accompanied by Alsatian d
who had given refuge to a Jewish child. All eighty had been held in
seventy of the prisoners had
prison in Vilna. For four months, from September 1943, they
staged each night by the guards
worked at Ponar, as another 'Special Commando 1005', under the
Throughout their work, the
direct orders of Blobel, building massive log pyres, digging up
in the pits at Babi Yar as Leic
corpses, placing the corpses on the pyres, igniting them, and scatter-
Reuben Ainsztein has written,
ing the ashes. Each pyre could hold 3,500 bodies, and burnt for up
of putrefying flesh, whose bodi
to ten days.
with a layer of mud and soot, a'
The first grave opened by the 'Blobel Commando' at Ponar
remained, there survived a SI
contained the corpses of eight thousand Jews, five hundred Soviet
Nazis' New Order had done 0
prisoners-of-war and several hundred Catholic priests and seminar-
the SS men saw only as walkin
ists. Most of the corpses were blindfolded and had their hands tied
ation that at least one of them
behind their backs. The second grave contained the corpses of 500
what they had seen in Babi Ya
Jewish children, women and men. In the third grave the prisoners
Plans were made to break
counted 10,400 corpses. Hardly any of the children's remains
these plans was a Jewish sold
showed marks of bullets, but their tongues were protruding. In the
dov. Independent of these p
fourth pit the prisoners found twenty-four thousand corpses,
Fyodor Zavertanny, managed
among them many Soviet prisoners-of-war, a number of Poles,
escape. In retaliation, the G
Catholic priests and nuns, and one German soldier. In the fifth grave
They also shot the SS man ii
they found 3,500 women, children and men, all naked, and all shot
watching Zavertanny's group
in the back of the head. In the sixth grave they counted five thousand
The scale of the reprisal S
naked corpses. In the seventh grave they found several hundred
and make a mass break-out
political prisoners, and in the eighth and ninth graves they found
was to search for any keys t
five thousand naked corpses of Jews from the rural ghettos in the
rotting corpses and decaying
Vilna region; these were the Jewish deportees who had earlier
keys might fit the padlock of
received assurances that they were being taken to the Kovno
locked at night.
ghetto, and had found themselves, on 5 April 1943, at Ponar.
Miraculously, on Septer
Since August 18, a third 'Blobel Commando' had been at work at
Kapler, discovered a key th
Babi Yar, in the suburbs of Kiev. Blobel himself had visited the site
the third anniversary of th
to see the work being done. After the earth on top of the grave had
escape plans were put int
been removed, he later recalled, 'the bodies were covered with
prisoners-of-war made th
inflammable material and ignited. It took about two days until the
down as they ran; I4 rea
grave burnt to the bottom.' Blobel added: 'I myself observed that
twenty days in the chimne
the fire had glowed down to the bottom. After that the grave was
by the Ukrainian sisters I
filled in and the traces practically obliterated."⁴
neath their henhouse.
More than four hundred Jews and Soviet prisoners-of-war were
Five weeks after the
1943
'A PAGE OF GLORY
NEVER TO BE WRITTEN'
613
working at this gruesome task, knowing that when their work was
finished they would be killed. They worked with shackles around
their ankles, guarded by sixty SS men armed with submachine guns,
and accompanied by Alsatian dogs trained to kill. Within a month,
seventy of the prisoners had been killed in random executions,
staged each night by the guards for their amusement.
Throughout their work, the SS would address the Jews working
in the pits at Babi Yar as Leichen, 'corpses'. But, as the historian
Reuben Ainsztein has written, 'in those half-naked men who reeked
of putrefying flesh, whose bodies were eaten by scabies and covered
with a layer of mud and soot, and of whose physical strength so little
remained, there survived a spirit that defied everything that the
Nazis' New Order had done or could do to them. In the men whom
the SS men saw only as walking corpses, there matured a determin-
ation that at least one of them must survive to tell the world about
what they had seen in Babi Yar.'
Plans were made to break out. Among those who coordinated
these plans was a Jewish soldier of the Red Army, Vladimir Davy-
dov. Independent of these plans, a non-Jewish Red Army man,
Fyodor Zavertanny, managed one day to loosen his shackles, and to
escape. In retaliation, the Germans shot twelve of the prisoners.
They also shot the SS man in charge of the guards who had been
watching Zavertanny's group.
The scale of the reprisal seemed to rule out individual escapes,
and make a mass break-out the only possible course. The method
was to search for any keys that remained among the thousands of
rotting corpses and decaying garments, in the hope that one of these
keys might fit the padlock of the bunker in which the prisoners were
locked at night.
Miraculously, on September 20, one of the prisoners, Jacob
Kapler, discovered a key that fitted the padlock. Nine days later, on
the third anniversary of the first mass slaughter at Babi Yar, the
escape plans were put into effect. In all, 325 Jews and Soviet
prisoners-of-war made the break-out. A total of 3II were shot
down as they ran; 14 reached hiding places, 5 of whom hid for
twenty days in the chimney of a disused factory. Two were hidden
by the Ukrainian sisters Natalya and Antonina Petrenko, under-
neath their henhouse.
Five weeks after the escape, on November 6, the fourteen
742 THE HOLOCAUST
1944
Oppenheimer was one of them. His wife had died in Theresienstadt.
At the 'selection' at Birkenau, a Jew who was with Oppenheimer on
the journey, a former Czechoslovak ski champion, gave his current
profession, lawyer. He was sent to join those about to be gassed.
Oppenheimer, warned a few moments earlier by a veteran prisoner
to whom he had given his watch, said he was 'a fine mechanic' by
profession. He also, as advised, reduced his age, from forty-three to
Revol
thirty-eight. He was sent to the barracks, and he survived, being sent
shortly afterwards to one of the factories at Gleiwitz. 26
In liberated Kiev, on September 29, Jews gathered to mark the
third anniversary at Babi Yar. Among those who wished to com-
AT BIRKENAU the Jews of th
memorate their murdered relatives was Sara Tartakovskaya, whose
revolt. It was an enterpris
father, mother and sisters had been among the murdered. 'We came
courage. Those men who d
to the place of execution, to Babi Yar', she later recalled, 'and
their fellow Jews who hac
descended there, to the bottom. We were gathering the burnt bones
scatter their ashes on the b
of arms, legs. I drew out from the slope, by its hair, which was not
were themselves murdered
burnt, a girl's head with the remains of a scarf stuck to it. The head
through it', one of them, a
had two plaits, pins, and a hole in the temple. I was standing
wrote shortly before the r
weeping: she could be my sister.27
my father, my mother, my
hundred Greek Jews were
for revolt, among them Er
Greek army.²
In the nearby Union ex
had collected small amou
plotters. Among the girl
both of whom survived tl
recalled, 'were in connec
as the front approaches
everybody by blowing u
Three girls in the U
known only by their fir
smuggle explosives into
was working inside Birk
Wrobel, a member of
prisoners were also pr
Laufer.
Explosives were pass
bottom of a food tray.
occasion:
820
THE HOLOCAUST
EPILOGU
the Germans as they withdrew. On September I8 the first of the tin
from afar to be greenish, as if
boxes and milk cans hidden by Emanuel Ringelblum's 'Joy of
killed there had come out of t
Sabbath' circle was dug up in the ruins of the Warsaw ghetto. The
Above the Yar, a wall ha
second was found four years later, in 1950.29
adjoining brickyard. One e
Among the Jews who remained in Poland were some who saw
Streams of clay and mud, n
their task as recording the history of the war years. On 24 March
bones, gushed out into the St
1947 the organization of Jewish writers and journalists in Poland
rushing waters, a garage was
wrote, from Lodz, to the American Jewish Joint Distribution Com-
and the stream of liquid cl
mittee, in search of financial help for the forty Jewish writers in their
overturned tram cars and
organization:
passengers and tramway wo
digging out the dead, and
They are living under very difficult circumstances but are
second wave of liquid clay bi
loath to forsake the ruined land that they might better absorb
havoc, and death. In the two
the atmosphere of the dreadful Jewish catastrophe and render
were killed. A few days later.
it into literary and scientific work. We consider it a mission of
an old woman suddenly be
particular importance that these Jewish writers provide, for the
future generations, prose and poetry which will portray and
done this. They are taking V
document the recent experiences. Would that we now had
Sara Tartakovskaya, goir
such literary records from our forefathers of the Spanish
the disaster, was told by the
30
era.
Yar. Jewish blood is taking
Five manuscripts of the Sonderkommando at Birkenau, which
are among the most vivid contemporary documents of the war,
Year by year, Jews through
were discovered at different times between 1945 and 1962: that of
the past that is gone. In 19
Salmen Lewental on 17 October 1962. The notes of the Greek
had left Riga for the United
Jew were only found in the earth around one of the crematoria,
city of his birth. It was als
in the late autumn of 1980, buried in a thermos flask. It was
murdered, his father whom
discovered there only by chance, by Polish schoolchildren planting
old. Lippert went to Rum
a tree.
murdered. 'I remembered
As the decades passed, many survivors, and the relatives of
wrote. 'He was bald and
survivors, sought to return to the scenes of their youth, to the scenes
smoked cigars.' Lippert W
of their family's suffering, even to the scenes of their own torment.
The sites of the mass murder of Jews became places of solemn
How did you die,
pilgrimage. For Jews in the Soviet Union, visiting these sites, such as
mind as your brief th
Riga? Did the bullets
Babi Yar in Kiev, and Rumbuli near Riga, Ponar outside Vilna or
for interminable moi
the Ratomskaya street pit in Minsk, became a means of renewing
where are they, wher
and asserting their sense of Jewish identity.
In the twenty years following the war, Babi Yar filled up with
In June 1981 a gather
rubbish, mud and water, forming a deep lake. 'It was motionless,'
More than six thousand
Sara Kyron later recalled, 'and mixed up with silt, and it seemed
world, to exchange recol
EPILOGUE: 'I WILL TELL THE WORLD'
821
September I8 the first of the tin
from afar to be greenish, as if the tears of the people who had been
Emanuel Ringelblum's 'Joy of
killed there had come out of the soil.'
ins of the 29 Warsaw ghetto. The
Above the Yar, a wall had been built to mark it off from an
1950.
adjoining brickyard. One evening in 1961, the wall collapsed.
n Poland were some who saw
Streams of clay and mud, mixed up with the remains of human
f the war years. On 24 March
bones, gushed out into the streets of Kiev below. In the wake of the
iters and journalists in Poland
rushing waters, a garage was completely destroyed, fires broke out,
ewish Joint Distribution Com-
and the stream of liquid clay, reaching the nearby tram depot,
he forty Jewish writers in their
overturned tram cars and buried alive in its onward rush both
passengers and tramway workers. That night, as soldiers were busy
ifficult circumstances but are
digging out the dead, and searching for survivors in the mud, a
that they might better absorb
second wave of liquid clay burst out from the Yar, wreaking further
ewish catastrophe and render
havoc, and death. In the two disasters, twenty-four citizens of Kiev
k. We consider it a mission of
were killed. A few days later, as a tram passed the site of the disaster,
Jewish writers provide, for the
an old woman suddenly began to shout: 'It is the Jews who have
betry which will portray and
done this. They are taking vengeance on us. They always will.'
es. Would that we now had
Sara Tartakovskaya, going by taxi to work on the morning after
forefathers of the Spanish
the disaster, was told by the taxi driver: 'One could not fill up Babi
Yar. Jewish blood is taking revenge.'³¹
nmando at Birkenau, which
rary documents of the war,
Year by year, Jews throughout the world search for some echo of
veen 1945 and 1962: that of
the past that is gone. In 1976 a Riga-born Jew, Jules Lippert, who
62. The notes of the Greek
had left Riga for the United States as a child in 1939, returned to the
und one of the crematoria,
city of his birth. It was also the city in which his father had been
in a thermos flask. It was
murdered, his father whom he had not seen since he was eight years
lish schoolchildren planting
old. Lippert went to Rumbuli, where his father must have been
murdered. 'I remembered he was tall, close to six feet,' Lippert later
rivors, and the relatives of
wrote. 'He was bald and the youngest of three brothers and he
; of their youth, to the scenes
smoked cigars.' Lippert went on to ask:
cenes of their own torment.
S became places of solemn
How did you die, dear father? What thoughts crossed your
visiting these sites, such as
mind as your brief thirty-eight years were extinguished here in
ga, Ponar outside Vilna or
Riga? Did the bullets find their mark quickly or did you suffer
came a means of renewing
for interminable moments in agony? Where are your remains,
ity.
where are they, where are they - I'll never know. 32
ir, Babi Yar filled up with
In June 1981 a gathering of survivors was held in Jerusalem.
, lake. 'It was motionless,'
More than six thousand survivors gathered there, from all over the
P with silt, and it seemed
world, to exchange recollections, to seek long-lost friends, and to
p8.118
YAD VASHEM STUDIES
XVIII
Edited by
AHARON WEISS
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST
MEMORIAL MUSEUM
LIBRARY
YAD VASHEM
THE HOLOCAUST MARTYRS' AND HEROES'
REMEMBRANCE AUTHORITY
JERUSALEM 1987
The Editorial Board:
A.P. ALSBERG, Y. ARAD, I. GUTMAN, A. WEISS, L. YAHIL
Assistant to the Editor: Ela Gutman
Copy Editor: Robert Amoils
The publication of this volume was made possible
through the assistance of
the Memorial Foundation for Jewish Culture
Responsibility for the opinions expressed in
this publication is solely that of the authors
ISSN 0084-3296
©
All rights reserved
Typesetting and Print
by Daf.Noy Press, Jerusalem
War in the East and the Extermination
of the Jews*
Andreas Hillgruber
"Jewish Bolshevism": Hitler's Racial-Ideological Dogma
Special units of the SS commenced the systematic extermination of
the Jews in the occupied Soviet territories as soon as the attack on
the Soviet Union was launched, on June 22, 1941. In order to arrive
at an adequate historical explanation, we must start with the racial
doctrine of radical, universal anti-Semitism as the "activating,
dynamic motive.' This was accompanied by "fixed" concepts in
Hitler's mind of Bolshevism as the rule of the Jews over the Slavic
masses in Soviet Russia, which tied in with the Nazi "ideology."
There is a historical controversy as to whether Hitler's early anti-
Semitic prejudices developed gradually in "thrusts" since his youth
in Linz and Vienna, toward hate and intent to exterminate beyond
the cliches of the period; or whether a psychic shock caused a
quantum "jump" from regular anti-Semitism to something
extraordinary.² But there is no argument about the fact that the
This essay appeared in "Unternehmen Barbarossa" - Der deutsche Überfall auf
die Sowjetunion 1941, Gerd R. Ueberschär and Wolfram Wette, eds.,
Paderborn, 1984, pp. 219-236.
Definition by Martin Broszat, "Hitler and the Genesis of the 'Final Solution:
An Assessment of David Irving's Theses," Yad Vashem Studies, 1979, vol. XIII,
p. 118.
2
Now documented in detail by the edition of Eberhard Jäckel and Axel Kuhn
eds., Hitler. Sämtliche Aufzeichnungen 1905-1924, Stuttgart, 1980.
104
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
agitation of Hitler as a politician was determined by this
extraordinary anti-Semitism after 1919. In the "first document of
his political career," a letter of September 16, 1919,3 Hitler
differentiates his anti-Semitism, directed toward political
consequences, from the general anti-Jewish emotions prevalent in
postwar Germany:
Anti-Semitism based on pure emotions will find its ultimate
expression in pogroms.⁴ But the anti-Semitism of reason must lead
to a planned legal fight and the removal of the privileges enjoyed by
the Jew, in contrast to the other foreigners living among us But the
ultimate, unshakable aim must be the complete removal of the
Jews."
The letter does not specify the meaning of the last phrase.
Matters were clarified in a speech which Hitler delivered on April
6, 1920:5 "We do not want to be emotional anti-Semites seeking to
create a pogrom mood, but we are inspired by the inexorable
determination to grasp the evil at the base and exterminate it root
and branch." But in this period (1920) he still spoke of "emigration"
now and then, or "expulsion" of the Jews, and thus "removal"
could be interpreted accordingly. In a speech of August 13, 1920,6
given verbatim in a postscript, Hitler repeats the intended aim of a
"thorough solution," by the "removal of the Jews from among our
people." But for the first time he now stresses the international
character of Jewry. From then on "Jewish internationalism" plays
a key role in his agitation. This expanded perspective moved the
"defensive campaign" against the Jews beyond the national
framework.
In his book Mein Kampf (written in 1924),7 Hitler combined a
universal, anti-Semitic, racist fanaticism with a foreign policy
"program" (developed meanwhile) into a self-appointed,
pseudoreligious historical "mission," which was to form a self-
3
Ibid., p. 89.
4
In the original "Progromen."
5
Jäckel and Kuhn, op. cit., p. 119.
6
Ibid, p. 184.
7
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, London, 1969.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
105
contained entity in his concepts from that date. He viewed the
prevention of a global triumph by the Jews9 as the quasi-defensive
aspect of a "struggle" by the National-Socialist "movement" under
his leadership:
Should the Jew triumph over the nations of this world by means of
his Marxist creed, his crown will be mankind's dance of death; and
this planet will move through space devoid of man, as it did millions
of years ago¹⁰ thus today I believe myself to be acting in the sense
of the Almighty creator: by defending myself against the Jew I fight
for the Lord's work.
His "decision" to "become a politician"¹¹ follows the core phrase¹²
at the end of Chapter 7 in Mein Kampf: "There is no treating with the
Jew, but only the hard either-or."
In his book, Hitler repeatedly¹³ describes the Jew, with biological
crudeness, as a "parasite," "sponger" and "vampire," using
Bolshevik Russia as evidence:
In gaining political power the Jew casts off the few cloaks that he still
wears. The democratic people's Jew becomes the blood-Jew and
tyrant over peoples. In a few years he tries to exterminate the
national intelligentsia and by robbing the peoples of their national
leadership makes them ripe for the slave's lot of permanent
subjugation.
The most frightful example of this kind is offered by Russia, where
he killed or starved about thirty million people with positively
fanatical savagery, in part amid inhuman tortures, in order to give a
gang of Jewish journalists and stock exchange bandits domination
over a great people.
The end is not only the end of the freedom of the peoples
oppressed by the Jew, but also the end of this parasite upon the
nations. After the death of his victim, the vampire sooner or later
dies too.¹⁴
8
The basic reference is Eberhard Jäckel, Hitlers Weltanschauung. Entwurf einer
Herrschaft, Stuttgart, 1981.
9
Hitler, Mein Kampf. op. cit., p. 60.
10
The 1st ed. of Mein Kampf had "millennia."
11
Hitler, Mein Kampf, op. cit., p. 187.
12
Ibid., p. 187.
13
Ibid., pp. 53, 54, 113, 138, 175-176, 274-275, 277, 280-281, 295-296.
14
Ibid., pp. 296ff.
106
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
However - and not contradictory in Hitler's view - the aim of
"Jewish rule" over Russia was different: "We must regard Russian
Bolshevism as Jewry's attempt to achieve world rule in the twentieth
century
,,,15
The (derived) offensive side of his envisioned aims was revealed
by Hitler in the second volume of Mein Kampf, in Chapter 14,
"Eastern Orientation or Eastern Policy. "The struggle against
Jewish world-bolshevization requires a clear attitude toward Soviet
Russia." Hitler's conclusion, drawn from his racist-ideological
premises and his Social-Darwinist axioms, determined the external
expansion of a Reich led by him:
We stop the endless German movement to the south and west, and
turn our gaze towards the land in the east If we speak of soil in
Europe today, we can primarily have in mind only Russia and her
vassal border states.
Here Fate itself seems desirous of giving us a sign. By handing
Russia to Bolshevism, it robbed the Russian nation of that
intelligentsia which previously brought about and guaranteed the
existence of a state for centuries Russia drew nourishment from
this Germanic nucleus of its upper leading strata. Today it can be
regarded as almost totally exterminated and extinguished. It has
been replaced by the Jew. Impossible as it is for the Russian by
himself to shake off the yoke of the Jew by his own resources, it is
equally impossible for the Jew to maintain the mighty empire
forever. He himself is no element of organisation, but a ferment of
decomposition. The Persian empire in the east is ripe for collapse.
And the end of Jewish rule in Russia will also be the end of Russia as
a state. We have been chosen by Fate as witness of a catastrophe
which will be the mightiest confirmation of the soundness of the
national racial theory.¹ 17
Hitler's vision of "removing" the Jews assumed even clearer
contours in Mein Kampf:
Today it is not princes and princes' mistresses who haggle and bargain
over state borders; it is the inexorable Jew who struggles for his
15
Ibid., p. 604 (letter-spaced in the original).
16
Ibid., p. 605.
17
Ibid., pp. 598f.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
107
domination over the nations. No nation can remove this hand from its
throat except by the sword. Only the assembled and concentrated
might of a national passion rearing up in its strength can defy the
international enslavement of peoples. Such a process is and remains
a bloody one.¹⁸
If at the beginning of the War [1914 - A.H.] and during the
War twelve or fifteen thousand of these Hebrew corrupters of the
people had been held under poison gas, as happened to hundreds of
thousands of our very best German workers in the field, the sacrifice
of millions at the front would not have been in vain. On the contrary:
twelve thousand scoundrels eliminated in time might have saved the
lives of a million real Germans, valuable for the future.¹⁹
Hitler reproached the German Imperial Government for not
having acted in 1914 at the start of war, "against the entire crooked
association of the Jewish nation-poisoners"
It would have been the duty of a serious government, now that the
German worker had found his way back to his nation, to
exterminate mercilessly the agitators who were misleading the
nation.
If the best men were dying at the front, the least we could do was to
wipe out the vermin.²¹
In Hitler's "second book" of 1928²² (not published but edited
only in 1961), foreign policy in its narrower sense formed the core.
But this work also reflects Hitler's fixation upon "Jewish
Bolshevism." He argued that a German-Russian pact would
"result" in the total rule of Germany by the Jews as in Russia."23
The Bolshevik Revolution gave Russia
its new leaders - Jewry. With the help of Slavic racial instincts,
Jewry striving for ruling²⁴-class status, and therefore supreme
18
Ibid., p. 595
19
Ibid., p. 620.
20
Ibid., p. 155.
21
Ibid., p. 155.
22
Hitler's Secret Book. A document from 1928. New York, 1961.
23
Ibid., p. 132.
24
Hitler always wrote "Schichte" instead of "Schicht".
108
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
control, exterminated the previous alien ruling class. If Jewry has
assumed control of all spheres of Russian life with the Bolshevik
Revolution, this is a natural process, because the Slavic people lack
all organizational talent, and thus also that power which forms and
maintains states. 25
Nevertheless, Hitler deemed it "conceivable, that an internal
change could occur within the Bolshevik world, so that the Jewish
element could possibly be displaced by a more or less Russian
national one. "26 Indeed, he went so far as to prophesy that "the
struggle of the invariably anti-state pan-Slavic idea against the
1
Bolshevik-Jewish state idea would end with the extermination of
Jewry."27
The residue would then be a Russia of low state power and deeply
rooted anti-German attitudes A future pact between Germany
and Russia makes no sense for Germany, when viewed from a
position of sober expediency. To the contrary, it is indeed fortunate
that this development took place, since it broke a ban which would
have prevented us from seeking the aims of German foreign policy in
the only possible direction: space in the east. 28
There is no controversy29 on the continuity of racist and
geopolitical guidelines in Hitler's mind, and their transfer as central
axioms to National-Socialist "ideology" - in itself highly vague
and ambiguous. There are different views about the extent to which
these guidelines determined practical policy in the Third Reich, and
influenced the details of the anti-Jewish measures taken by the
regime in the "peace years" from 1933 to 1939. 30 During this period,
25
Hitler's Secret Book, p. 138.
26
Ibid., p. 132.
27
Ibid., p. 138.
28
Ibid., p. 139.
29
This continuity is most amply documented in the study by Hans-Adolf
Jacobsen, Nationalsozialistische Aussenpolitik 1933-1938, Frankfurt/M.-
Berlin, 1968, pp. 446ff., 598ff. Further documents in Helmut Krausnick,
"Kommissarbefehl und 'Gerichtsbarkeitserlass Barbarossa' in neuer Sicht,"
Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitsgeschichte (henceforth VfZ), 25, (1977), pp. 718ff.
30
Jäckel, Hitlers Weltanschauung, op. cit., and Jacobsen, op. cit., as well as Lucy
S. Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews, 1933-1945, New York, 1975, all
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
109
Hitler retained the formula "Jewish Bolshevism" in his speeches.
For example, in his Reichstag speech of January 30, 1937, he called
Bolshevism "a pestilence which we had to bloodily oppose in
Germany," when "Jewish-international Moscow Bolshevism
sought to enter Germany."3 He had avoided "every close contact
with the carriers of these poisonous bacilli.' On February 20, 1938
he told the Reichstag: "More than ever, we regard Bolshevism as the
incarnation of the human destructive impulse.' Until the turn of
1938/1939 the slogan of "Jewish Bolshevism remained central in
National-Socialist agitation. But then, the temporary tactical need
for a rapprochement with the Soviet Union dictated the separation
of anti-Semitic propaganda from anti-Bolshevik slogans for two
and a half years, with the former becoming intensified. In the winter
of 1938/1939 Hitler's expressions regarding his comprehensive anti-
Jewish aims became clearer than before in his conversations with
foreigners. On November 24, 1938 he told the South African
Minister of Defense, Pirow, that "the Jews would disappear from
Europe one day. But, he continued: "World Jewry does not wish
the Jews to disappear from Europe, but regards them as the
vanguard for the Bolshevization of the world. The Jews hate him
[Hitler], because he prevented the Bolshevization of Europe He
"exports only one idea, which is not National Socialism but he
exports anti-Semitism." Hitler told Czech Foreign Minister
Chvalkovsky on January 21, 1939: "We shall exterminate the Jews.
The Jews will not get away with their responsibility for November 9,
1918 - this day will be avenged."36
emphasize the systematic nature of the Jewish policy, even in this period.
However, Uwe Dietrich Adam, Judenpolitik im Dritten Reich, Düsseldorf,
1972, and Broszat, op. cit. take the opposite view.
31
Max Domarus ed., Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen. 1932-1945. vol. I:
Triumph (1932-1938), Neustadt an der Aisch, 1962, p. 671.
32
Ibid., p. 671.
33
Ibid., p. 799.
34
Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918-1945. Serie D (1937-1941),
Bd.IV. Baden-Baden, 1951, p. 293.
35
Ibid., p. 295.
36
Ibid., p. 170.
110
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
The radical nature of his public anti-Semitic declarations made
all earlier statements pale by comparison. In his Reichstag speech of
January 30, 1939 Hitler "prophesied" a direct connection between
war and the extermination of the Jews:
During my struggle for power, it was the Jewish people, primarily,
who laughed at my prophecies that I would one day take over the
leadership in Germany and thus of the entire nation. And that I
would then, inter alia, also find a solution for the Jewish problem. I
believe, that this resounding laughter of the Jews in Germany has in
the meantime been choked off in their throats. I wish to be a prophet
again today: If international Jewish finance in and beyond Europe
should succeed once again in plunging the nations into a world war,
the result will not be the Bolshevization of the earth and hence
Jewry's victory, but the extermination of the Jewish race in
Europe!³⁸
During the war Hitler often reverted to this "prophecy" and -
typically - invariably attached false dates to it. He "switched" this
statement to his Reichstag speech at the outbreak of the war on
September 1, 1939, instead of on January 30, 1939. He did this for
the first time on January 30, 1941, i.e., when all preparations for
attacking the Soviet Union had become accelerated, in a speech in
the Berlin Sport Palace:39
I do not wish to forget the hint, which I already gave in the German
Reichstag on September 1, 1939, namely that if the rest of the world
should be thrust into a general war by Jewry, then all Jewry will have
played out its role in Europe! Perhaps they are still laughing today,
even as they laughed at my earlier prophecies. The coming years and
months will prove that here too my prediction was correct.
In his proclamation to the German people on the day of the
attack upon the Soviet Union (June 22, 1941), Hitler instantly
readopted the phrase "Jewish Bolshevism":
37
Broszat, op. cit., p. 771, does not interpret this from a psychological point of
view as a mere "warning," but in itself "part of the motivation."
38
Max Domarus, ed., Hitler. Reden und Proklamationen 1932-1945, vol. II:
Untergang (1939-1945), Neustadt an der Aisch, 1963, p. 1058.
39
Ibid., p. 1663.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
111
"For more than two decades the Jewish-Bolshevik regime in
Moscow has tried to set fire not merely to Germany, but to all of
Europe The Jewish-Bolshevik rulers in Moscow have
unswervingly undertaken to force their domination upon us and the
other European nations, and that not merely spiritually, but also in
terms of military power.40
Hitler viewed his decision to invade the Soviet Union from the
aspect of his anti-Semitic world struggle, which he had expected
since the mid-1920s, and for which he had "prepared" in the
broadest sense of that word. "Now the hour has come, in which it
is necessary to confront this plot of the Jewish Anglo-Saxon
warmongers, and the equally Jewish rulers of the Bolshevik center
in Moscow."⁴⁴¹
National-Socialist propaganda had thus regained its traditional
racist-ideological "foe-image" of "Jewish Bolshevism," which
remained the central axiom throughout the war, until 1945. Now
these core-theories of National-Socialist doctrine were also
communicated to the three million German soldiers of the Eastern
Army which attacked the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. Directly
before the assault, they had been issued 'Guidelines for the Conduct
of the Troops in Russia' by their High Command (OKW):
Bolshevism is the deadly enemy of the National-Socialist German
people. Germany's struggle is against this disintegrative ideology
and its carriers. This struggle demands ruthless and energetic action
against Bolshevik agitators, partisans, saboteurs, Jews - and the
radical elimination of all active and passive resistance.⁴³
40 Ibid., p. 1727.
41
Ibid., p. 1731.
42
Jacobsen, op. cit., P. 459, footnote 21, reproduces the secret instructions to the
German press after June 22, 1941 (switch to "the destruction of Bolshevism").
On July 10, 1941 an "anti-Jewish action" commenced: the subject Jewry
and World Bolshevism must be written up (as previously)."
43
Nuremberg-Document NOKW-1962. For general continuity, see Helmut
Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe des
Weltanschaungskrieges. Die Einsatzgruppen der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD
1938-1942, Stuttgart, 1981, pp. 107f.
112
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
The Mass Murder of the Jews in the Conquered Areas of
the Soviet Union
The exact date on which Hitler decided⁴⁴ upon the systematic
extermination of the Jews in the wake of his racist-ideological war
of extirpation in the conquered areas of European Russia is
controversial. Nevertheless, there are many indications that the
order was given in the preparatory stages of his planned attack on
the Soviet Union, at the end of June and the beginning of July 1940.
The command to shoot all Jews in Russia appears to have been
communicated verbally either to Himmler or Heydrich at the end of
May 1941, some weeks before the attack. This order was then passed
44
The period extends from summer 1940 (Eberhard Jäckel) through March 1941
(Helmut Krausnick) until the beginning of July 1941, i.e., shortly after the start
of the campaign (Hans-Günther Seraphim). Broszat, op. cit., p. 96, footnote 26,
and p. 97, doubts the existence of a "comprehensive, order for the
extermination" by Hitler concerning the "Final Solution," in the sense of the
physical destruction of all Jews in German-ruled Europe. However, he states
that the "first extensive liquidation act, the mass execution in the summer and
fall of 1941, of hundreds of thousands of Jews in the occupied Soviet territories
by the Einsatzkommandos of the security police and the SD was no doubt
carried out on the personal directive of Hitler." (Ibid., p. 85.) The present
author claims - in opposition to the views of Martin Broszat, op. cit. and Uwe
Dietrich Adam, op. cit., - that there was definitely an order by Hitler
(probably verbal) already in July 1941, and that this order extended the
ongoing "Final Solution" practiced in the occupied Soviet territories (since the
start of the German attack upon the Soviet Union) to the areas of Western and
Central Europe. This basic order by Hitler was put into action in the
extermination camps in Poland, after discussion and planning of the "best"
possible implementation between December 1941 and January 1942. A similar
position is taken by Christopher Browning, "Eine Antwort auf Martin
Broszats Thesen zur Genesis der "Endlösung," VfZ, vol. 29, 1981, pp. 99ff. In
his memoirs, Adolf Eichmann (Ich, Adolf Eichmann. Ein historischer
Zeugenbericht, edited by Rudolf Aschenauer, Leoni, 1980, pp. 177ff.) mentions
an order by Hitler, conveyed to him verbally by Heydrich "around the turn of
the year 1941/1942," as the activating factor for the "physical extermination of
the Jewish foe." A recent study by Gerald Fleming, Hitler and the Final
Solution, University of California, 1984, emphasizes the direct responsibility of
Hitler, and seeks to establish the exact processes in the summer of 1941, which
marked the path from Hitler's order to the commencement of the mass
exterminations.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
113
on verbally by Reinhard Heydrich at the Border Police School of
Pretzsch near Wittenberg, to the commanders of the so-called
Einsatzgruppen or Einsatzkommandos. At that time Heydrich
headed the Main Office of Reich Security - RSHA
(Reichssicherheitshauptamt), the Security Police, and the Security
Service (SD). Since March 1941, Hitler had given quite unequivocal
hints, in his orders to leading military commanders, and in a speech,
to the effect that the coming war in the east would differ from that in
the west. He personally edited subparagraph B of the "Guidelines in
Special Spheres re Directive No. 21 (Operation Barbarossa)," on
March 13, 1941:
In the operations area of the Army, the Reichsführer SS has been
given special tasks on the orders of the Führer, in order to prepare
the political administration. These tasks arise from the forthcoming
final struggle of two opposing political systems. Within the
framework of these tasks, the Reichsführer SS acts independently
and on his own responsiblity.⁴⁶
In a speech to some 200-250 leading military commanders on
March 30, 1941, Hitler became more specific. Nevertheless, the key
words noted by the Chief of the General Staff, Generaloberst Franz
Halder, contain no mention of Jews. The soldiers, however, had
long been familiar with the catch phrase "Jewish Bolshevism,"
against which war was now to commence. Halder's notes read:
Struggle between two ideologies. Scathing evaluation of Bolshevism,
equals antisocial criminality. Communism immense future danger
This is a fight to the finish. If we do not accept this, we shall beat
the enemy, but in thirty years we shall again confront the
Communist foe. We don't make war to preserve the enemy
Struggle against Russia: Extermination of Bolshevik Commissars
and of the Communist intelligentsia Commissars and GPU
personnel are criminals and must be treated as such The struggle
45
Heinz Höhne, The Order of the Death's Head, London, 1969, pp. 358ff;
Helmut Krausnick, Hans Buchheim, Martin Broszat, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen,
Anatomy of the SS State, London, 1968, pp. 61-62, cite the relevant depositions
by Otto Ohlendorf and Walter Blume.
46
Nuremberg document PS-477. IMT, Nuremberg, 1949, vol. XXVI, p. 54,
114
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
will differ greatly from that in the west. In the east harshness now
means mildness for the future.4
Negotiations between Heydrich and Quartermaster General
Eduard Wagner established the spheres of joint or separate action
for the Army and the SS Einsatzgruppen in the fulfillment of their
"special tasks." This resulted in an order issued by the Army's
Commander-in-Chief, General Fieldmarshal von Brauchitsch, on
April 28, 1941. Concerning the action against the Jews, practical
cooperation between the Army and the Einsatzgruppen led to an
order by the Army Commanders, which called for the identification
and registration of Jews in their domiciles directly after the troops
had occupied any area. This was effected by large posters, 48 which
simplified the task of the Security Police and SD units. Unless, of
course, individuals or groups of Jews fled into the forests or went
"underground" - after learning of their imminent fate. Four
Einsatzgruppen were raised for the prospective campaign against the
Soviet Union, each consisting of 500 to 990 men, a total of some
3,000 drawn from the Gestapo, the detective force, the
constabulary, foreign auxiliary police and the Waffen-SS. They
were subdivided into Einsatz- and Sonderkommandos.
While the systematic killing of the Jews in the operational areas of
the armies and army groups was the task of the Einsatzgruppen, this
task devolved upon the "Senior SS and Police chiefs" (Höhere SS -
und Polizeiführer - HSSPF) - inter alia - in the occupied Soviet
areas under German civil administration. At first, a written notice
of July 2, 1941, issued by Heydrich to the four HSSPF, limited the
killings. He instructed them in a "concise fashion" pursuant to
direct, previous "basic orders". for the Einsatzgruppen and
Kommandos. We read, under "4. Executions":
47
Generaloberst (Franz) Halder, Kriegstagebuch, Hans-Adolf Jacobsen, ed., vol.
II, Stuttgart, 1963, pp. 336f.
48
Christian Streit, Keine Kameraden. Die Wehrmacht und die sowjetischen
Kriegsgefangenen 1941-1945, Stuttgart, 1978, pp. I-13. On the cooperation
between the army and the Einsatzgruppen, see Krausnick and Wilhelm, Die
Truppe des Weltanschaungskrieges, op. cit., pp. 205f.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
115
All the following are to be executed:
Officials of the Comintern (together with professional
Communist politicians in general)
Top and medium-level officials and radical lower-level officials of
the Party, Central Committee and district and sub-district
committees
People's Commissars
Jews in Party and State employment, and other, radical elements
(saboteurs, propagandists, snipers, assassins, agitators; etc.)
insofar as they are, in any particular case, required or no longer
required, to supply information on political or economic matters
which are of special importance for the further operations of the
Security Police, or for the economic reconstruction of the Occupied
Territories.
49
However, in "Order No. 8" issued by Heydrich on July 17, 1941,
the "elements" to be separated from the bulk of the Soviet POW's
included "all Jews, "50 as well as Communist officials. On November
5, 1945, in the Nuremberg Trials of the principal war criminals, Otto
Ohlendorf stated that "a secret verbal order was issued to all
Einsatzgruppen commanders in May 1941.' Furthermore, in the
Einsatzgruppen trial on June 29, 1947,51 Dr. Walter Blume stated the
same. Both witnesses related that Heydrich, addressing "a limited
circle" of Einsatzgruppen and Einsatzkommando chiefs in June 1941,
declared that "Eastern Jewry is the reservoir of Bolshevism, and is
thus to be exterminated, in the view of the Führer."
Even if we were to question their evidence, the very large number
of Jews reported killed by the Einsatzgruppen and the HSSPF in the
first weeks of the campaign leaves no doubt that these actions could
hardly have been limited to "only Jews in party and state
positions." At the least, these figures indicate an intention to kill
immediately all Jews in the German-occupied areas of the Soviet
Union in the course of the campaign in the summer and fall of 1941.
Due to the vast number of prospective victims, this soon led to
almost insoluble problems.
49
Document no. 171 in-Y, Arad, Y. Gutman, A. Margaliot eds., Documents on the
Holocaust, Jerusalem, 1981, p. 377.
50
Nuremberg Document NO-3414.
51
IMT, vol. XXXI, p. 39 (Otto Ohlendorf) and Nuremberg Document NO-4145
(Dr. Walter Blume), Institut für Zeitsgeschichte, München.
116
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
All the killings ("liquidations") of Jews and other "enemies of the
Reich and State" within the operational areas of the Einsatzgruppen,
were recorded from the start of the campaign in the "Reports of
Events in the USSR" - "Ereignismeldungen UdSSR. "52 These
reports. were initially compiled daily, and then every 2-4 days,
starting with No. 1 of June 23, 1941, and finally ending with No. 195
of April 23, 1942. Extracted from reports to the RSHA, they were
sent, at first, only to Himmler and several sections of Bureau IV,
and later saw wider distribution. From May 1, 1942 they were
replaced by "Reports from the Occupied Eastern Territories,"53
starting with No. 1 and ending with No. 55 of May 21, 1943.
However, the evidence in the latter is inferior to that of the
"Ereignismeldungen."
From the "Ereignismeldungen" we learn that Einsatzgruppe A
(behind the north section of the Eastern Front) executed 136, 421
Jews up to November 25, 1941; its victims also included 1,064
Communists, 56 partisans, 653 mentally disturbed persons, 44
Poles, 28 POW's, 5 Gypsies and 1 Armenian.⁵⁴ By February 1, 1942
the number had risen to 229,052. 55 Einsatzgruppe B (behind Army
Group Center) killed 45,467 up to November 14, 1941;
Einsatzgruppe C (behind Army Group South) accounted for 95,600
up to the beginning of December 1941. Einsatzgruppe D (in the
southernmost section of the Eastern Front) killed a further 92,000
Jews up to April 8, 1942. 56 In a second, large "wave" of
extermination in the Ukraine, South Russia and the Bialystok area,
another 363,211 Jews were shot between August and December
1942. 57 This yields a total of 824,000 up to November 1942. We must
52
Now in Bundesarchiv Koblenz, R 58/214-221.
53
Now in Bundesarchiv Koblenz, R 58/697-699; R 58/222-224.
54.
IMT (as in footnote 46), vol. XXX, p. 72.
55
Ibid.
56
Raul Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, Chicago, 1960, p. 256,
footnote 85; Krausnick, Anatomy of the SS-State, op. cit., p. 64 (compilation
based on "Ereignismeldungen UdSSR").
57
Himmler's report to Hitler, December 20, 1942 (Nuremberg-Document NO-
511) on "Anti-Partisan Successes" since August 1942 in "South-Russia,
Ukraine, Bialystok," divided by Himmler into sub-paragraphs: "a) arrested
b) executed c) Jews executed (this document is extensively quoted, and
contradicts, due to the differentiation between killed Jews and actual partisans,
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
117
take into account "gaps" in the available documents, as well as
possible exaggerations in the reports.
The first phase of mass executions ended in the winter of
1941/1942, and during the following intermediate phase (until July
1942) the surviving Jews were "concentrated" in ghettos in the
larger population centers. This led to forced labor in the ghettos,
labor camps and armaments plants outside the ghettos. 58 The
second "wave" commenced in the late summer and fall of 1942,
under the inappropriate designation "gang suppression. It was
directed mainly at the ghettos and the number of victims reached the
aforementioned high figure within a short time. On October 27,
1942, Himmler ordered the destruction of the last big ghetto, at
Pinsk.⁶⁰
These systematic murders in the occupied Soviet territories
attained a last zenith⁶¹ in the Ukraine, after the surrender of the
remnant of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad on February 2,
1943. An order from Himmler to HSSPF East, dated June 21, 1943,
states:
I order that all Jews still remaining in ghettos of the eastern area be
assembled in concentration camps. As of August 1, 1943, I forbid the
exit of all Jews from these camps for work The maximum possible
number of male Jews are to be shifted to the concentration camp in
the oil-shale area, for the mining of oil-shale. The unneeded Jewish
ghetto-dwellers are to be evacuated eastwards.⁶²
The "few tens of thousands"6 still remaining in these
concentration camps were shifted to camps in Germany upon the
the thesis of "Anti-Partisan Operations." Quoted in Andreas Hillgruber, "Die
'Endlösung' und das deutsche Ostimperium als Kernstück des rassen-
ideologischen Programms des Nationalsozialismus," VfZ, vol. 20, 1972, p. 148.
58
For this phase, see Krausnick, Anatomy of the SS-State, op. cit., pp. 71-72.
59
See pp. 20-21 in the text, concerning the link between the extermination of the
Jews and anti-partisan warfare, in the versions by Hitler and Nazi propaganda.
60
Nuremberg-Document NO-2027, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich.
61
See Martin Broszat, op. cit., p. 121, footnote 70.
62
Nuremberg-Document NO-2403, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich.
63
Krausnick, Anatomy of the SS-State, op. cit., p. 73.
118
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
approach of the Red Army. It is likely that many of them died in the
last months of the war.
To illustrate the large number of victims in these mass
exterminations of Jews, we have extracted statistics from the
"Ereignismeldungen UdSSR" for the larger Soviet towns. On
November 30, 1941, in Riga alone, 10,600 Jews were killed⁶⁴ by
Einsatzkommando 2 of Einsatzgruppe A. In the ravine of Babi-Yar
near Kiev, 33,771 Jews were murdered by Einsatzkommando 4a of
Einsatzgruppe C.⁶⁵ In "special actions" carried out by
Einsatzkommandos in the summer and fall of 1941,66 the following
numbers of Jews were liquidated: in Kamenetz Podolsk, 23,600; in
Berditchev, 1,303 (including 875 "Jewesses above the age of 12"); in
Dniepropetrovsk, 10,000; in Rovno, 15,000; and in a "big action" in
the ghetto of Minsk, 2,278.
These mass murders were limited by the economic needs of the
German occupation authorities, quite apart from such "technical
problems" as "extreme cold which hampers mass executions" or the
"wide dispersal" of the Jews. Thus, in the report of Einsatzgruppe A
of February 1942 we read:6 "The systematic mopping-up in the east
includes, according to the basic orders, the most radical elimination
of Jewry which can be effected However, the final and basic
removal of the remaining Jews in the area of Byelorussia after the
German entry involves certain difficulties": some of the skilled
workers are "still essential."
64
"Ereignismeldungen UdSSR": No. 156 of January 16, 1941. Gerald Reitlinger,
The Final Solution: Hitler's Attempt to Exterminate the Jews of Europe, 1939-
1945, Berlin, 1961, p. 246, sets the number of Jews murdered in Riga in 1941 at a
minimum of 24,000. The commander of Einsatzgruppe A - Stahlecker -
estimates 27,800. Reitlinger deems this exaggerated and reduces the numbers
given for "Blood-Sunday" (November 30, 1941) to 4,000, basing his argument
on the "Ereignismeldung" for that day. However, an action of similar scope
followed in Riga on December 8, 1941. The Riga mass killing of November 30,
1941 included a transport of Jews shifted eastward from the Reich. Between the
25th and 29th of November 1941 the first 4,934 German Jews were shot in
Kovno (see Martin Broszat, op. cit., p. 104, footnote 45).
65
"Ereignismeldungen UdSSR," No. 101 of October 2, 1941 and No. 106 of
October 7, 1941.
66
Compiled from Raul Hilberg, op. cit., pp. 193ff., whose source is the
"Ereignismeldungen UdSSR."
67
IMT, vol. XXX, pp. 76ff.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
119
It is impossible to arrive at an accurate total for the Jews killed in
Soviet territory. Apart from the aforementioned "gaps" in the
available reports of the Einsatzgruppen and the HSSPF, there is the
question of which of the territories newly annexed by the Soviet
Union in 1939/1940 are to be included in "Poland," the "Baltic
States," or Romania (as in the case of Bessarabia and north
Bukovina). Furthermore, from the fall of 1941, Jews from Germany
were transported to the "east" - primarily to the Baltic areas -
and there subjected to extermination.⁶⁸ Lastly, Soviet statistics
regarding religious denomination are highly inaccurate, especially
for Jews.⁶ Taking into account all these problems and sources of
error, Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm has estimated that "a total of more
than 2.2 million Jews perished as a result of the Nazi terror and the
persecutions of Hitler's allies." The first "wave," from summer
1941 to spring 1942, comprised about a third during this period of
mass shootings (i.e., approximately 700,000), with the
Einsatzgruppen accounting for a mere quarter, i.e., some 500,000.71
At the latest from March 1941, the racist-ideological
extermination of "Jewish Bolshevism" formed an integral
component of the war on the Eastern Front. Some weeks before the
onset of Operation Barbarossa, the Einsatzgruppen were informed
of the intended "liquidations" in Soviet territory. This supports the
thesis that the mass killings of the Jews had no original connection
with the anti-partisan operations, which expanded rapidly behind
the German front from the end of 1941. We must not overlook the
immense discrepancy in the numbers of Jews and partisans killed in
the so-called "anti-guerrilla. warfare," as appearing in the
"liquidation" reports of the Einsatzgruppen and of the SS. Stalin's
appeal of July 3, 1941 for a partisan war behind the German front
68
See footnote 64 above.
69
The estimated number of Jews in the Soviet Union in 1941 fluctuates by over 1
million. This involves primarily the unanswered - and unanswerable -
question of how many Jews managed to escape from the Germans into the
unoccupied territories. Calculations vary from 2.665 million to 1.6 million. For
details, see Gerald Reitlinger, op. cit., pp. 558f.
70
Helmut Krausnick and Hans-Heinrich Wilhelm, Die Truppe des
Weltanschaungskrieges, op. cit., p. 621.
71
Ibid., p. 622.
120
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
made it possible for Hitler to effect a propagandistic combination of
both campaigns. This provided the German army in the east with a
convincing psychological justification for the mass killings of Jews.
In the circle of his intimates - Göring, Bormann, Lammers,
Rosenberg, Keitel⁷² - Hitler said on July 16, 1941: "The Russians
have now issued an order for a partisan war behind our front. This
partisan war has its advantage: it allows us to exterminate all who
oppose us."
The factually inaccurate combination of Jews and partisans⁷³ was
obviously intended for the psychological relief of German soldiers,
who witnessed the mass executions of Jews, or heard of them. In the
fall of 1941, this excuse also appeared in the orders of certain army
commanders, such as von Reichenau, von Manstein, etc. On
October 10, 1941, Reichenau stated that "the soldier must achieve
full understanding of the necessity for a harsh but just vengeance
against Jewish subhumanity," since "experience has proven that
revolts in the rear of the army were invariably incited by the Jews. 74
In an order of November 20, 1941, Manstein describes "Jewry" as
the middleman between the enemy at our rear and the still fighting
remnants of the Red Army and the Red leadership; more than in
Europe, it [Jewry] occupies all key posts of the political leadership
and administration, of trade and crafts, and forms the nucleus for all
disquiet and possible revolts. The Jewish-Bolshevist system must be
exterminated once and for all.75
Subsequently, the category of "unreliable elements" increasingly
and arbitrarily comprised "partisans, saboteurs, possible enemy
groups, parachutists not wearing uniforms, Jews, leading
Communists, etc."76 The Jews were thus placed in a category to
72
IMT, vol. XXXVIII, Nuremberg-Document L-221.
73
Jews who fled into the forests before the massacres of the Einsatzgruppen
played only a minor role in the formation of Soviet-controlled partisan units.
74
IMT, vol. XXXV, Nuremberg-Document D-411.
75
IMT, vol. XX, pp. 698ff.
76
See, for example, an operation order by the Commissioner of the Security
Police and the SD, attached to the Commander of the hinterland Area South/
Sonderkommando 11b, of January 12, 1942 (Nuremberg-Document NOKW-
3453, Institut für Zeitgeschichte, Munich.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
121
which they did not belong, i.e., "gang-helpers and suspects" in the
ongoing partisan warfare.
Consequently, this artificial connection cannot be used by
historians to justify the extermination of the Jews - a goal sought
and largely attained by Hitler in the occupied Soviet territories.
Some contend that this occurred as a part of a partisan campaign
and if, indeed, the Hague Convention for Warfare on Land was not
observed, the relevant offenses can be described as "war crimes,"
comparable to those which also occurred in the war on land, at sea
and in the air between the combatants. The excuse that the
extermination of the Jews was a part of anti-partisan struggle, and
the comparison with other "war crimes" cannot be accepted. The
mass killings of the Jews arose directly from the extreme, anti-
Semitic race doctrine of Hitler and of National Socialism. This
produced a "dogmatic fixation" combined with "spasmodic
paranoid aggressivity. The Nuremberg Trials of 1945-1946
described this as a "crime against humanity," although it would
have been more accurate to term it a "crime against mankind.' This
crime was justified by Hitler and Himmler as part of the pseudo-
religious, historical "mission" which they were forced to fulfill. The
Jews were not regarded as humans to be "fought," as opponents or
enemies in or out of uniform (like the partisans), involved in any
way in combat against the German occupation forces. Quite the
contrary: as in World War I, the German troops were initially
welcomed by the Jews as their "liberators." Furthermore, the Jews
could not even be regarded as specific representatives of the Red
Army, such as the commissars, agäinst whom the notorious
"Commissar Order" of June 6, 1941 was issued. They could not
even be rationally considered as particularly representative
adherents of the "enemy" ruling system. Rather, an arbitrarily
selected, large group of people had been declared to be a "deadly
enemy" before the war; they were to be physically exterminated in a
purely arbitrary fashion, based on the racist-ideological doctrine.
This exceptional event cannot thus be compared with any other
kind of "war crime," beyond the accepted international laws of war.
77
Broszat, op. cit., p. 118.
122
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
The mass murder of the Jews in the German-occupied territories
of the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1944 is beyond any doubt.
The "Ereignismeldungen UdSSR" and other primary evidence from
SS sources from 1941-1944 constitute irrefutable testimony for the
historian, both of the act itself and its magnitude. The sole
"explanation" of these mass crimes ordered by Hitler and Himmler
can be found in the racist-ideological frame of reference.
Furthermore, the sources documenting the many general
expressions by Hitler and Himmler, as well as those quite specific to
the crime itself, are irrefutable. There is no room for doubt about
the connection between the racist-ideological doctrine and its
realization in practice. Even if we
know hardly anything of the way in which Hitler discussed these
measures with Himmler and Heydrich, who bore the institutional
responsibility for the liquidations carried out by the Security Police
and SS-Kommandos. During this phase both men were frequently
present at the Führer's headquarters.⁷⁸
Hitler's Open Declarations on the Extermination of the
Jews in Europe
It is noteworthy that in his public speeches and proclamations
during 1942 and at the beginning of 1943 Hitler invariably referred
to the "prophecy" in his Reichstag speech of January 30, 1939. By
this means, his "prophecy" on the "solution" of the Jewish problem
assumed a significance which was to be "pounded into" the heads of
all who heard his speeches and read his proclamations. In his New
Year's speech to the German people on January 1, 1942, he spoke of
the "struggle against the Jewish-Capitalist-Bolshevik World
Conspiracy":79 "The Bolshevik monster to which [Churchill and
78
Ibid., p. 98, also p. 116: In spite of the destruction of the pertinent files, mainly
those of the Sicherheitspolizei (Security Police), who were primarily
responsible, and the methodical removal of all traces after the actions, as well
as the unclear phrasing of the documents themselves, the acts as such could not
be hidden. Given the centralization of all decision-making, however, the
attempts to destroy evidence were to a large extent successful.
79
Domarus, op. cit., p. 1821.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
123
Roosevelt - A.H.] want to deliver the European nations, will
ultimately subvert them and their nations. However, the Jew will
not exterminate the European nations, but will be the victim of his
own plot." In his address in the Berlin Sport Palace on January 30,
1942, he declared:
It is clear to us that the war can only end with the extermination of
the Aryan nations, or that Jewry will disappear from Europe. On
September 1, 1939 I already stated in the German Reichstag - and I
avoid premature prophecies - that this war will not end as the Jews
imagine, namely, that the European-Aryan nations will be
exterminated. On the contrary, the result of this war will be the
extermination of Jewry. For the first time, the genuine, ancient
Jewish law will be applied: "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth!" And the
hour will come when the most evil world-enemy of all times will have
played out his role for at least a thousand years.80
On the 22nd anniversary of the Party's foundation - February 24,
1942 - Hitler⁸¹ wrote in a "message" to the "veteran fighters":
my prophecy will be fulfilled, that this war will not destroy Aryan
humanity, but will exterminate the Jew. Whatever the struggle will
bring, or however long it may last, this will be its final result. And
only then, after the removal of these parasites, will the suffering
world see a long period of understanding among the nations, and
with it true peace.
On September 30, 1942 Hitler declared in the Berlin Sport Palace:82
Once the Jews laughed at my prophecies in Germany, too. I do not
know whether they are still laughing today, or whether in the
meantime their laughter has ceased. Even now I can declare that
their laughter will cease everywhere. And these prophecies will also
come true.
Addressing the "veteran fighters" on November 8, 1942 in the
Löwenbräukeller, Munich, Hitler said:
80
Ibid., pp. 1828f.
81
Ibid., p. 1844.
82
Ibid., p. 1920.
124
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
You will remember the session of the Reichstag in which I declared:
If Jewry should imagine that it can bring about an international
world war for the extermination of the European races, the result
will not be the extermination of the European races, but the
extermination of Jewry in Europe. As a prophet I have always been
ridiculed. Of those who laughed at me then, an immense number no
longer laugh today, and those who still laugh will perhaps cease to do
so in a little while. The realization of this will spread throughout the
entire world. We National Socialists will ensure that international
Jewry will be recognized in its entire, demonic threat.83
And in his festive proclamation on "Party-Founding Day,"
February 24, 1943, he repeated: "This struggle will not end as
intended, with the extermination of Aryan mankind, but with the
extirpation of Jewry in Europe. "84
Given a most benign interpretation, these public statements
could, of course, be regarded as a "mere" expression of demagogic
"determination" of racial anti-Semitism "to carry out ruthless
'revenge' against the Jews," without indicating their actual
extermination. 85 However, in view of our knowledge of the events
occurring simultaneously in the east, this would hardly be possible.
Such an interpretation is excluded when one reads Hitler's remarks
in his "table talk." He often reverted to his old "biological" axioms.
For instance, on July 10, 1941 he said:⁸ "I feel like Robert Koch in
politics. He discovered the bacillus, and led medical science into
new paths. I discovered the Jew as the bacillus and the ferment in
social decomposition." Goebbels recorded in his diary the gist of his
talks with Hitler at his "Wolfsschanze" H.Q. in East Prussia (entry.
for August 18, 1941):⁸
The Führer is convinced that his former conviction expressed in the
Reichstag is being confirmed. Namely, that if Jewry were to succeed
in once again provoking a war, this would end with the
extermination of the Jews. This is being confirmed with well-nigh
83
Ibid., p. 1937.
84
Ibid., p. 1992.
85
See Broszat, op. cit., p. 108.
86
The notes of W. Koeppen, quoted by Broszat, op. cit., p. 88, footnote 20.
87
Quoted from Broszat, op. cit., pp. 88ff.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
125
uncanny certainty in these weeks and months. In the east, the Jews
must pay the bill
In a "table talk" on October 25, 1941, in the presence of Himmler
and Heydrich, Hitler expressed his thoughts with special cynicism:
From the rostrum of the Reichstag I prophesied to Jewry that, in the
event of war's proving inevitable, the Jew would disappear from
Europe. That race of criminals has on its conscience the two million
dead of the First World War, and now already hundreds of thousands
more. Let nobody tell me that all the same we can't park them in the
marshy parts of Russia! Who's worrying about our troops? It's not a
bad idea, by the way, that public rumour attributes to us a plan to
exterminate the Jews. Terror is a salutary thing.
The attempt to create a Jewish State will be a failure.⁸
After a visit to the ghetto of Vilna on November 1, 1941,
Goebbels recorded the following 'impressions':8'
The picture becomes dreadful after a short trip through the ghetto.
The Jews are squatting on each other, horrible figures, not to be
seen, let alone to be touched horrible figures starve in the streets,
whom I would not like to meet at night. The Jews are like the lice of
civilized mankind. Somehow they must be exterminated, or they will
invariably resume their tormentive and molesting role.
In the presence of Himmler and Lammers on January 25, 1942,
Hitler declared in one of his "table talks'
It must be done quickly; it is worse if I allow a tooth to be extracted
gradually, a few centimeters every three months. Once pulled, the
pain is gone. The Jew must get out of Europe. Otherwise we shall
never have a European understanding I simply say, he must go. I
can't help it if he is smashed in the process. I see one thing only:
absolute extermination, if they don't leave of their own will.
Two days later (January 27, 1942) he added:91
88
Hitler's Table Talk, 1941-1944, London, 1973, p. 87.
89
Quoted from Broszat, op. cit., p. 97, footnote 33.
90
Werner Jochmann (ed.), Adolf Hitler, Monologue im Führerhauptquartier
1941-1944, Hamburg, 1980, p. 106
91
Ibid., p. 241.
126
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
The Jew must leave Europe! It's best they go to Russia. I have no
mercy for the Jews. They will always remain an element which incites
the nations against each other.
All this was said after the notorious Wannsee Conference on
January 20, 1942, at which Heydrich informed all the
representatives of the German authorities involved about the
organized "Final Solution" throughout German-ruled Europe.
Their various roles were determined, and the physical
extermination of all Jews in Central and Western Europe was
initiated.
On February 14, 1942, Goebbels summed up a visit with Hitler in
Berlin, in his diary:92
The Führer once again stated that he was ruthlessly determined to
finish with the Jews in Europe. There is no place for sentimental
impulses. The Jews have deserved the catastrophe which they now
experience. They will experience their own destruction together with
that of our enemies. We must accelerate this process with cold
ruthlessness; by this we are performing an incalculable service for
mankind, which has been suffering and tormented for millennia
Hitler openly discussed the extermination of European Jewry
with certain foreign statesmen and diplomats, since he was
interested in including the Jews of all European countries. On July
21, 1941 he told the Croatian Minister of Defense, Kvaternik:93
If a single state would suffer, for whatever reasons, one Jewish
family, this would become a focus of bacilli for a new
decomposition. If there were no more Jews in Europe, the unity of
the European nations would no longer be disturbed.
Hitler still spoke of Madagascar or Siberia as possible
destinations for the expelled European Jews, although the
Einsatzgruppen had already started the mass murder of Jews in
Soviet Russia. But in April 1943, Hitler made himself perfectly clear
92
Louis P. Lochner ed., Goebbels' Tagebücher 1942/43, Zurich, 1948, pp. 87f.
93
Akten zur deutschen auswärtigen Politik 1918-1945. Serie D, Bd. XIII.
Göttingen, 1970, Anhang III, p. 838.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
127
to the Rumanian Chief of State, Marshal Antonescu, and to the
Hungarian Regent, Admiral Horthy.
On April 13, 1943 he told Antonescu:94
the Jews are the natural allies of Bolshevism, and candidates for
the places of our present intelligentsia who are to be murdered by
Bolshevization. Therefore he was of the opinion - in contrast to
Marshal Antonescu - that the most radical approach to the Jews
was the best one. He prefers a sea battle of Salamis rather than an
undecided engagement; this is why he prefers to burn all bridges
behind him, since Jewish hatred in any case was gigantic. Due to the
removal of the Jews, Germany is a united nation without
opposition Of course, there is no return from this path.
On April 16, 1943 Hitler said to Horthy: 95
Germany is morally strengthened because the Jews have been
removed; in a short while the last of them will disappear eastwards.
Problems created for Germany by Jewish influence in 1918 cannot
occur now. If the Jews are not driven out, they will once again
destroy the economy, the currency and morals one must not be
fearful of the anti-Jewish measures. Hungary had not pursued an
anti-Semitic policy and wound up with a Béla Kun just the same.
Neither had the Baltic States nor Poland followed an anti-Semitic
policy, but they were overrun by the Jewish Bolshevists. This implies
that if one is going to experience the unpleasant aspects of a struggle
in any case, there is no need to hesitate about engaging in an
energetic struggle against the Jews. There can be no faltering, and
anyone who believes in compromises on this question is mistaken.
Besides, why should the Jews be handled with kid gloves? After all,
they had instigated the [first] world war and were responsible for all
the millions who died as a result. Afterwards they had caused the
[Russian] revolution, and again inflicted untold harm. They are also
responsible for the present war, and the forms it is assuming
The demand to intensify anti-Semitic measures in Hungary was
answered by Horthy. 96 He claimed that he had taken every possible
94
Andreas Hillgruber ed., Staatsmänner und Diplomaten bei Hitler. Zweiter Teil:
1942-1944, Frankfurt/M., 1970, p. 233.
95
Ibid., p. 240.
96
Ibid., pp. 245f.
128
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
measure, within the realm of decency, against the Jews, but one
could hardly murder them or otherwise deprive them of life. Hitler's
reaction was a typical about-face: "This was not necessary,
Hungary could accommodate the Jews in concentration camps."
And "if one speaks of murdering the Jews, he must state that only
one was guilty of murder - the Jew - who instigates wars, and has
given this war its present turn against civilians, women and
children." When Horthy remarked that "he must blushingly admit
that he had sent 36,000 Jews to the front in labor battalions, most of
whom probably perished during the Russian advance," Hitler
replied "that the Regent need not blush; since the Jews had
instigated the war, and one need not therefore have mercy upon
them, even if the war involved serious consequences for them."
On the next day, in a conversation in the forenoon, Horthy
reverted to the question⁹⁷ "what he should do with the Jews, after he
had more or less deprived them of all means of livelihood - he
could by no means kill them." Ribbentrop answered "that the Jews
must either be exterminated or sent to concentration camps. There
is no other possibility." Hitler added:
that contrary to all fears which had also been voiced to him
repeatedly in Germany, everything continued, even without Jews.
Wherever the Jews were left to themselves, as, for example, in
Poland, the most cruel misery and deprayity prevailed. They are
simply pure parasites. This situation has been drastically remedied in
Poland. There, if the Jews refuse to work they are shot. If they
cannot work they must perish. They must be treated like tuberculosis
germs, which can infect a healthy body. That is by no means cruel,
when one considers that even innocent creatures like hares and deer
must be killed to prevent damage. Why should we show more
consideration for these beasts who wished to bring us Bolshevism?
Nations who do not defend themselves against the Jews perish.
One year later, on March 16, 1944, in an argument with the
Bulgarian Regency Councillor, Hitler said⁹⁸
97
Ibid., p. 256.
98
Ibid., p. 379.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
129
that he had often been reproached for having made the Jews his
bitter enemies by his ruthless action against them. His answer was
that the Jews would have been his and Germany's enemy in any case,
but that he had removed them entirely by eliminating them as a focus
of danger to internal morale.
When talking to the Hungarian Prime Minister, Sztojay, on June
7, 1944, Hitler again reverted to his Reichstag declaration of
January 30, 1939.99 He recalled that he "had declared in his
Reichstag speech, that if the Jews began the war, not we, but the
Jews will be exterminated If the Jewish race were to be victorious,
at least 20 million Germans would be exterminated, and several
millions would starve."
Non-public Statements of Hitler, Himmler and
Goebbels Concerning the Mass-Murder of the Jews
Himmler and Hitler did not mince words when talking to leaders
of the Party and SS, and also top military men - and certainly not
among themselves. In a speech to the SS-Korpsführer on April 24,
1943, Himmler declared:
We were the first to really answer the race problem by action, by the
race problem we naturally did not mean anti-Semitism. Anti-
Semitism is exactly like delousing. The removal of lice is not an
ideological question, but a matter of hygiene. Thus anti-Semitism is
not an ideological issue, but a matter of hygiene, which will soon be
behind us. We are almost deloused, we have only some 20,000 lice
left, and then it will be ended in all of Germany.¹⁰⁰
"The modern nations have no choice but to exterminate the
Jews," as Goebbels summarized Hitler's views in his diary on May
13, 1943: "It is the firm conviction of the Führer that world Jewry
99
Ibid., p. 474.
100
Bradley F. Smith and Agnes F. Peterson eds., Heinrich Himmler. Geheimreden
1933 bis 1945 und andere Ansprachen, Frankfurt/M.-Berlin-Vienna, 1974, pp.
200f.
101
Quoted from Broszat, op. cit., pp. 120f., footnote 68.
130
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
is facing a great fall The nations which have first recognized and
resisted the Jew for what he is shall rule the world in his place."
When Hitler received a report by Himmler¹ on June 19, 1943, he
asked the latter "to effect the radical evacuation of the Jews in the
next three to four months, despite the resulting disquiet." When
speaking to a number of SS-Gruppenführer in Posen on October 4,
1943, 103 Himmler said "that those participating in the mass killings
of the Jews had remained decent, apart from exceptions of human
weakness." He described "the evacuation of the Jews, the
extermination of the Jewish people," as the "most difficult task."
He thus dropped the cover name "evacuation" for the
extermination. "Most of you will know what it means when 100
corpses lie side by side, when there are 500 or 1,000. To have gone
through this is a never written and never to be written page of
glory in our history... "
In a speech of October 6, 1943 delivered to the Reichsleiter and
Gauleiter in Posen two days later, Himmler said: 104
The sentence "the Jews must be exterminated" with its few words
is easily said. But for him who must carry out this demand it is the
hardest and most difficult of all We faced the question: what
about the women and children? I have decided to find a perfectly
clear solution. I did not consider it justified to exterminate the men
- that is to kill them or let them be killed - and allow the children
to live as avengers, for our sons and grandchildren. For the
organization which performed this task, it was the hardest ever. It
has been done Perhaps much later we can reflect on whether more
should be told the German people about this. I think that it is
preferable that we - all of us - who have done this for our people,
who have taken this responsibility upon ourselves (responsibility for
a deed, not for an idea), should take this secret with us to our graves.
In a speech to several Generals at Sonthofen on May 24, 1944,
Himmler declared:¹⁰⁵
102
Note by Himmler of June 1943 (Bundesarchiv Koblenz), quoted from
Krausnick, Anatomy of the SS-State, op. cit., p. 128.
103
IMT, vol. XXIX, Nuremberg Document PS-1919, p. 145.
104
Smith and Peterson op: cit., pp. 169f.
105
Ibid., p. 203.
EXTERMINATION OF THE JEWS IN THE EAST
131
Another problem, decisive for the internal security of the Reich and
Europe, was the Jewish problem. This was solved as ordered, and in
accordance with our national perception (applause)" I did not
feel justified - and this concerns the Jewish women and children -
to allow the children to grow up as avengers, who will then kill our
fathers¹⁰⁷ and our grandchildren. The problem was thus solved
without compromise But I have one conviction. I would fear for
the front built in the east of the General Government [Poland], if we
had not solved the Jewish problem there, if the ghetto of Lublin still
existed, or the giant ghetto of 500,000 people in Warsaw 108
Two days later, on May 26, 1944, he addressed the same subject
when speaking to high-ranking officers:
I have thrust Jewry out of its positions ruthlessly I have thus
deprived the broad masses of their last catalyst. By removing the
Jew, I have prevented the possible formation of any revolutionary
core or focus of bacilli in Germany. One can, of course, ask me: Yes,
but could you not have solved this in a simpler way - or rather not
simpler - but in a more humane fashion?
Even when the final catastrophe of the Third Reich could no
longer be ignored, Goebbels and Hitler repeated their anti-Semitic
hate tirades. On January 21, 1945, Goebbels wrote in the weekly
Das Reich: "Mankind would sink into eternal darkness and revert to
a primitive and apathetic primeval age, if the Jews were to win this
war. "110 On March 14, 1945 he wrote in his diary: "The Jews must
be killed like rats the moment one has power. Thank God we have
done this radically in Germany. I hope that the world will follow our
example. "111
106 Recording: cf. Smith and Peterson, op. cit., p. 305, footnote 60.
107
Appears thus in the text. Probably an error for "sons."
108
A similar speech, again to generals at Sonthofen, on June 21, 1944, condensed
in Smith and Peterson, op. cit., pp. 203ff.
109
Quoted from Broszat, op. cit., pp. 100, 121, footnote 69.
110
The weekly Das Reich, January 21, 1945 (quoted from Walter Hegemann,
Publizistik im Dritten Reich, Hamburg, 1948, p. 483).
111
Joseph Goebbels, Tagebücher 1945. Die letzten Aufzeichnungen, Hamburg,
1977, p. 223.
132
ANDREAS HILLGRUBER
In his last conversation recorded by Martin Bormann on April 2,
1945, Hitler said: 112
In a world ever more morally polluted by Jewish poison, a nation
immune to this poison must finally gain the upper hand. Seen thus,
National Socialism will earn eternal gratitude for exterminating the
Jews in Germany and Central Europe.
One day before his suicide, on April 29, 1945, a week before the
surrender of the Third Reich, Hitler ended his "political testament"
with a demand: 113
Above all I oblige the leadership of the nation and their adherents to
scrupulously observe the racial laws, and offer merciless resistance
to the world poisoner of all peoples, International Jewry.
112
Hitler's political testament. Die Bormann-Diktate vom Februar und April 1945,
Hamburg, 1981, p. 122.
113
Domarus, op. cit., p. 2239.
BABI YAR
1941 - 1991
БАБИИЯР
(P)
An Educational Remembrance by
The Simon Wiesenthal Center
The cover illustration
is a reproduction of the badge
produced in Kiev by the Babi
Yar Center and presented to
the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
BABI YAR
1941 - 1991
A RESOURCE BOOK AND GUIDE
Edited and Compiled by
The Staff of the
Simon Wiesenthal Center
© Simon Wiesenthal Center
1991
Published on the
Fiftieth Anniversary of
BABI YAR
ISBN 0-943058-10-4
The Simon Wiesenthal Center gratefully acknowledges the following publishers for permission to
reproduce their materials in the resource guide: Holocaust Publications (New York, NY); Keter
Publishing House (Jerusalem, Israel); Macmillan Publishing (New York, NY); Publishing House
of Peace (Philadelphia, PA); Viking Press (New York, NY).
For educational and commemorative programs, permission is granted for the reproduction of those
materials originating from the Simon Wiesenthal Center, provided the following statement
accompanies any reproduction: Courtesy of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
Table of Contents
page
Preface, by Simon Wiesenthal
4
Introduction, by Rabbi Marvin Hier,
5
"Babi Yar," from the Encyclopedia of the Holocaust
6
"No Monument Over Babi Yar," by William Korey.
9
"Return to the Past," by Elie Wiesel
37
Babi Yar: The Struggle for Remembrance:
From Yevtushenko to Bush, by Rabbi Abraham Cooper
38
Remarks at the Babi Yar Memorial in Kiev, Soviet Union,
by George Bush, President of the United States
39
My Beloved Poisoned Cradle, by Bella Sitnyakovsky.
42
"And Now They Are Coming to Me in My Nightmares," by Yasha Kaper.
44
"Greetings From Hell," by Dina Mironovna Pronicheva
45
"My Grandfather's Three Mistakes," by Leonid Lelchytsky.
48
"A Crystal Vase From Earth," by Shimon Kipnis
49
"Babi Yar," by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
51
"The Ashes of Babi Yar are Knocking in My Heart,"
Interview with Boris Kochubiyevsky.
53
A Little Song for Drums, by Arkady Rivlin
54
Tango Over Babi Yar, by Arkady Rivlin
55
Memorial Prayer for the Martyrs Massacred at Babi Yar
56
Timeline
58
Glossary
59
Study Questions
61
Bibliography
62
Sources
63
DOKUMENTATIONSZENTRUM
DES BUNDES
JUDISCHER VERFOLGTER DES NAZIREGIMES
A - 1010 WIEN, SALZTORGASSE 6/IV/5 - TELEFON 63 91 31, 63 98 05, FAX 5350397
BANKVERBINDUNG:
CREDITANSTALT BANKNEREIN WIEN
KONTO NR. 47 - 32608
August, 1991
During the two-day period of September 29-30, 1941, 33,771 Jews were ordered from their homes in Kiev
and brought to the ravine at Babi Yar to be murdered. Men, women, children, the old, the sick and babies.
There were few young men among them, for most had been conscripted into the Soviet army to do battle
with the Nazi invader. Those to be murdered were told to pack their essentials in a suitcase. The
subterfuge was so successful that many victims believed they were only to be resettled. Ukrainian police
units were of invaluable service to the Nazis as they went from house to house driving Jews out. Using
their knowledge of the surroundings, they uncovered Jews and brought them to slaughter.
These last two days of September, 1941 mark a turning point in the mass murder of the Jews of the
Ukraine. During the following years of the occupation, many more Jews from Kiev and its environs were
picked up by SS commandos and Ukrainian police and brought to Babi Yar to be murdered.
Sonderkommando 4a was led by SS Standartenfuehrer, Paul Blobel, who was sentenced to death by the
Nuremberg Tribunal for this crime. The crime against the 33,771 Jews was only one of the accusations for
which Blobel had to answer; he was charged with a total of 60,000 murders. The number of those who were
murdered at Babi Yar up until the Nazi retreat in 1944 reached 100,000 - for the most part, Jews.
The name Babi Yar is a symbol of horror for future generations as well, an admonition of Jewish history. We
recall the 50th anniversary of this crime at a time in which antisemitism in many countries has actually
survived their Jews. So-called "historians" deny that these crimes against the Jews were even committed.
But in the end, the truth will prevail and those who hope that the world will forget these crimes will go
down in history as slanderers. Some of these deniers have the title of professor this serves to magnify
their guilt.
Stalin forbade anyone from discussing or writing about Babi Yar. His policy was to declare all the victims of
Nazi crimes simply as Soviets. Even after Stalin's death, when Yevgeny Yevtushenko wrote his famous
poem, "Babi Yar," he was officially reprimanded by Khrushchev in an article published in Pravda. Author,
Anatoli Kuznetsov, could only publish his work on Babi Yar in 1967, outside his country. The Soviet Union
was not interested in presenting - whether in published or artistic form the Jewish tragedy.
As I jot these words down, and as we will soon observe the 50th anniversary of the mass murder at Babi Yar,
the communist Soviet Union of the past has ceased to exist.
Let us hope that all the peoples of the Soviet Union will learn the lessons of the past, and that the victims
of communism as well as the victims of Nazism will be preserved in cherished memory.
Simon Wiesenthal
4
Simon Wiesenthal Center
From The Desk Of The Dean
August 16, 1991
It was only six years ago, but by today's historic developments in the Soviet Union, it could very well have
been another millennium. My first trip to Babi Yar was in 1985. An eerie feeling overtook me as I retraced
the steps taken by nearly 100,000 Jews who were brutally murdered by the Nazis and their Ukrainian
helpers beginning in 1941. There were no markers anywhere to indicate that this was predominantly a
massive Jewish cemetery. What struck me was the misfortune of the victims, the men, women and children
who were murdered first by the Nazis because they were Jews, and then again by the communists because
they would not permit their burial place to be known as a place where Jews died. Two mortal enemies of
the Jews converged with the same idea, to obliterate their memory.
What should Babi Yar teach us? First, we should never forget that it was not only German nationals that
flocked to the swastika, but that there were collaborators who lined the roads everywhere Hitler's armies
struck. There were Lithuanian killers who murdered the Jews of Kovno and Minsk. There were Ukrainian
killers who manned Hitler's concentration camps and did the killing at Babi Yar. There were Vichy
Frenchmen who rounded up the Jews of France and sent them to the concentration camps. Jew-hatred was
not confined to a single flag; many nationalities marched to its drum
Today, as the new-old Baltic states are officially recognized by the Western world, we have every right to
ask them: "What have you learned from the brutal totalitarian repression of the past?" Hopefully, they
have learned to conduct themselves according to the principles of democracy.
But there is cause for concern. The Simon Wiesenthal Center has received disturbing information from
Ukraine's neighbor, Lithuania, that former members of Lithuanian murder squads, who assisted the Nazis
in liquidating the Jews and were later convicted by Soviet courts, are now being officially rehabilitated.
Their confiscated property is being returned and they have been given back pay for the few years they
served in prison after World War II.
In short, they are being exonerated for their participation in Hitler's Final Solution.
Babi Yar reminds us that the task of remembrance for the Jew is never-ending. We must be ever vigilant to
make sure that the Babi Yar we commemorate will be the last one visited upon us.
Rabbi Marvin Hier
5
BABI YAR
From The Encyclopedia Of The Holocaust
BABI YAR, ravine, situated in the northwestern part of Kiev, where the Jews of the Ukrainian
capital were systematically massacred. At the southern end of the ravine were two cemeteries, one
of which was Jewish.
Kiev was captured by the Twenty-ninth Corps and the Sixth German Army on September 19,
1941. Of its Jewish population of 160,000, some 100,000 had managed to flee before the Germans
took the city. Shortly after the German takeover, from September 24 to 28, a considerable number
of buildings in the city center, which were being used by the German military administration and
the army, were blown up; many Germans (as well as local inhabitants) were killed in the
explosions. After the war, it was learned that the sabotage operation had been the work of an
NKVD (Soviet security police) detachment that had been left behind in the city for that purpose.
On September 26, the Germans held a meeting in which it was decided that in retaliation for the
attacks on the German-held installations, the Jews of Kiev would all be put to death. Participating
in the meeting were the military governor, Maj. Gen. Friedrich Georg Eberhardt; the Higher SS
and the Police Leader at Rear Headquarters Army Group South, SS-Obergruppenfuehrer
Friedrich Jeckeln; the officer commanding Einsatzgruppe C, SS-Brigadefuehrer Dr. Otto Rasch;
and the officer commanding Sonderkommando 4a, SS-Standartenfuehrer Paul Blobel. The
implementation of the decision to kill the Jews of Kiev was entrusted to Sonderkommando 4a.
This unit consisted of SD (Sicherheitsdienst; Security Service) and Sicherheitspolizei (Security
Police; Sipo) men; the third company of the Special Duties Waffen-SS battalion; and a platoon of
the No. 9 police battalion. The unit was reinforced by police battalions Nos. 45 and 305 and by
units of the Ukrainian auxiliary police.
On September 28, notices were posted in the city ordering the Jews to appear the following
morning, September 29, at 8:00 a.m. at the corner of Melnik and Dekhtyarev streets; they were
being assembled there, so the notice said, for their resettlement in new locations. ( The text had
been prepared by Propaganda Company No. 637 and the notices had been printed by the Sixth
Army printing press.)
The next morning, masses of Jews reported at the appointed spot. They were directed to proceed
6
along Melnik Street toward the Jewish cemetery and into an area comprising the cemetery itself
and a part of the Babi Yar ravine. The area was cordoned off by a barbed-wire fence and guarded
by Sonderkommando police and Waffen-SS men, as well as Ukrainian policemen. As the Jews
approached the ravine, they were forced to hand over all the valuables in their possession, to take
off all their clothes, and to advance toward the ravine edge, in groups of ten. When they reached
the edge, they were gunned down by automatic fire. The shooting was done by several squads of
SD and Sipo personnel, police, and Waffen-SS men of the Sonderkommando unit, the squads
relieving one another every few hours. When the day ended, the bodies were covered with a thin
layer of soil. According to official reports of the Einsatzgruppe, in two days of shooting
(September 29 and 30), 33,771 Jews were murdered.
In the months that followed, many more thousands of Jews were seized, taken to Babi Yar, and
shot. Among the general population there were some who helped Jews go into hiding, but there
were also a significant number who informed on them to the Germans and gave them up. After
the war, the officer in charge of the Sipo and SD bureau testified that his Kiev officer received so
many letters from the Ukrainian population informing on Jews - "by the bushel" - that the office
could not deal with them all, for lack of manpower. Evidence of betrayal of Jews by the Kiev
population was also given by Jewish survivors and by the Soviet writer Anatoly Kuznetsov.
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
persons were murdered at Babi Yar.
In July 1943, by which time the Red Army was on the advance, Paul Blobel came back to Kiev.
He was now on a new assignment, in coordination with SS-Gruppenfuehrer Dr. Max Thomas, the
officer commanding the SD and Sipo in the Ukraine: that of erasing all evidence of the mass
carnage that the Nazis had perpetrated. For this purpose, Blobel formed two special groups,
identified by the code number 1005. Unit 1005-A was made up of eight to ten SD men and thirty
German policemen, and was under the command of an SS-Obersturmbannfuehrer named
Baumann. In mid-August the unit embarked on its task of exhuming the corpses in Babi Yar and
cremating them. The ghastly job itself was carried out by inmates of a nearby concentration camp
(Syretsk), from which the Germans brought in 327 men, of whom 100 were Jews. The prisoners
were housed in a bunker carved from the ravine wall; it had an iron gate that was locked during the
night and was watched by a guard with a machine gun. They had chains bolted to their legs, and
those who fell ill or lagged behind were shot on the spot. The mass graves were opened up by
bulldozers, and it was the prisoners' job to drag the corpses to cremation pyres, which consisted of
wooden logs doused in gasoline on a base of railroad ties. The bones that did not respond to
incineration were crushed, for which purpose the Nazis brought in tombstones from the Jewish
7
cemetery. The ashes were sifted to retrieve any gold or silver they might have contained.
Cremation of the corpses began on August 18 and went on for six weeks, ending on September 19,
1943. The Nazis did their job thoroughly, and when they were through no trace was left of the
mass graves.
On the morning of September 29, the prisoners learned that they were about to be put to death.
They already had a plan for escape, and resolved to put it into effect the same night. Shortly after
midnight, under cover of darkness and the fog that enveloped the ravine, twenty-five prisoners
broke out. Fifteen succeeded in making their escape; the others were shot during the attempt or
on the following morning.
Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1990 S.v.
"Babi Yar," by Shmuel Spector.
Einsatzgruppen Murderers' Trail: September - October 1941
Zagare
Nevel
R Baltic Sea
2,236
murdered
710
150
shot
Yanovichi
Moscow
see map
Vitebsk
1,180
Krasnopole
87
Vilna
3,000
Rudnya
1,940
Krupki
1,500
Shklov
6,200
3,000
Lomza
Lida
Borisov
8,000
Tatarsk
E
3,500
resistance
Mogilev
25 October 1941
Zambrow
see
2,760
1,000
map 88
Bobuisk
380
Starodub
270
GERMANY
Pripet
Parichi
resistance
1,700
25 October 1941
marshes
Lelchitsy
1,400
Ovruch
Chernigov
30
280
Ostrog
Korosten
Toporow
120
340
Radomyshl
Przemyslany
Kiev
13,020
Komarno
Zhitomir
500
300
Kozowa 300
7,500
Babi
33,771
Yar
Buczacz
29-30 September
Bolechow
1941 June from Gerrman
October
Voronezh
400
1,000
Stanislawow
Skvira
10,000
Litin
1,000
PRONOM
Snyatyn
Vinnitsa
Kremenchug
2,000
400
28,000
Uman
7,000
24,000
Dnepropetrovsk
Kosow
Zbaraz
Kirovograd
Ananayev
15,000
70
2,200
300
5,000
Berdichev
Delatyn
14,803
Dubossary
Taganrog
1,950
6,000
Nikolaiev
Mariupol
3,000
Melitopol
R 3
5,000
Odessa
2,000
8,500
Kherson
SERBIA
48,000
410
Belgrade
Sea of Azov
449
Kakhovka
// October
740
Black
0
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Martin Gilbert 1982
8
No Monument Over Babi Yar
by William Korey
Babi Yar: The Historical Record*
Courtroom 214 in the district coûrt building of the West German city of Darmstadt, in Hesse, is
small and dingy, an unlikely setting for rendering justice in one of the twentieth century's greatest
crimes.¹ But every Monday and Tuesday for fourteen months, beginning on October 2, 1967, three
judges sat here and listened to 175 witnesses give testimony concerning eleven (later, after the
death of one, ten) defendants implicated in the massacre of Jews at Babi Yar. The defendants
were also charged with mass killings in other parts of the Ukraine; Kharkov, Zhitomir, Lutsk,
Radomysl, and Belaya Tserkov. But Babi Yar was the central focus of the trial.
Chief Judge Vinzenz Paquet made it clear that "this is not a show trial not an attempt to master
the German past." But, he added with emphasis, "there is a historical background," involving, at
the onset of the Nazi invasion of Soviet Russia, preparations for mass killing. That "historical
background" was to be starkly illuminated by the court proceedings. Together with other
documentation it forms an objective record of what transpired at the death ravine of Babi Yar, on
the outskirts of Kiev.
Those tried at Darmstadt were members of Einsatzgruppe C, Sonderkommando 4A, which had
been assigned a special function in the Kiev area. This unit, numbering some 150 men, with the
assistance of several hundred men from two police regiments, was responsible for the shooting of
33,771 Jews during a 36-hour period on September 29-30, 1941. The gas chambers of Auschwitz at
the peak of their effort could not duplicate this feat. During the next two years, tens of thousands
more Jews, Russians, and Ukrainians were to be put to death at the same site.
Einsatzgruppe C was one of four "special task forces" organized in May, 1941 by Reinhard
Heydrich, chief of the Security Police and Security Service, under a directive of Adolf Hitler
andHeinrich Himmler.2 Numbering approximately three thousand men (drawn from SS, SD,
andGestapo forces, as well as from various police units), the Einsatzgruppen were to be the
principal instruments of terror in the Nazi war machine. Each Einsatzgruppe was divided into
special commando groups (Sonderkommandos or Einsatzkommandos).
*Subtitles and illustrations added by staff of Simon Wiesenthal Center.
9
A confidential Fuehrer Order was given to the assembled leaders of the Einsatzgruppen and
Sonderkommandos at top secret meetings held in Pretzsch, Saxony, in May, 1941. The order was
not written; it was transmitted orally by Major General Streckenbach, chief of personnel of the
Reich Security Main Office, in the presence of Heydrich. Under the guise of insuring the political
security of the conquered Russian territories, the Einsatzgruppen were to liquidate all opposition
to the Germans.
First For Extermination: Jews
First listed for extermination were all Jews. Then came the following categories - gypsies, the
insane, "Asiatic inferiors," "asocial people, politically tainted persons, and racially and mentally
inferior elements," and, finally, Communist functionaries. The imprecision of the last two
categories made curbs on the homicidal operations of the Einsatzgruppen difficult, if not
impossible.
An intimate relationship between the army high command and the Einsatzgruppen was worked
out in written form at the end of May, 1941. Each of the Einsatzgruppen was attached to a major
army group ("C" was detailed to Army Group South), and extermination orders required the
express approval or tacit consent of the appropriate commanding general. Indeed, the mass
shootings were regarded by high military officials as a kind of Roman spectacle to relieve boredom.
As the Darmstadt trial made clear, many officials watched the executions from a nearby hill with
fascination.
The hunt for Jews was the first task of the Einsatzgruppen. It is significant to note that the
Fuehrer Order with respect to Jews came six months before the infamous decision taken at
Wannsee (January, 1942) to bring about "the final solution of the Jewish question." As a high
official of the Einsatzgruppen explained at Nuremberg, "Jews were to be killed for the reason
that they were considered carriers of Bolshevism and, therefore, endangering the security of the
German Reich."
The mass carnage that was to befall Kiev was illustrative of this objective. Two of the defendants
at Darmstadt, August Haefner and Adolf Janssen, headed a fifty-man advance party of
Sonderkommando 4A which entered the city on September 19, the day Army Group South began
to sweep into the area. Two days later, the chief of the Sonderkommando, Colonel Paul Blobel,
arrived, and on the twenty-fifth the rest of the unit marched in. Final preparations were made for
a decisive action "carried out exclusively against Jews with their entire families," as a top secret
Einsatzgruppen report revealed.
10
On September 28, some two thousand notices were posted throughout the city:
All Jews of the City of Kiev
and its environs must appear
Bce жиды города Киева
on the corner of Melnikov
и ero окрестностей долж-
and Dokhturov Streets
ны явиться B понедельник
29 сентября 1941 года K 8
(beside the cemetery) at 8
часам yTpa Ha угол Мель-
A.M. on September 29,
никсвой И Доктеривской
улиц (возле кладбищ).
1941. They must bring their
Взять C собой докумен-
documents, money,
ты, деньги и ценные вещи.
valuables, warm clothing,
a также теплую одежду,
белье и пр.
etc.
KTo из жидов He выпол-
нит этого распоряжения и
будет найден B другом Mec-
Jews who fail to obey this
Te, будет расстрелян.
I
order and are found
elsewhere will be shot.
All who enter the apartments left by Jews and take their property will be shot.³
These notices were printed in Russian, Ukrainian, and German. (But the usually punctilious
Germans had incorrectly designated the streets. There was neither a Melnikov Street nor a
Dokhturov Street in Kiev. There were, however, a Melnik Street and a Degtyarev Street, the
intersection of which was near the Lukyanovka cemetery. Thus the designation was clear,
notwithstanding the printing error evidently resulting from the use of incompetent translators.)
The notices were accompanied by a word-of-mouth rumor, a deliberate falsehood spread by the
Kommandos, that the Jews were to be evacuated and resettled elsewhere. Since the designated
intersection site bordered on a railway station, the rumor seemed to have a plausible foundation. A
secret official report spoke of the "extremely clever organization" utilized to overcome "the
difficulties resulting from such a large-scale action."
11
Local Jews: Unaware Of Extermination Plan
The Kommando group did not expect the majority of the Jews to show up immediately. At the
most, they expected some six thousand. But Kiev's Jews, unaware of the Nazi extermination
campaign, believing apparently that they would really be resettled elsewhere, and fearful of the
death threat for disobedience, assembled by the thousands - "more than thirty thousand," said the
official report. It must be remembered in this connection that the Nazi-Soviet Non-Aggression
Pact was accompanied by a blackout of news in the Soviet press concerning Nazi atrocities against
Jews in Poland. And the implementation of the Wannsee decision lay in the future.
"Procession Of The Doomed..."
The Jews who gathered on the streets of Kiev on September 29 were mothers, children, the
elderly, and the sick. The youth had left the city with the retreating Red Army. Ilya Ehrenburg
described, in a moving section of his memoirs, how "a procession of the doomed marched along
endless Lvovskaya [a thoroughfare leading to the intersection]; the mothers carrying their babies;
the paralyzed pulled along on hand carts."⁴
12
Ukrainian Polizei: Especially Brutal
The unexpected size of the crowd made for a slow procession through the principal streets. It was
not until late morning or early afternoon that most of the victims reached the cemetery. At that
point the street was blocked with a barrier of barbed wire and anti-tank obstructions. A passage
had been left through the middle, guarded on both sides by Kommandos assisted by Ukrainian
Polizei. The victims were ordered to remove their clothing. An eyewitness, Sergei Ivanovich
Lutzenko, the warden of Lukyanovka cemetery, related, in an official Soviet account, the grim
finale of the march: "They were ordered to deposit on the ground in a neat pile all the belongings
they brought with them and then, in tight columns of one hundred each, were marched to the
adjoining Babi Yar. I could see well how at the ravine's edge the columns were stopped, how
everyone was stripped naked, their clothes piled in orderly bundles."⁵ Before the shooting began,
the Jews were required to run a gauntlet of rubber truncheons or big sticks as they entered the
long passage. The Ukrainian Polizei were especially brutal with those who dallied. As Soviet
novelist Anatoly Kuznetsov described it in his novel Babi Yar, they were "kicked, beaten with
brass knuckles and clubs with drunken viciousness and in a strange sadistic frenzy."
Kuznetsov observed that, judging from their accents, the Polizei came from the Western Ukraine,
which had been under Polish rule, and in which anti-Semitism was rampant. An Einsatzgruppen
secret report suggests that the Ukrainian population was sympathetic to the German objective:
"
the embitterment of the Ukrainian population against the Jews is extremely great because they
are thought responsible for the explosion in Kiev [which, on September 24, had wrecked the
headquarters of the Rear Army Command of the Sixth Army]. They are also regarded as informers
and agents of the NKVD The population hardly knew that the Jews were liquidated, but recent
13
experience suggests that they would not have objected." A witness at Darmstadt, Karl Henneke,
who had served with the task force, testified that the Ukrainian population was simply indifferent
to what had happened to their Jewish neighbors.
The Lone Survivor -
Ravine Dynamited To Cover Dead And Alive
The initial executions were described in an early Soviet note dated January 6, 1942: "The first
persons selected for shooting were forced to lie face down at the bottom of the ravine and were
shot with automatic rifles. Then the Germans shoveled a little earth over their bodies. The next
group of people awaiting execution was forced to lie on top of them and was shot in the same
way..."⁶ Evidence at the Darmstadt trial confirmed the description. Later the procedure was
altered. According to the Lutzenko account, the victims were "put in a row at the very edge of the
ravine and shot in the neck by machine guns; children were thrown alive into the ravine." A
Darmstadt defendant recalled how he would then enter into the "glutinous mass" of bodies to
shoot at those which seemed still alive. Shovelfuls of sand covered the bodies. Then the machine
guns would again stutter, and another group plunged downward. The sole known survivor of the
Babi Yar mass murder, Dina Mironovna Pronicheva, now with the Kiev Puppet Theater, came
from the Soviet Union to provide the court with the harrowing details that verified the technique
of slaughter.
14
Colonel Blobel later testified that his unit had been divided into squads of thirty men each; a
squad would shoot for an hour and would then be replaced by a second squad. The shooting
continued until night, when the Germans retired to their quarters, herding the remaining Jews into
empty garages. Early in the morning the massacre was resumed. That evening, an eyewitness
reported, "the ravine was dynamited so as to cover with earth both the dead and those still alive."
Illustrative of the mentality of the Einsatzgruppen was the testimony of one of them at Darmstadt.
Following the massacre, he presented himself to an officer (also a defendant at Darmstadt) and
asked: "Lieutenant Colonel, don't you have anything more for me to shoot?"
Operational Situation Report USSR No. 101
Einsatzgruppe C
Location: Kiev
Sonderkommando 4a in collaboration with Einsatzgruppe HQ and
two Kommandos of police regiment South, executed 33,771 Jews in
Kiev on September 29 and 30, 1941.
Einsatzgruppe D
Location: Nikolayev
The Kommandos continued the liberation of the area from Jews
and Communist elements. In the period covered by the report, the
towns of Nikolayev and Kherson in particular were freed of Jews. Re-
maining officials there were appropriately treated. From September
16 to 30, 22,467 Jews and Communists were executed. Total number,
35,782. Investigations again show that the high Communist officials
everywhere have fled to safety. On the whole, leading partisans or
leaders of sabotage detachments have been seized.
An official Einsatzgruppen comment expressed pride in the operation: "The transaction was
carried out without friction. No incidents occurred." At the end of the thirty-six hours, the precise
calculations of the Germans showed 33,771 dead. What percentage of the total Kiev Jewish
population this was cannot be precisely ascertained. The total pre-war Jewish population of Kiev
numbered approximately 180,000, out of a total population of 846,000. After the war began, the
total population was reduced by evacuation to 304,500. If the Jewish population was reduced at
the same rate, then approximately 65,000 Jews remained.⁷ Thus it can be estimated that at least
one-half of the Jewish population was liquidated in two days. (However, Kuznetsov, basing himself
upon Soviet figures, estimates the number of Jews shot during September 29-30 at 70,000.) If this
is correct, the number of remaining Jews was 30,000. The remainder must have scattered, seeking
hiding places in the city or in nearby areas. The Einsatzgruppen continued to hunt them down to
feed their unsatiated machine gunners at the ravine.
During the subsequent two years of German occupation, the death roll of Babi Yar victims
continued to mount, with executions of Soviet prisoners of war, partisans, and Communist
activists. Though the extraordinary pace set by the September 29-30 massacre was not duplicated,
the rain of bullets never ceased. A report of the Einsatzgruppen stressed that even "the
immediate hundred per cent exclusion of Jewry. would not remove the political source of danger."
15
The "main task", the report went on, was the "destruction of the communistic machine" and this
purpose could not be replaced "in favor of the practically easier task of the exclusion of the Jews."
A post-war report of a USSR Special Commission chaired by Nikita Khrushchev estimated that
over 100,000 men, women, and children were liquidated at Babi Yar. (A total of 195,000 are said to
have been executed in the general area of Kiev.) Tens of thousands of Russians and Ukrainians lay
buried in a common grave with Jews.
"Here My Jews Are Buried"
But the uniquely Jewish feature of the extermination procedure remained. Characteristic was the
selection process by which Soviet prisoners of war were chosen for execution at Babi Yar. An
Einsatzgruppen directive specified that "the racial origin has to be taken into consideration."
Thus, a report of executions by Sonderkommando 4A in November, 1941, noted: " the larger part
were again Jews, and a considerable part of these were again Jewish prisoners of war who had been
handed over by the Wermacht."
For the Einsatzgruppen killers, Babi Yar represented an apotheosis of their anti-Jewish objective.
In March, 1942, Colonel Blobel was driving in the vicinity with Gestapo agent Albert Hartel when
the latter noticed that the surface was agitated by pressures from below - the spring thaw having
released gases from decaying corpses. Blobel proudly explained: "Here my Jews are buried."
Suppressing The Butchery
But the SS colonel had not finished his task, for the dead were not to
be permitted even their rest. As German defeat neared and they
feared that the butchery might come to the attention of the world,
the SS ordered Blobel to erase all traces of the Babi Yar mass burial.
In August, 1943, he supervised the digging-up of the area; each
corpse was examined for rings, earrings, and gold teeth. Huge, crude
crematoria were built; the bodies were stacked alternately with logs,
and doused with gasoline. Each pyre took two nights and one day to
burn. The bones that did not respond to incineration were crushed,
mixed with earth, and scattered over the area. The fires lasted
almost six weeks, the stench suffocating the entire Lukyanovka
district.
16
The evidence could not, however, be suppressed. Disclosures of a hidden eyewitness, revelations
of a survivor of the shooting, captured Einsatzgruppen records, reports of escaped slaves who had
participated in the 1943 excavation, and charred pieces of bone which even today are dug up at the
site - all brought to the world details of what had happened.
Some details were made public at the Nuremberg trials of 1947-48, which concluded with the
death sentence imposed upon Blobel and other Einsatzgruppen leaders. The Darmstadt trial
provided the final chapter in the documentation process. Long prison terms were meted out to
the ten defendants.
Initial Post-War Plans: Build A Modern Market
The trial received almost no coverage in the Soviet Union. This was hardly surprising, since Babi
Yar constituted the most poignant example of Jewish martyrdom on Soviet soil. Soviet authorities
have from the very beginning attempted to blur this aspect of its character. The official
government report on the massacre, published some six months after Kiev's liberation, spoke of
Nazi crimes at Babi Yar against Soviet citizens generally rather that against its Jewish community
specifically.8 Apparently the local authorities were anxious to remove all traces of Babi Yar, for they
planned to build a modern market on the site. Ehrenburg, at the time, asked the Ukrainian
premier, Nikita Khrushchev, to intervene, and was promptly advised by the premier "not to
interfere in matters that do not concern you."
But in the immediate post-war years, the Soviet regime was not yet overtly hostile to its Jewish
community, and the Soviet public was able to learn of the distinctly anti-Jewish aspects of what
had happened at Babi Yar. Much became known through Ehrenburg's novel The Storm, published
in 1947, which won the Stalin prize. The massacre of Jews at Babi Yar also was sympathetically
treated in poetry, such as the poem composed by the Ukrainian-Jewish writer Savva Golovanivsky,
and in recorded songs of the Yiddish singer Nekhama Lifschitz ( one of which told of the grief of a
Jewish mother unable to find the remains of her children who perished at Babi Yar). Indeed,
official plans were advanced for a public monument at Babi Yar. A prominent architect, A.V.
Vlasov, prepared the design of a memorial, "strict, simple, in the form of a prism," and the artist B.
Ovchinnikov worked out the appropriate sketches "dedicated to Babi Yar."10
17
1948 Antisemitic Campaign Buries Babi Yar
But the anti-Semitic campaign which burst forth in late 1948 required that Babi Yar be plunged
into the "memory hole" of history. Golovanivsky's poem was singled out for attack in March, 1949,
because he had dared to suggest that Ukrainians and Russians "had" turned their back on an old
Jew, Abraham, whom in 1941 the Germans had marched through the streets of Kiev to be shot."¹¹
The poet was charged with "nationalist slander" and "defamation of the Soviet nation." Another
Ukrainian-Jewish poet, Leonid Pervomaisky, was also denounced for "repeating Golovanivsky's
defamation of the Soviet people." The theme of Babi Yar was no longer countenanced in
literature, and plans for the memorial were quietly shelved.
So complete was the blackout that Soviet citizens were never informed that in June, 1951, one of
the principal architects of the Babi Yar holocaust, Colonel Blobel, was executed in Nuremberg for
his crimes. And even such a knowledgeable Soviet writer as Anatoly Kuznetsov, the author of a
documentary novel on Babi Yar, stated that " not a single Nazi has been tried or punished
specifically for Babi Yar."¹²
The death of Stalin and the beginning of the Thaw did not bring any immediate change in the
official attitude on Babi Yar. It was not until 1959, following the consolidation of Khrushchev's
authority, that the search for coexistence with America coupled with the growing awareness of the
need for widespread reforms in various parts of Soviet social life enabled Soviet policy-makers to
loosen some inhibiting restraints. The three years that followed saw a veritable renaissance in
Soviet literature. Even Jewish communal life was tendered a few concessions.
1959 Planned Sports Stadium Sparks Protest
The moment was opportune for sensitive Soviet intellectuals,
brooding over the double tragedy of Babi Yar - first the
holocaust there and then suppression of any reference to it - to
voice concern. It was not long in coming. The distinguished
Soviet writer Viktor Nekrasov, upon learning that the
Architectural Office of the Kiev Town Council planned to flood
Babi Yar, fill it, and "turn the site into a park, to build a,
stadium there," wrote a long letter to Literaturnaia gazeta
which appeared on October 10, 1959:
18
Is this possible? Who could have thought of such a thing? To fill a deep ravine and on the site
of such a colossal tragedy to make merry and play football?
No, this must not be allowed!
Nekrasov noted that other sites of Nazi atrocities had been turned into memorials, and "lest
people ever forget what happened," he boldly demanded similar "tributes of respect" for the Kiev
citizens who had been shot in Babi Yar.
Two months later (December 22, 1959), the same journal carried a letter signed by a number of
inhabitants of the district near Babi Yar in which they supported the recommendation to erect a
monument on the "murder site." They observed that Nekrasov's article "concerning the tragically
famous Babi Yar attracted the particular attention of the Kiev inhabitants" but, at the same time,
they welcomed the idea that "a park be first planted in Babi Yar," and then "a monument erected
in its center." What made the letter particularly significant was the lack of a single reference to
Jews. It signaled an eventual half-way response of the authorities to the outraged conscience of
the intellectuals: a monument should indeed be built, but one not specifically commemorating the
martyred Jews. A further small item in the literary newspaper on March 3, 1960, pointed in the
same direction. The editors noted that the deputy chairman of the Kiev Town Council Executive
Committee had replied to the Nekrasov article with an explanation that the monument had not
yet been erected because of "lack of reclamation of the region." The deputy chairman went on to
promise that once the afforestation of the slopes of the ravine was completed, and a public park
planted there, then "an obelisk with a memorial plaque to Soviet citizens exterminated by the Nazis
will be erected in its center." (Emphasis added.) The special martyrdom of Jews was not
mentioned. The deputy chairman's reply is interesting for another reason. He pointed out that
commitment to build a memorial was a consequence of "a resolution adopted by the Ukraine
Government in December 1959," three months after Nekrasov had raised the issue. It was clear
that Nekrasov had pricked the conscience of the Kiev community.
Yevtushenko: Awakens The Conscience Of The World
A much larger community, extending far beyond even Soviet borders, was to be stirred by Yevgeny
Yevtushenko in September, 1961, almost twenty years to the day after the Babi Yar tragedy. In an
autobiographical sketch published later in L'Express, Yevtushenko explained how he had come to
write his courageous, and moving "Babi Yar."13 He had waited for a long time, he said, to publish a
poem on anti-Semitism, but an appropriate form had not presented itself until after he had visited
Babi Yar in the fall of 1961 to see and sense the Holocaust. Upon his return to Moscow he wrote
the poem in "a couple of hours." In it he identified himself with "each man they shot here,"
19
"every child they shot here," and, in his profound mourning, he was transformed into "one vast
and soundless howl."
"Everything Here Screams In Silence"
On September 16, Yevtushenko recited "Babi Yar" to twelve
hundred students at the Moscow Polytechnical Museum. He
afterward recalled being "so agitated" that he kept the text in
front of him. The reaction was overpowering: "When I had
line
be
finished there was dead silence. I stood fidgeting with the
of
AND
paper, afraid to look up. When I did, I saw the entire audience
Emergy
to
had risen to their feet. Then the applause exploded and went
line
cul
to
on for a good ten minutes. People leaped onto the stage and
embraced me. My eyes were full of tears." He was uncertain
inform,
whether the poem would be published, but the then forthright
them
editor of Lituraturnaia gazeta gave the go-ahead signal, not
without a last-minute warning to Yevtushenko: "Of course,
rexays
anything may happen. I hope you're prepared." To which the
are
poet replied, "I am." The poem was published on September
was
19 and immediately became an international sensation.
where
to
we
A
I
Compe
lav.
up.
The poem began with a reminder that "No monument stands
$*
over Babi Yar." Only a "steep precipice," remains as an
"epitaph." Yet the memory cannot be erased:
lus
There is a rustling of wild grass over Babi Yar.
The trees look fearsome, like judges.
Everything here screams in silence.
The poem was more than a reminder of tragedy; it probed the roots of popular anti-Semitism, and
what made it particularly unusual was that Yevtushenko did not hesitate to indict historic anti-
Semitism in Russia. On an official level, it is taboo to suggest that popular anti-Semitism persists
to any significant extent. Yevtushenko dared to suggest that it does.
More remarkable even than the attack on anti-Semitism was the poet's characterization of Jews
throughout the world as a people with a long, common history and a unifying tradition that made
them a distinct entity. In a striking section of his poem he linked together the ancient Israelites,
20
Christ, and Dreyfus, and, significantly, defined this unity as a distinct and separate "Jewish
people." This conception not only does violence to the analysis prescribed by Soviet ideologists; it
flies in the face of the accepted doctrine that Soviet Jews have little, if anything, in common with
Jews elsewhere in time or space.
Antisemitic Counter Attack
The storm of criticism that followed the poem's appearance was not unexpected. Five days after
"Babi Yar" was published, Literatura i zhizn', the journal of the Writers' Union of the Russian
Federated Republic, carried a response in the form of a poem by another Soviet writer, Aleksei
Markov. Yevtushenko's patriotism was questioned -"What sort of real Russian are you By
referring to Jewish martyrdom at Babi Yar and to Russian anti-Semitism, Yevtushenko had
attempted to defile (with a "pygmy's spittle") "Russian crew-cut lads" who fell in battle against
the Nazis. In a concluding line, Markov flung at Yevtushenko the accusation "cosmopolitan,"
which, in the Soviet lexicon of previous years, was an epithet that carried the implication of
treason.
To Speak Of A Jewish People" Is "Illiterate"
A less crudely violent if sharper attack appeared in the same journal three days later. Written by a
well-known Soviet critic, Dmitry Starikov, the article by implication denied that anti-Semitism
existed in the USSR. "The friendship of our people," Starikov wrote, "is now stronger and more
monolithic than ever," and to suggest that anti-Semitism among Russians still exists is nothing less
than a "provocation," as well as a "monstrous" insult to those "who have entrusted him
[Yevtushenko] with their word Yevtushenko's conception of the Jews as a people was
vehemently denounced on the usual grounds of being "supra-class, petty bourgeois illusions"
which nurture "chauvinism." For Starikov, the poet's conception was but "reverse racism" for
there are no "real historical links" between the ancient Hebrews and modern Russian Jews, and to
speak of a "Jewish people," as such, is "illiterate." Yevtushenko, Starikov observed, had fanned
"the dying flames of nationalist attitudes" and he warned him - using quotations from the
authoritative Draft Program of the Soviet Communist Party - against taking any further steps into
this "foul, swampy quagmire....
Finally, in typical post-war Soviet fashion, Starikov challenged the view that Babi Yar represented
the martyrdom of Jewry. The "destinies of the persons who died there cry out" against the notion
that Babi Yar was "one of history's examples of anti-Semitism." For, he went on, "the anti-
21
Semitism of the Fascists is only part of their misanthropic policy of genocide the destruction of
the 'lower races' including the Slavs." To underscore his argument, Starikov appealed to the
authority of one of the Soviet Union's leading literary figures (and a Jew as well), Ilya Ehrenburg.
Quoting arbitrarily from various wartime articles, including one on Babi Yar, Starikov contended
that Ehrenburg "did not stress the fact that it was Jews who were killed there." Ehrenburg came
to the defense of the embattled Yevtushenko. He wrote a short note to Literaturnaia gazeta on
October 3 (published on October 14) in which he sharply disassociated himself from the Starikov
article, observing that the selected quotations in fact "contradicted" Ehrenburg's own views.
But Starikov had not limited his criticism to Yevtushenko. In a scarcely veiled threat, he wondered
aloud why the editors of Literaturnaia gazeta permitted the poet "to insult the triumph of the
Leninist national policy" with "provocations." At the Twenty-second Party Congress, the
powerful chief editor of the journal Sovietskii soiuz, Nikolai Gribachev, charged Literaturnaia gazeta
with "irresponsibility" in "systematically publishing cheap sensations."
Yevtushenko won the hearts of young people throughout the USSR. Every copy of the
Literaturnaia gazeta issue in which his poem appeared was "sold out in a matter of minutes," he
later reported. He was flooded with letters and telegrams - approximately twenty thousand of
them. Only thirty or forty were abusive, and these, he said, "were all unsigned and in obviously
disguised handwriting." Everywhere he went in Russia, his audience wanted to hear him read
"Babi Yar." Patricia Blake, a close observer of the Soviet literary scene who attended a number of
Yevtushenko's readings, reported: "When he had finished, the crowd began pounding on the floor
with their feet. 'Again, at once!' He read it again, and later in the evening, when the audience
would not relent, read it once more. When this happened for the fourth time, Yevtushenko
shouted for silence and said, 'Comrades, you and I have been in this hall for six hours, and I should
think you would be as tired of hearing it as I am of reciting it.' But again they pounded and once
more he complied."14
Khrushchev: "Comrade This Poem Has No Place Here"
Yevtushenko and the support he received not merely stung the doctrinaire apologists into action;
the highest Party authorities became concerned. Khrushchev was later to reveal that the "Party
Central Committee had been receiving letters expressing anxiety that in some works the position
of Jews in our country has been depicted in a distorted way."15 He referred specifically to
Yevtushenko's poem. At a Moscow meeting of several hundred intellectuals called by the Party
leadership on December 17, 1962, the poem became a key issue. When Yevtushenko recited the
last two lines of his poem to the audience, Khrushchev interjected: "Comrade Yevtushenko, this
poem has no place here."¹⁶
22
It was time for the "appropriate" discipline to be applied and for the customary public
denunciations to be made. Besides, by the end of December, 1962, the Party leadership had
become convinced that the liberalism of the previous three-year period had gone too far in various
art forms - in literature, painting, sculpture, cinematography. Lest the trend of critical examination
of the past be extended to embrace the hallowed institutions of public life, brakes had to be
applied. A Kremlin conference of writers and artists on March 7-8, covered in detail in the public
press, provided the setting for the disciplinary action. And none other than the Party boss and
premier, Nikita Khrushchev, was designated to administer it.¹⁷ While condemnation of liberating
trends extended to all spheres of the arts and to numerous individuals, "Babi Yar" was the focus of
the attack. Two types of criticism were leveled at Yevtushenko. The first was a rehash of the
principal argument used by Markov and Starikov: "Events are depicted in the poem as if only the
Jewish population fell victim to the Fascist crime, while at the hands of the Hitlerite butchers
there perished not a few Russians, Ukrainians, and other Soviet people of other nationalities."
Khrushchev: Jews... "Equal In Every Way"
The second criticism was more serious, and Khrushchev felt obliged to wander into a forest of
questionable data to buttress it. The clearly implied reference in the poem, that anti-Semitism
continued to exist in the Soviet Union, revealed that the author lacked "political maturity" and
displayed "ignorance of the historical facts." Sharply the premier demanded, "For whom and why
was it necessary to present the matter as if the population of the Jewish nationality in our country
was being harmed?" The charge is "not true," for, since the very early days of the October
Revolution, Soviet Jews have been treated "on an equal basis
in every way" with all other national groups. A bludgeoning
suggestion that Yevtushenko had permitted himself to be
used by alien and foreign sources followed: "With us there is
no Jewish question, and those who devise one are singing to
somebody else's tune."
Khrushchev then proceeded to a characteristic Soviet class
analysis of anti-Semitism: it is typical of capitalist society and
is alien to socialism. Jews do not constitute a single
undifferentiated whole. Properly, they are to be broken down into social classes: bourgeois Jews
are like the bourgeoisie everywhere; proletarian Jews are like the oppressed proletariat
everywhere. "People's deeds," Khrushchev emphasized, are to be "measured not from a national,
but from a class point of view."
23
To illustrate his theme, the premier pointed to a particular instance of alleged treachery to the
Soviet state by a Jew during World War II. A certain Kogan who had been an instructor at the Kiev
Komsomol City Committee, he said, was found to be a translator at Nazi Field Marshal Friedrich
von Paulus' headquarters. Khrushchev related that after von Paulus had been captured, a Soviet
general called him to report the presence of Kogan. This exchange was then alleged to have taken
place:
Khrushchev: "How did he get here? You haven't made a mistake?"
The Soviet general: "No, there is no mistake."
Khrushchev contrasted the alleged conduct of Kogan with that of a Jew named Vinokur, who was
political commissar of a mechanized brigade that participated in the capture of von Paulus and his
entourage. The point was then driven home: "That was how it was, one Jew served as a translator
at Paulus' headquarters, and another, as a member of our forces, took part in the capture of Paulus
and his translator."
The illustration went beyond the argument about anti-Semitism and raised the earlier issue of the
specific martyrdom of Jews. For if the Nazis' program was not designed to effect the wholesale
liquidation of all Jews, if some Jews had been permitted to escape genocide and even to serve in a
fairly responsible post in the Nazi war machine, then the idea of a specific martyrdom of the
Jewish nationality was placed in question. This was clearly Khrushchev's intention.
Curiosity was aroused by the story. Could von Paulus have employed a Jew? Only one other
reference to a "Kogan" such as described by Khrushchev had appeared. In the very same year that
the Kremlin conference of intellectuals was held, the Soviet youth publishing house, Molodaia
Gvardiia, issued a novel by P. Gavrutto entitled Clouds Over the City which made reference to a
certain Kogan as a traitor. The reference was greatly amplified in a revised edition of the book
which appeared in 1965. Kogan was charged with having committed the "foul crime" of
singlehandedly betraying the anti-German underground to the Gestapo and then becoming von
Paulus' interpreter.
Not until August 9, 1966, was the Kogan story revealed to be fallacious. On that day, Literaturnaia
gazeta published a long letter by Ariadna Gromova, a literary critic, which sharply attacked the
Gavrutto novel for its treatment of Kogan. Entitled "In the Interest of Truth," her letter
emphasized that the names of the traitors to the underground were known, and that Kogan was not
among them. Moreover, the name of von Paulus' interpreter was known, and it was not Kogan.
Indeed, Kogan, she observed, had never seen von Paulus, having left Kiev with the Soviet forces
before the city was occupied. The letter noted that the false charges about Kogan had ruined his
life.
24
One can only speculate as to how many other lives had been affected by the Khrushchev tale
about Kogan. The year 1963 marked a high point in the Soviet campaign against economic crimes,
which had pronounced anti-Semitic overtones in a number of areas. Were prosecutors and
newspaper editors in these areas encouraged by the Kogan hoax to give vent to a personal bias
against Jews or to exploit local anti-Semitic sentiments? No one can ever be sure. What is clear is
that the Gromova criticism, even if it made no specific reference to Khrushchev and his tale (it
focused only upon the Gavrutto story), shattered a malicious libel.
Shostakovich's 13th Symphony:
Homage To Babi Yar Silenced By Officials
The pressures exerted upon Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar" in December, 1962, and even more strongly
in the following March, had the required result. It was first made apparent not in the literary field,
but rather in the musical field. By December, one of the USSR's most prestigious cultural figures,
Dmitry Shostakovich, had completed his Thirteenth Symphony, a musical and choral setting of
five poems by Yevtushenko, including "Babi Yar." The work received its first performance in
Moscow on December 18, 1962, and was accorded a tumultuous reception. But no review
appeared in the major press organs. The official reaction to the Shostakovich symphony was
hardly surprising. Just the day before its public debut, at a specially called meeting held-in
Moscow between top Party leaders and leading Soviet intellectuals, the Party's then principal
ideologist, Leonid Ilyichev, criticized Shostakovich for choosing an undesirable theme for his
symphony and therewith failing to serve the true interest of the people. Public performances
temporarily ceased.
To meet the powerful Party thrusts, Yevtushenko made two additions to the text. At one point,
the following line was added: "Here together with Russians and Ukrainians lie Jews." A second
insertion read: "I am proud of the Russia which stood in the path of the bandits." Yevtushenko
vehemently denied in a Paris interview in February, 1963, that he had capitulated to Party
pressures. "I am not a man to take orders," he observed. All that he had done, he said, was to
make a slight addition without changing a word of the poem. He further commented that the
addition was merely a result of a letter he had received, after the poem's publication, which
described how a Russian woman had saved the life of a Jewish child threatened by the SS.
The fact is, however, that the first addition does violate, to some extent, the spirit and intent of the
poem, which had treated Babi Yar as a distinctive Jewish episode of martyrdom. Still, the character
of the poem had not been basically altered, and a public airing of the symphony could be assured.
25
After Shostakovich incorporated the revisions in the symphony, performances were renewed and
Pravda, on February 10, 1963, observed that it was a truly "Russian" work.* But sharply critical
voices continued to be heard on the subject of the theme of the symphony. On April 2, the Minsk
newspaper Sovietskaia Byelorossiia asked: Why did Shostakovich "look only here," at Babi Yar, for
"material revealing the bestiality of Fascism?. "Why was Fascism so terrible only and first of all
because of anti-Semitism?" The critic chastised those who would "elevate a petty incident to the
rank almost of national tragedy."
The toll had been taken. Discussion about Babi Yar disappeared from the public arena, not to
reemerge until the summer of 1966. The intervening period was marked by increasing pressures
upon the literary intelligentsia, culminating in the Sinyavsky-Daniel trial in January, 1966. The
first secretary of the Komsomol, S.P. Pavlov, typified the official attitude when, in an article in
Pravda on August 29, 1965, he sharply criticized those writers who engendered among young
people "a certain skepticism toward everything bright, advanced, and progressive that comprises
the essence of our society." But the intellectuals refused to capitulate. In March, 1966, a sizable
number of them petitioned the Presidium of the Twenty-third Congress of the Party, then meeting
in Moscow, concerning the Sinyavsky-Daniel case, charging that it "creates an extremely
dangerous precedent." Their criticism and the strongly critical reaction emanating from
Communists abroad may have encouraged the authorities to relax the pressures. In the
momentarily changed atmosphere, it could be anticipated that the Babi Yar issue would once again
take on a public character.
Kuznetsov's Novel Exposes Babi Yar To Millions In USSR
In August, Yunost', a liberal literary monthly, initiated a three-part serialization of a powerful
documentary novel, Babi Yar, by Anatoly Kuznetsov. The young writer had accompanied
Yevtushenko on the latter's inspirational visit to Babi Yar in the fall of 1961. The impression which
the visit made on both of them was described by Kuznetsov in the Soviet journal Sputnik (April,
1967):
One day we both walked to Babi Yar; we forced our way through the dense undergrowth, and
stood on the edge of the ravine. The sun was shining, everything was so peaceful, so quiet.
We were standing where hundreds of thousands of people had once writhed and screamed in
the throes of death. Almost all the victims had screamed horribly.
*In late 1972, a recording of the Shostakovich work performed by the Moscow Symphony Orchestra became available in
the West.
26
In fact, Kuznetsov, who had experienced Nazi rule in Kiev while a child of twelve, had been
accumulating a thick notebook on Babi Yar filled with clippings, documents, and personal notes for
some eighteen years. Just prior to the Yevtushenko trip, Kuznetsov had returned to Kiev to visit
his mother. Deciding to take another look at a favorite childhood haunt, he climbed to the top of
Babi Yar "and suddenly I caught my breath and I realized that the time had come to start writing
my book." With painstaking detail, graphically
presented in a compelling literary format, Kuznetsov
catalogued the overpowering events of Babi Yar. For
A. Anatoli (Kuznetsov)
the first time since the war the Soviet public would
learn the full dimension of the Nazi massacre.
BABI YAR
A document in the form of a novel
Included in that dimension was the genocide of Kiev's
Translated by David Floyd
Jewish population on September 29-30, 1941,
described in all its gruesome detail. In painting the
FARRAR, STRAUS AND GIROUX
panoramic death scene, Kuznetsov had the benefit of
NEW YORK
drawing upon the personal experience of Dina
Mironona Pronicheva, the survivor of the Babi Yar
carnage. Accidental circumstances plus quick thinking
and enormous courage enabled her to escape.
Kuznetsov does not hesitate to define the initial Nazi objective as being aimed exclusively against
Jews. One of his characters, the grandfather, bursts into the household on September 28, 1941, to
report the German plans: "Here's news! Not a Jew will be left in Kiev tomorrow." If a few non-
Jews were killed during those two days it was because they accidently had appeared in the line of
march or at the ravine. Approximately fifty had been sorted out and sent to a nearby hillock.
(Pronicheva was among them, for she had claimed to the Ukrainian Polizei assisting the Nazis that
her name and face marked her as typically Ukrainian; in fact, she was a Jew married to a
Ukrainian.) But then a Nazi officer had driven up demanding to know who the non-Jews were.
This exchange followed:
"These are our people," replied the Polizei. "We weren't sure whether to release them."
"Shoot them! Shoot them right away!" stormed the officer. "If just one gets away and spreads
the story, not a Jew will come here tomorrow."
The author's candor further required him to take the difficult step of showing that some
Ukrainians welcomed the conquering Nazis, that others actually collaborated in the mass killings,
and that many passively accepted German rule, striving in every way possible to survive.
27
Kuznetsov's story is not limited to the two-day episode; rather it embraces the 778 horrifying days
of Nazi rule of Kiev. During that period, tens of thousands more - Russians and Ukrainians, in
addition to Jews - were to be brutally murdered at Babi Yar. The victims included Communist
activists, partisans or suspected partisans, suspected saboteurs, war prisoners, violators of Nazi
regulations, or sometimes just plain bystanders arbitrarily selected in a purely irrational manner.
The machine guns chattered at the ravine daily and endlessly.
But even after the genocidal episode of September 29-30, Babi Yar was to continue to be the
execution point for all Jews who might be apprehended by the Nazis. This, too, is documented by
Kuznetsov. Thus, in describing the selection process for Babi Yar in a nearby camp holding war
prisoners, he reported: "The quickest to die were the Jews and half-Jews But the other
prisoners clung to life with all their might, fighting for food and clothing."
By extending the story to the entire period of Nazi rule, during which thousands of others would
fall under the Nazi guns, Kuznetsov may have hoped to blunt the kind of criticism that had been
leveled at Yevtushenko. In his Sputnik article, he noted that the latter's poem had "provoked
some serious criticism because he had devoted it to only one aspect of the problem and only to the
very first few days of Babi Yar when the Germans were shooting the Jewish population of Kiev."
Still, Kuznetsov refused to suppress the distinctive Jewish martyrdom that Babi Yar symbolized.
In a personal foreword to the novel, he recounts how, as a youngster, he and a friend shortly after
the war went to the general site of the ravine to explore the precise point at which the mass
murders took place. Seeing an old man crossing the ravine, the young Anatoly shouted: "Hey
uncle! Was it here that they shot the Jews or farther on?" The response was typical of those who
had criticized Yevtushenko. "And how many Russians were killed here, and Ukrainians and other
nationalities?" After following the stream in the ravine until washed-up pieces of burnt bone
appeared, they were able to define the approximate point of the killings. "From this we
concluded that they had shot the Jews, Russians, Ukrainians and other. nationalities higher
upstream." Even after the old man's comment, Babi Yar would continue to be associated in his
mind first with Jews.
Babi Yar Reprint Forbidden
Following his defection from the USSR in July, 1969, Kuznetsov revealed in the London Daily
Telegraph that at the time of his book's publication, a hornet's nest had been stirred up: "I had my
own troubles. There was an unpublicized row over Babi Yar. They suddenly decided that it ought
not to have been published. At Yunost' they told me that it was practically an accident that it had
ever appeared at all and that a month later its publication would have been out of the question. In any case
28
they forbade the reprinting of it." (Emphasis added.) A recently published disclosure appears to
validate Kuznetsov's observations. An underground newsletter of Soviet dissenters -made public
only in August, 1971 - reported that in October, 1966, at a closed meeting of ideologists, several
speakers called for a new (and favorable) look at Stalinism.¹⁸ Seventy per cent of the ideologists
responded warmly. The speakers at the meeting singled out for criticism Yunosť as well as Novyi
mir, with General Aleksei Yepishev, chief political commissar of the armed forces, noting that
military men were forbidden to subscribe to the two publications.
Even when Kuznetsov's work was published a considerable amount of his original draft had been
edited out. The excised portions, significantly, provided much anecdotal material concerning anti-
Semitism among Ukrainians.
Public reaction to the appearance of the Kuznetsov book was slow in coming. The first comment
appeared on November 18 in Literaturnaia Rossiia. The reviewer, Georgy Radov, described the
book as "genuine art" embracing the "richest prose." Then on November 22, the journal that had
first printed the Yevtushenko poem, Literaturnaia gazeta, carried a powerful endorsement of the
book by the liberal literary and film critic Aleksander Borshchagovsky. Its "destiny," he wrote, is
"beyond doubt." Terming the book "a marvel of art," Borshchagovsky went on to say that "Soviet
literature has gained a passionate and talented work."
The critic did not hesitate to challenge the literary Establishment for avoiding the Babi Yar theme:
"Our writers have hardly touched on the tragic theme of Babi Yar; they have treated it with caution
that does not promise discoveries." He gave emphasis to the overwhelming fact of Jewish
martyrdom: " the first act of the [Babi Yar] tragedy [was] when the Jewish population of Kiev was
murdered, wiped out and cast into the ravine in the course of a few days." This "massive 'total'
massacre was unprecedented" in history. Borshchagovsky then went on to note that Babi Yar
became, after September, 1941, "a commonplace of terrible everyday reality" with "victims of
every nationality" sacrificed there by the tens of thousands.
While Borshchagovsky spoke for the liberals, official comment from the principal authoritative
sources was far slower and, when it appeared, much more restrained in its praise. On January 22,
1967, Izvestiia finally carried a review, by P. Troitsky. He found "contrivance" in the book's
structure, an artificiality that was "at variance with the seriousness" of the author's purpose. Nor
did he think that Kuznetsov had revealed a world of unexplored facts. The Babi Yar atrocities, the
Izvestiia reviewer contended, had "already cut deeply into our consciousness." But, if they did,
the reviewer himself was reluctant to give expression to their principal feature. The words Jew and
Jewish are strikingly absent from the fairly lengthy commentary.
29
Yet, the Izvestiia review seemed to place a stamp of approval upon the work: " the author
evidently has been able to relate known facts in such a way that we feel we are coming upon much
afresh." The portrayal of the leading character was "scrupulously" presented, said the reviewer,
and the emotion of hatred for the Nazi ideology effectively developed. The fact that the book was
reviewed at all in this central Soviet organ, and in a not unfavorable manner, indicated that
doctrinairism was, for the moment, not completely in the ascendant.
Notwithstanding official rejection of Jewish martyrology, the editors of Literaturnaia gazeta would
not be held back from underlining the specifically Jewish character of Babi Yar. On February 22,
they ran another piece on the Kuznetsov book, this time a portion of a letter written by Dina
Mironona Pronicheva, the survivor of the Babi Yar massacre of September 29-30. The letter, in
part, read:
After the massacre of the Jews, the Germans combed apartments and houses; if they found
children of a Jewish mother they killed them, even when, as in our case, the father was Russian.
The Polizei seized my son, who was two years and three months old then, and took him in the
courtyard to shoot him. My husband begged them not to kill the child, saying that I would
return that evening and they would then be able to seize mother and child together. They left
the child until evening. As soon as the Polizei went off, my husband wrapped Vovochka [her
child] in paper, tied him with a string like a large parcel and carried him to me in Därnitsa. I hid
in an attic together with the child for four months.
"Truth, Only Truth"
In the same month, another strongly favorable review appeared in the liberal Novyi mir. The
author was Ariadna Gromova, who had, a half-year earlier, exploded the anti-Semitic myth fostered
by Khrushchev that some Jews had served the Nazi cause. Her review, entitled "Truth, Only
Truth," stated that the Kuznetsov Babi Yar story is "vitally necessary both here and abroad." The
specific Jewish martyrdom of Babi Yar was briefly but emphatically alluded to: "The
remembrances of Tolia Semerik [the young woman in the novel] deal chiefly with precisely those
[Russian and Ukrainian] people whom the Hitlerites did not specifically hunt down...." In a
parenthetical remark that followed, she observed that the killing of Jews and prisoners of war are
related in chapters which constitute the remembrances of others.
The preparation, publication, and open discussion of Kuznetsov's Babi Yar was accompanied by
related developments which suggested that strong pressures from the liberal intelligentsia for a
memorial to the victims of Babi Yar were having some impact upon the political authorities. The
30
outcry of Nekrasov in 1959 and the poetic appeal of Yevtushenko seemed in 1966 to find the
appropriate milieu for fulfillment. The first hint that consideration was being given to the victims
of Babi Yar came in April, 1965.¹⁹ The president of the France-USSR Association, André Blumel,
who was touring the Soviet Union with forty prominent Paris lawyers, was told by Mikhail Burka,
the mayor of Kiev (as reported in the London Jewish Chronicle, May 14, 1965), that plans were being
laid for building a memorial at the Babi Yar site to the victims of Nazi persecution. The mayor
acknowledged that a housing development had been initiated at the site in 1963 but said that he
had halted it when great numbers of human bones were found in the foundation. Projection of a
memorial was now in process, he told Blumel, but he carefully explained that it would carry no
specific reference to Jews.
Memorial Planned: No Jews Need Apply
Early in 1966, Novosti, the Soviet press agency, publicly announced that the Ukrainian Architects'
Club in Kiev had placed on exhibit over two hundred projects and some thirty large-scale detailed
plans for a memorial at Babi Yar.20 Visitors to the exhibition were invited to express their views.
The announcement further stated that after the exhibition the entries would be judged by a
special tribunal consisting of representatives of municipal and governmental authorities as well as
representatives from the Academy of Sciences and other cultural institutions.
Significantly, the inscriptions on the submitted projects avoided reference to the particular
character of Babi Yar as a symbol of Jewish martyrdom. Instead, the inscriptions note that "in this
place," over one hundred thousand "Soviet citizens, Russians, Ukrainians and Jews were
murdered" in 1941 by the Fascists. One architect of Jewish origin, Abraham Miletsky, was
rumored to have submitted a plan bearing an inscription in Yiddish, but he was requested to
withdraw it and to submit another without the inscription.
Those who might be disappointed with the projected character of a memorial could still take heart
from the fact that the idea for a memorial was alive. Further verification came on April 29, 1966,
when the London Daily Telegraph correspondent in the Soviet Union, John Miller, cabled his
newspaper that he was "emphatically" assured by Ukrainian writers that "Babi Yar would have its
monument in time for next year's 50th anniversary of the Revolution. Some proposed models of a
monument had been examined by a commission and the final choice would be announced soon."
Miller reported that the Ukrainian intelligentsia were "highly sensitive" to charges of "deliberate
neglect" of the memory of the victims of Babi Yar. They offered the explanation that Russia had
to rebuild its factories and homes before it could erect monuments to the past. The explanation
did not take account of the fact that in various parts of the country Soviet authorities had already
built monuments to victims of Nazi persecution.
31
Final assurances about the memorial appeared during the publication by Yunosť of the Kuznetsov
novel. On September 9, 1966, Peter Tempest, the Soviet correspondent of the British Communist
daily, the Morning Star, cabled from Kiev: "The memorial at Babi Yar to 200,000 people, mostly
Jews, massacred here during the war will definitely be erected next year, I was told today." It is
significant that Tempest had included in his cable the point that the Babi Yar victims were "mostly
Jews." Soviet authorities, needless to say, rejected this view. More pertinent was the timetable
which Tempest reported. Like Miller, he was assured by Kiev authorities that the monument
would be in place before the fiftieth anniversary of the Russian Revolution. Tempest went on to
say that a group of sculptors and architects were currently working on the final design of the
monument, which would be inscribed simply "to the victims of Fascism."
25th Anniversary Plea: "Let Jews Know Jewish History..."
So heady was the atmosphere that, on September 29, the twenty-fifth anniversary of Babi Yar,
many Kiev citizens spontaneously assembled at the site in what has been described as "a very
impressive scene."²¹ Dina Pronicheva, Viktor Nekrasov, and the Ukrainian liberal writer Ivan
Dzyuba addressed the audience. Dzyuba's remarks have been preserved in the "Chornovil
Papers," and they are remarkable for their courage.²² He demanded from the authorities that they
"let the Jews know Jewish history, the Jewish culture and the Yiddish language and be proud of
them." The character of the event prompted some cameramen from the Kiev news-film studio to
rush down and film it. According to Kuznetsov, this act resulted in "a great row in the studio,"
followed by the dismissal of the director and the confiscation of the film by the secret police.
The authorities, however, were sufficiently alarmed to arrange, a few days later, to place at the site
a granite plaque on which was written the commitment that a monument would be erected there
to the memory of the victims of Fascism. But the celebrations of the fiftieth anniversary produced
no memorial at Babi Yar. The year 1967 was to be marked by one long paean to the October
Revolution, with unpleasant reminders of the past fifty years muted and critical observations
censured. The blow to Soviet pride flowing from the overwhelming defeat of the Arab armies -
both militarily supplied and diplomatically supported by the Soviet government in the Six-Day
War - intensified a burgeoning nationalism.
1967: Officials Deny Unique Jewish Dimension
The super-patriots struck back. It was hardly unexpected that the first and principal criticism of
the Kuznetsov book would appear in a journal of the military - always the repository of correct
32
national pride - or that its date of publication would be August, 1967, following the setback to
Soviet Middle East diplomacy in the United Nations General Assembly. The rhetorical title of the
review in Sovietskii voin - "To a full extent?" - set its tone. The reviewer, Aleksei Yegorov,
answered quite simply and dogmatically that Kuznetsov's portrait of Babi Yar was limited,
restricted, and therefore distorted. Equally unobjective, Yegorov noted, were such reviews as
those by Borshchagovsky (who gave "free rein to his [own] imagination") and by Gromova (who
had the gall to suggest that the book is "vitally necessary for readers both here and abroad.").
What Yegorov found particularly distasteful was Kuznetsov's description of those Russians and
Ukrainians who had been "Fascist lackeys and obeyed their criminal orders." References to
Russian and Cossack collaborators, Ukrainian pro-Nazi policemen, Soviet black marketeers who
pandered to the Germans, ordinary citizens who cooperated with occupation authorities (some by
turning over their Jewish wives or informing on other Jews) - from Yegorov's viewpoint - are
nothing short of "offensive" and hardly appropriate for a "historical work."
Not much better was Kuznetsov's characterization of the category of the martyred. In a sarcastic
introductory remark, Yegorov reminded his audience that Kuznetsov is "not the first artist who
chose the tragedy of Babi Yar as a topic"; Yevtushenko had "touched upon it and, as is known,
twisted historical facts." The same type of "twisting," although not to the same extent, was
characteristic of the Kuznetsov book, the critic thought. He recalled the exchange in the foreword
of the novel between fifteen-year-old Anatoly Kuznetsov and the old man. Anatoly's question as
to where the Jews had been shot was intolerably irritating ("Hey uncle! Was it here that they shot
the Jews or farther on?"). Yegorov preferred the response of the old man: Russians, Ukrainians,
and other nationalities were the Nazi victims.
But even Kuznetsov's treatment of Babi Yar as a "multinational tragedy"- the words are Yegorov's -
was inadequate. Kuznetsov is to be faulted for being "brief" and "perfunctory" about the
martyrdom of "Soviet citizens." His emphasis should have been: "In Babi Yar there lie buried
many Russians, Ukrainians, and other nations. Here were shot the sailors of the Dnieper flotilla;
the railway workers of the Kiev region; workers and employees of Kiev; Red Army soldiers and
commanders who were taken prisoner."
However Soviet ideologists may attempt to distort the reality of Babi Yar, they cannot make its
significance compatible with their own prescribed historical view. Embarrassment emerges each
time the symbol is resurrected by one or another writer determined to confront Soviet society with
the truth about Jewish martyrdom. For such confrontation would inevitably place on society's
agenda the question of Jewish national consciousness and the problem of anti-Semitism, both
currently among the unmentionables. The more comforting posture is therefore suppression of
33
the symbol of Babi Yar or of reference to it, rather than mere distortion. Thus, the promise of 1966
that a memorial would be built at the site must remain unfulfilled while the architectural designs
for the memorial accumulate dust on the shelves of government agencies in Kiev or Moscow.
Thus, too, Shostakovich's Thirteenth Symphony must forego being performed in the USSR.
Finally, the trial of the Babi Yar killers in West Germany had to go almost unnoticed in the Soviet
press.
Kochubiyevsky: Three Years In Gulag For Remembering
And Soviet Jews must not publicly declare that Babi Yar symbolized the Holocaust. On May 13,
1969, a young Jewish radio engineer of Kiev, Boris Kochubiyevsky, was placed on trial²³ and
charged, among other things, with saying at a Babi Yar memorial service the previous September
29: "Here lies part of the Jewish people." He had evidently also asserted that anti-Semitism exists
in the USSR, and he had criticized at a factory meeting the Soviet Government's position that
Israel had committed aggression in June, 1967. But the basic point in the prosecution's case was
that Kochubiyevsky had asserted that the victims of Babi Yar were not merely victims of Fascism;
rather, they were fundamentally victims of genocide against Jews. Samizdat material records the
following exchange between the defendant and the judge after the former began making reference
to the fact that Yevtushenko's "Babi Yar" was published in the USSR:
Judge: Accused, keep to the subject of the charges.
Kochubiyevsky: The poem "Babi Yar...."
Judge: Accused, you have been given the chance to make a final statement in your defense,
not to make excursions into history and literature.
Kochubiyevsky: I ask that it be placed on record that I have been admonished for mentioning
Yevtushenko's poem, "Babi Yar." Very well, I omit this part of my final statement. All my
statements at Babi Yar fully coincided with the sense and spirit of this poem." 24
In a four day trial that presaged the big trials of 1970-71, Kochubiyevsky was accused of having "during 1968,
systematically disseminated by word of mouth slanderous fabrications, defaming the State and the social system
of the USSR..." The trial - held, ironically, in the same courthouse in which Beiliss had been tried in 1912-13 -
was replete, according to samizdat accounts, with numerous instances of anti-Semitism emanating from the
bench, the prosecution, the guards, and the persons permitted by the authorities to attend. For not keeping
silent about Babi Yar, Kochubiyevsky was sentenced, under Article 187 of the Ukrainian Criminal Code,
covering "slander," to a term of three years in corrective labor camps.
34
But the silence can never be total. Yevtushenko, describing the deathly-still ravine of Babi Yar,
commented: "Everything here screams in silence." If today the ravine is filled in and a highway
runs through it, if housing construction proceeds on both sides of the highway, Babi Yar as memory
and martyrology cannot be erased. In the final chapter of Kuznetsov's book, he underlined a
fundamental truth: "History will not be cheated, and nothing can be hidden forever."
Korey, William. "No Monument Over Babi Yar" Chap. in The Soviet Cage. New York: Viking Press, 1973.
Dr. William Korey is a world renowned expert on the Soviet Union. He recently retired as director for International
Policy Research at B'nai B'rith.
Notes
1. The Darmstaedter Echo gave the trial extensive coverage, which was drawn upon in this chapter.
The Swiss newspaper, Der Zuercher Zeitung, provided excellent reportage. See especially its issues of
October 3 and 4, 1967; November 7 and 9, 1967; and December 2, 1968. The Israelitische Wochenblatt
of Zurich also was useful, especially in articles on October 13, 1967; November 24, 1967; May 10,
1968; and November 10, 1968. The Washington Post of December 13, 1967, and the New York Times of
February 14, 1968, offered fine background reports. See also Der Spiegel, no. 41 (1967). Newspapers
on November 30, 1968, summarized the convictions which took place the previous day.
2. Much of the material in this chapter dealing with the Einsatzgruppen and their activity at Babi Yar
is taken from Trials of War Criminals Before the Nuernberg Military Tribunals Under Control Council Law
No. 10 (Green Series) (Washington, D.C., 1950), vol. IV. See especially pp. 147-49, 211-13, 526-30.
See also Gerald Reitlinger, The Final Solution (London, 1961), pp. 233-35.
3. Anatoly Kuznetsov, Babi Yar, A Documentary Novel, trans. Jacob Guralsky (New York, 1967), p. 58.
Since this version was based upon the Yunost' serialization, I have used it here.
4. Ilya Ehrenburg, People and Life: 1891-1921 (New York, 1962), p. 307.
5. Cited in Joseph B. Schechtman, Star in Eclipse: Russian Jewry Revisited (New York, 1961), pp. 91-92.
6. Ibid., p. 92.
7. Ibid., p. 88.
8. Solomon M. Schwarz, The Jews in the Soviet Union (Syracuse, 1951), p. 335.
9. A. Sutzkever, "Ilya Ehrenburg," Di Goldene Keit, no. 61 (1967), p. 30.
10. I have discussed these plans in "What Monument to Babi Yar?" Saturday Review, February 3,
1968, p. 19.
35
11. Literaturnaia gazeta, March 9, 1949.
12. Sputnik, April, 1967.
13. It was published later as A Precocious Autobiography, trans. Andrew R. MacAndrew (New York,
1963), pp. 116-22.
14. See Patricia Blake, "New Voices in Russian Writing: Introduction," Encounter, no. 115 (April,
1963), p. 33. See also Patricia Blake and Max Hayward, eds., Half-way to the Moon: New Writing from
Russia (New York, 1964), pp. 24-25.
15. Pravda, March 8, 1963.
16. "Russian Art and Anti-Semitism: Two Documents," Commentary, December, 1963, p. 434.
17. Pravda, March 8, 1963.
18. The monthly newsletter was entitled Politicheskii dnevnik. Excerpts were published in the New
York Times, August 22, 1971.
19. William Korey, "Babi Yar Remembered," Midstream, March, 1969, p. 37.
20. Ibid.
21. The revised edition of the Kuznetsov work carries this episode. See A. Anatoli, Babi Yar, (New
York, 1970), p. 475.
22. Vyacheslav Chornovil, The Chornovil Papers (New York, n.d. [1968]) pp. 222-26.
23. Samizdat material reporting on his arrest and trial is in Moshe Decter, ed., A Hero for Our Time:
The Trial and Fate of Boris Kochubiyevsky (New York, 1970). Kochubiyevsky was released and allowed
to leave for Israel in late 1971.
24. Ibid., pp. 22-23. See also New York Times, June 5, 1969.
36
Return To The Past
October 28, 1979 - Lecture By Elie Wiesel, Temple Anshe Sholom, Olympia Fields, Illinois
The next day we went to Babi Yar, a place now known all over the world The Russians were
very kind. After all, this was a presidential commission. And they thought we had entree to Carter.
They believed we could open the door every day to the Oval Office and tell Carter to accept
SALT, reject SALT. The Russians are not especially clever. We came to the monument to Babi
Yar. I do not know whether it was reported here, but I was outraged. The mayor of Kiev was
there, the dignitaries of Kiev, members of the Politburo, the television, everybody. I should have
been more diplomatic. I was not. I said, "I was here fifteen years ago before I wrote my first book
about Russia and Babi Yar, and there was no monument to Babi Yar. Now there is a monument,
and I am even more outraged now than then. "Why? Because the word "Jew" does not appear on
the monument. It simply says: "For the Soviet citizens who fell here." What kind of Soviet
citizens! Were the Jews killed there because they were citizens of Russia? Were the Jews killed
there because they were inhabitants of Kiev? They were killed because they were Jews. The
most horrible discovery a person makes is that Babi Yar is not far away from Kiev; it is ten minutes
away from the center of Kiev. And day after day, between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, 1941,
the Nazis killed Jews and buried them in mass graves. In 1965 eyewitnesses told me that for
weeks the ground would shake. "And you," I turned to them, "you do not even have the decency
to pay them the honor of remembering them as they were, that they died because they were Jews,
as Jews!" Maybe something will come of it, but that was Friday at Babi Yar.
Wiesel, Elie "Return to the Past." In Against Silence: The Voice and Vision of Elie Wiesel, ed. by Irving Abrahamson.
New York: Holocaust Library, 1985.
37
Babi Yar
The Struggle For Remembrance: From Yevtushenko To Bush
by Rabbi Abraham Cooper*
On August 1, 1991, U.S. President George Bush delivered an emotion-laden speech at Babi Yar.
(The full text is begins on p. 39.) He said, in part:
"The Holocaust occurred because good men and women averted their eyes from unprecedented evil."
The previous month, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Serhiy Komissarenko had travelled to
Vienna to meet with famed Nazi-hunter Simon Wiesenthal in order to gain his endorsement for
plans to build a new monument at the appropriate location with specific references to Babi Yar's
Jewish victims. These plans were scheduled to be unveiled during special week-long ceremonies
(September 29 - October 6, 1991), marking the 50th anniversary of the slaughter in the infamous
ravine.
But, as this publication goes to press, with the failed coup against Mikhail Gorbachev and with the
announcement that the Ukraine is declaring its independence, no one is sure if and when the truth
of Babi Yar will finally be properly eulogized. For since those tragic events in 1941, neither
officials in Moscow or Kiev have ever been able to officially and specifically recognize the terrible
fate which befell the Jews of Kiev fifty years ago. Yevtushenko's stirring 1961 poem may have
brought world attention to the Soviet policy of officially ignoring the unique dimension of Jewish
suffering during the Nazi Holocaust, but, Yevtushenko was rebuked by no one less than Soviet
Premier Nikita Khrushchev. Other works, including a Dmitry Shostakovich symphony were
suppressed or banned. And even a documentary on Ukrainian television deleted references to the
Jewish victims. A fifty-foot monument stands near the site of the murders, but once again, no Jews
were mentioned.
World leaders, like President Bush and former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, who visited
Babi Yar in 1991 and 1988 respectively, deserve credit for helping a forgetting world to remember.
And against the dark backdrop of the tragic history of Ukraine's Jews is the sliver of hope that the
events that are catapulting the Ukraine on the road to freedom may yet set the stage for the proper
memorialization of Babi Yar.
* Rabbi Abraham Cooper is associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center.
38
George Bush, President of the United States:
Remarks at the Babi Yar Memorial in Kiev,
Soviet Union, August 1, 1991
Thank you, Chairman Kravchuk. And to our special guests today, the survivors of the Babi Yar
massacres and the Ukrainians who helped rescue them, it is my great honor to be here today.
We come to Babi Yar to remember. We remember violence and valor; we remember prejudice and
selflessness. At Babi Yar, in the vast quiet here, something larger than life assails us; the shadows
of past evil, the light of past virtue. The wind that shakes the leaves bears a special weight, as if
whispering warnings and cautions, telling tales of victims and villains, cowards and heroes.
Babi Yar stands as a monument to many things. It reminds us that history gives our lives meaning
and continuity and that any nation that tries to repudiate history, tries to ignore the actors and
events that shape it, only repudiates itself.
For many years, the tragedy of Babi Yar went unacknowledged, but no more. You soon will place a
plaque on this site that acknowledges the genocide against Jews, the slaughter of gypsies, the
wanton murder of Communists, Christians - of anyone who dared oppose the Nazi madman's
fantasies.
Babi Yar reminds us of the sheer stupidity of prejudice. Here we think about people of great
promise and talent, young men and women who would have become doctors or physicists, athletes
or artists, mothers, fathers. All died because a maniac in Berlin wanted to exterminate their kind.
The statue here testifies to an important truth. Just as bricks and stones shape great monuments,
families shape nations. The love of parents, the trust of children, the blessings of life and learning
- these things give life meaning; they give society its character; they give nations a sense of destiny
and purpose.
Here, at Babi Yar, Nazis set out to destroy families and faiths, set out to destroy the soul of a
nation. And here, on September 29, 1941, soldiers forced men, women and children to undergo a
ritual of humiliation and death. Victims stopped first to empty their pockets and place their
valuables in heaps on the ground, and then moved forward to another place where they had to
39
remove their clothing, which Nazis folded in neat piles - booty for the Fuehrer.
And then shivering, they moved to the edge of the ravine where marksmen murdered their prey,
letting the bodies tumble into long, deep pits. For 36 hours, rifle reports and shrill human cries
shattered the calm. Nazis tried to drown out that horror by playing dance music over
loudspeakers. And despite this macabre ritual, screams made their way into the hearts of
townspeople - and the pages of history.
When the first round of shooting stopped, more than 33,000 bodies lay in the pit, and many more
people had committed suicide rather than undergoing the humiliating execution rites. Within 18
months, nearly 100,000 people perished here.
Miraculously, a few managed to escape, several of whom have joined us today, along with several
people who helped protect the victims of the massacred at Babi Yar. And I think it would be most
appropriate to ask them to stand so we may honor them.
Abraham Lincoln once said: We cannot escape history. Mikhail Gorbachev has promoted truth in
history. Here's the quote: Not to settle political scores, or cause suffering, but to render due
tribute to everything that was heroic in the past and to learn lessons from mistakes and
miscalculations.
Today we stand at Babi Yar and wrestle with awful truth. We marvel at the incredible extremes of
human behavior. And we make solemn vows:
We vow this sort of murder will never happen again.
We vow never to let the forces of bigotry and hatred assert themselves without opposition.
And we vow to ensure a future dedicated to freedom and individual liberty rather then to mob
violence and tyranny.
And we vow that whenever our devotion to principle wanes, we will think of this place. We will
remember that evil flourishes when good men and women refuse to defend virtue.
Let me quote the poet Yevtushenko, whose poem about Babi Yar helped restore remembrance of
this place and of its history. Here's what he wrote: On Babi Yar weeds rustle; the tall trees, like
judges, loom and threaten. All screams in silence; I take off my cap and feel that I am slowly
turning gray. And I, too, have become a soundless cry over the thousands that lie buried here. I
40
am each old man slaughtered, each child shot. None of me will forget. None of us will ever forget.
The Holocaust occurred because good men and women averted their eyes from unprecedented
evil. And the Nazis fell when good men and women opened their eyes, summoned their courage
and faith, and fought for democracy, liberty, and justice and decency. This memorial proves that
eventually the forces of good and of truth will rise in triumph. No matter how bleak our lives may
seem, this fact should comfort us. It should inspire us to spare future generations from horrors like
the one that claimed nearly 100,000 souls at Babi Yar.
May God bless you all. May God bless Ukraine and its wonderful people, and may God bless the
memories of Babi Yar.
Photo courtesy Susan Biddle /White House
41
My Beloved Poisoned Cradle
by Bella Sitnyakovsky
August 12, 1991
Kiev, my love, my pain, my recollections
You should see that beautiful city with its luxurious green parks, white birch groves, bushes of
roses and lilacs; with its museums, theaters; with picturesque hills over the wide Dnieper River. I
was born, grew up and lived most of my life there.
In Kiev, my honest father was taken to prison
(as an enemy of the people) and never came
back. So I did not know him.
From Kiev, my talented 17-year-old brother
went to war and never came back
The beauty of my native city is inseparable
from my mother's tears. "Tochter meine" (my
daughter), she used to say to me in a
wonderfully poetic Yiddish, "the streets here are densely watered with Jewish blood " Thus
came to me that horrible notion - Babi Yar.
A huge green ravine without any. marker reminding us about the
bloody massacre of thousands of our mothers, fathers, brothers and
sisters. My two little cousins, whom I did not know, with their
beautiful young mother also sleep forever in Babi Yar. "Mir sol zain
kleininke kinderlach, far aire kushere oigalach" (It should happen to me
[any evil destined for you], little children, for the sake of your
Kosher eyes), sang my mother and cried.
Probably by now you know the story: how the Soviet authorities
did not even allow us to speak aloud of Jewish martyrdom in Babi
Yar, let alone set a monument there; how they punished those who
used to go there every September 29 to speak up on that bitter
anniversary. Eventually a monument appeared - cold, pompous,
42
expressing nothing.
They say that times have changed. There is supposed to be a monument there, a real one for the
perished Jews. There is supposed to be a big ceremony, a solemn procession at Babi Yar along the
same route my dear people walked in 1941. A procession to a bitter place in a beautiful city
poisoned first by hatred, now by Chernobyl's radiation. But where is the guarantee that in a while
Jewish cemeteries or Babi Yar will not be desecrated?
My heart is bleeding, and the pain will never go.
*Bella Sitnyakovsky, a journalist from Kiev, is a member of the staff of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. Her uncle (see
photo inset) Usherka Baram and his family -- wife and two children -- lived in the city of Kiev. Shortly after this photo
was taken, he escaped to Palestine (as Israel was then called) where he hoped to find work in preparation for bringing
his family. His dream was not realized. Usherka Baram's wife and two children perished at Babi Yar.
43
And Now They Are Coming
To Me In My Nightmares.
by Yasha Kaper - Kiev, USSR
I, Yasha Kaper, was one of the 300 hundred war prisoners who for ten terrible days dug out corpses
in Babi Yar and then burned them to remove all traces of the criminal activities of the Fascist
monsters. We worked from sun-up till late at night under the watchful eyes of the SS officers. At
night we were locked in small huts, previously prepared especially for us and were fed with watery
soup. We understood that we also would be killed after finishing our job. We collected keys,
knives, hammers and all kinds of iron and succeeded in splitting the chains and running from the
huts. We killed one nearby guard with our hammers and ran in different directions. The outside
guard, as soon as he became aware of our escape, opened machine gun fire and, yet, fifteen of us
remained alive. I reached the deep forest and joined the partisans.
Forty years have passed from this memorable day and I cannot forget those terrible days and
nights, when we were ordered by Nazis to burn the corpses of men, women and children. During
all these years I have not slept peacefully, disturbed by terrible nightmares.
Vinokurov, Joseph, Shimon Kipnis, and Nora Levin. Yizkor Bukh Book of Remembrance. Philidelphia: Publishing House
of Peace, 1983.
44
Greetings From Hell..
by Dina Mironovna Pronicheva
They call me Dina, Dina Mironovna Wasserman. I was raised in a poor Jewish family, but my
upbringing was in the spirit of Soviet ideology based on internationalism rather than nationalism,
which could not have any place for any prejudices. So I fell in love with a Russian youth, Nikolai
Pronichev, whom I married, becoming Dina Mironovna Pronicheva, giving my nationality in my
passport as Russian. We lived in love and happiness for some time and I gave birth to two
children, a boy and a girl. Before-the war I was an artist in the special theatre for the teenagers in
Kiev.
On the second day of the war, my husband was sent to the front line and I remained with my two
little children and with my old, sick mother. On September 19, 1941, Hitler's army occupied Kiev
and from the very first days started to annihilate the entire Jewish population. Rumors, passed
from one to another telling us terrible stories of persecution and killings of the Jews were
confirmed officially a few days later by posters placed on each corner: "All Jews from Kiev should
come with all their belongings to Babi Yar immediately. Whoever will not obey the order will be
shot on the spot."
We did not have the slightest idea where Babi Yar was, but we understood that nothing good
would come of it. I dressed my children, the girl, three years of age, and my boy, five, and took
them to my Russian mother-in-law. Then I, with my old, sick mother went to the road to Babi Yar
following the Germans' last order. The Jews by the thousands were on the way to Babi Yar.
Alongside us marched an old Jew with a snow white beard, with his tallit and tfilin, praying
constantly and reminding me of my beloved father, who used to pray the same way. In front of me
was marching a young woman with two children in both her arms. A third child, a little older,
holding the woman's dress, trying with his little feet to keep up. Old and sick women were loaded
in farmers' wagons filled up to the top with sacks and suitcases. Little children cried; elderly
people, who could hardly follow the crowd, cried silently. Russian husbands escorted their Jewish
wives, and Russian wives escorted their Jewish husbands. We marched from early morning till late
in the evening - three days in a row.
Approaching Babi Yar we heard machine guns and terribly inhuman cries. I did not want to tell my
mother what was going on. She was marching silently all the time, but I believe she realized what
45
was happening. My mother, a medical doctor, a pediatrician, was a very intelligent and wise
person. When we entered the gate of the camp, we were ordered to give up all our documents and
leave all our baggage, especially our jewelry. A German approached my mother and with all his
force pulled off the golden ring from her finger. Only then did my mother speak: "Denochka, you
are Pronicheva, you are Russian, go back to your little children. Your life is with them." But I
could not run away. We were surrounded by German soldiers with machine guns, by Ukrainian
policemen with wild dogs, ready to bite anyone trying to escape. I embraced my mother and with
tears in my eyes said: "I cannot leave you alone. I will stay with you." But she shoved me away,
ordering with a strong voice, "Go away immediately." I went to a table at which a heavy-set
German was checking all documents and said softly: "I am a Russian." He carefully examined my
passport when one of the Ukrainian policemen said: "Do not believe her. We know her well. She
is Jewish." The German asked me to wait on one side.
I was shocked to see how every few minutes a group of men, women and children were ordered to
disrobe and to stand on the edge of a long ravine and then they were killed by machine guns. I
saw it with my own eyes, and although I was standing far away from the ravine, I heard terrible
cries and children's soft voices: "Mama, mama." I stood there paralyzed, thinking how could
people be treated worse than animals and brutally killed for the only crime that they were Jewish.
Suddenly I fully realized that the fascists were not human beings but wild animals. I saw a young
naked woman feeding a naked baby with her breast, when a Ukrainian policeman grabbed the
infant and threw it into the ravine. The woman tried to save her baby, running toward the child,
but she was killed instantly. This I saw with my own two eyes. I would never believe this could
happen. How can anyone believe it?
The German who ordered me to wait guided me to a high ranking officer and showing him my
passport said: " This woman claims to be Russian, but one of the Ukrainian policemen knows her
to be a Jewish woman." The officer examined my passport for a long while and in a harsh tone
said: "Dina is not a Russian name. You are Jewish. Take her away." The policeman ordered me
to undress and pushed me towards a hole where a new group was awaiting their destiny. But
before the shots were fired, probably from great fear, I jumped into the hole on top of dead bodies.
In the beginning, I could not realize what was going on. Who I am? How did I reach the hole? I
thought that I lost my senses, but when a new wave of human bodies started to fall down into the
hole I suddenly understood the whole situation with sharp clarity. I started to examine my arms,
legs and my entire body just to make sure that I was not wounded at all, and I remained
motionless, like a dead person. I was surrounded by dead and gravely wounded people, when I
suddenly heard a baby's cries: " Mamochka." It sounded like my own little daughter and I cried
bitterly, not able to move. I still heard, from time to time, machine guns and bodies falling one on
46
top of the other. I tried with all my force to push aside the falling corpses to have enough air to
breathe, but doing this at long intervals, not to be noticed by the policemen standing outside the
huge hole.
Then, in time, everything stopped and there was absolute silence. The Germans were checking
the big hole, shooting from time to time, when they noticed some movement, killing the badly
wounded but still-alive victims. On top of me was a body of a man, and although he was very
heavy, I somehow supported him till the Germans passed this part of the big hole. Then suddenly
I saw the earth falling down around me. I will be buried alive! I closed my eyes holding my arms
high to keep the air coming. When it became absolutely silent, dead silent, I brushed away the
sand from my eyes and my body and with all my force started to climb from the huge hole.
I was among thousands and thousands of inert corpses and I became terribly frightened. Here and
there the earth was moving - some of the buried were still alive. I was looking at myself and I was
terrified. My thin nightgown, which covered my naked body, was red from blood. I tried to get
up, but I was very weak. I started talking to myself: "Dina, get up, run away, run to your
children," and with all my might I started to run again in the direction of a huge mountain
surrounding the huge ravine. Suddenly I felt some movement behind me and was frightened, but
after a while I turned around and heard: "Tetenka. Do not be afraid. They call me Fema. My
family name is Schneiderman. I am eleven years old. Take me with you. I am very much afraid of
darkness." I came nearer to the boy. I embraced him wholeheartedly and I cried softly and the
boy pleaded: "Do not cry, tetenka."
We started to move in deep silence, trying to reach the end of the ravine, helping each other,
finally reaching the very top of the huge hole. But when we started to run we heard shots again
and we fell down to the ground, afraid to say a word. After a long while I embraced the boy asking
him how he felt, but he did not answer. In the deep darkness I started to check his arms, legs, his
head. He was motionless - there was no sign of life. I lifted myself to look into his face. He was
lying with his eyes closed. I tried a few times to open his eyes, then I understood that the boy was
dead. Most probably the shot I heard a few minutes earlier had finished his life forever. I kissed
the cold little body, lifted myself with all my strength and started to run as fast as I could, leaving
behind me this horrible place called Babi Yar. I permitted myself to stand straight to my full
height and suddenly I noticed in the darkness a little house. A cold chill penetrated my whole
body but I overcame my fear and I silently approached the window, knocking delicately. A half
sleepy voice of a woman asked: "Who is there? What do you want?" I answered: "I just ran away
from Babi Yar," and I heard an angry voice: "Go away immediately. I do not want to know you."
And I entrunning as fast as I could.
Vinokurov, Joseph, Shimon Kipnis, and Nora Levin. Yizkor Bukh Book of Remembrance. Philadelphia: Publishing
House of Peace, 1983.
47
My Grandfather's Three Mistakes
by Leonid Lelchytsky
My grandfather, Chaim Velvl Dubinski, lost his life in Babi Yar, because of three mistakes during
his arduous life.
His first mistake occurred in 1914 when he refused to join his father and other children who
emigrated to America where the family grew and prospered, making a good living to this day.
He made the second mistake in 1937, when we received paid-up ship tickets to America, where
we could live as free Americans, but he refused to leave the country, explaining: "My children, we
were born here and we will die here."
The third mistake, which had such a tragic ending, came in 1941, when we begged him to run
away from Kiev and he repeated again: "I am an old man and the Germans will not touch old
people."
This was his last mistake.
Vinokurov, Joseph, Shimon Kipnis, and Nora Levin. Yizkor Bukh Book of Remembrance. Philidelphia: Publishing
House of Peace, 1983.
48
A Crystal Vase Of
Earth From Babi Yar
by Shimon Kipnis
For months after the liberation of Kiev, there remained many traces of the war; walls left naked
from burnt-out houses, deep holes from bomb blasts, and pale, emaciated people, still afraid they
might see a fascist face. As yet, there was no electric power and the city remained dark.
Kreshchatnik, the most beautiful part of the city, seemed to me like an abandoned cemetery.
In the spring after liberation, however, there was a busy and bright spot: the theatre of musical
operettas, where survivors of the war planned to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Jewish
Theatre of Kiev. (This theatre had been moved to Chernovitz and was never returned to Kiev
because it was destroyed by Soviet authorities in Chernovitz together with all leading figures in
Jewish cultural life.) For the first time since the end of the war, we had the opportunity to hear
voices in Yiddish. From Moscow arrived a delegation from its Jewish Theatre under the
leadership of the great Yiddish actor and director Shlomo Mikhoels. They had come to greet their
fellow artists and Jews in Kiev. There were many heartfelt speeches, but the most impressive was
the speech of Mikhoels, which I will remember to the last day of my life.
With swift steps, Mikhoels walked to the podium holding a crystal vase in both hands. Everyone
wondered why the vase was full of some black substance instead of flowers, but it became clear as
soon as he began to speak. "Before coming here," he said, "to greet our friends and artists from the
Jewish Theatre of Kiev, we bought this crystal vase and went to Babi Yar. We filled up the vase
with earth from Babi Yar, the same earth which heard the cries of our fathers and mothers, brothers
and sisters, the little children, boys and girls who never grew up, who perished at the hands of the
fascist beasts." Raising the vase higher, he continued: "If you examined the earth carefully, you
will find shoelaces from a shoe belonging to little Sarele who was struck down together with her
mother. Look carefully and you will see tears streaming down an old woman's face. Look deeply
and you will see your father praying 'Sh'ma Yisroel' with his eyes raised to the sky, waiting for
rescue from a good angel. Listen carefully and you will hear the thunder of the guns in the hands
of the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto fighting the fascist murderers. Listen intently and you will
hear the chant of the martyrs deported from the ghettos as they were marched to the death camps:
'Never say that this is your last road.' Look further and you will see that the earth is soaked with
49
blood, the earth is trembling. It is the last breathing of our martyrs who gave their lives for us, for
you, my friends, from the Kiev State Jewish Theatre, so that we may continue our work for our
Jewish nation, our Jewish culture, our Jewish language."
Mikhoels then picked up a handful of earth from the vase and continued: "I brought you a vase of
earth from Babi Yar. Throw in the seeds of flowers. They will bloom as a symbol of the new
flowering of the Jewish people whom Hitler sought to annihilate and obliterate from the face of
the globe. In spite of him, we live and will continue to live. We, the Jewish artists, no matter
whom we represent: Tevye the Milkman, Shimele Soroker, Hirsch Leckert or Bar Kochba, we will
always have before us this sample of Babi Yar earth, which calls to us and demands of us, despite
our enemies, that we continue to live forever."
Thirty-seven years have passed by and the inspiring words of the great Shlomo Mikhoels are still
with me, with the same vividness
Vinokurov, Joseph, Shimon Kipnis, and Nora Levin. Yizkor Bukh Book of Remembrance. Philidelphia: Publishing House
of Peace, 1983.
50
Babi Yar
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
No gravestone stands on Babi Yar;
Only coarse earth heaped roughly on the gash.
Such dread comes over me; I feel so old,
Old as the Jews. Today I am a Jew.
Now I go wandering, an Egyptian slave;
And now I perish, splayed upon the cross.
The marks of nails are still upon my flesh.
And I am Dreyfus whom the gentry hound:
I am behind the bars, caught in a ring:
Belied, denounced, and spat upon I stand,
While dainty ladies in their lacy frills,
Squealing, poke parasols into my face.
I am that little boy in Bialystok
Whose blood flows, spreading darkly on the floor.
The rowdy lords of the saloon make sport,
Reeking alike of vodka and of leek,
Booted aside, weak, helpless, I, the child
Who begs in vain while the pogromchik mob
Guffaws and shouts: "Save Russia, beat the Jews!"
The shopman's blows fall on my mother's back.
O my own people, my own Russian folk,
Believers in the brotherhood of man!
But dirty hands too often dare to raise
The banner of your pure and lofty name.
I know the goodness of my native land.
How vile that anti-Semites shamelessly
Preen themselves in the words that they debase:
"The Union of the Russian People."
51
Now, in this moment, I am Anna Frank,
Frail and transparent as an April twig.
I love as she; I need no ready phrases
Only to look into each other's eyes!
How little we can sense, how little see
Leaves are forbidden us, the sky forbidden..
Yet how much still remains; how strangely sweet
To hold each other close in the dark room.
They come? No, do not fear. These are the gales
Of spring; she bursts into this gloom.
Come to me; quickly; let me kiss your lips
They break the door? No, no, the ice is breaking.
On Babi Yar weeds rustle; the tall trees
Like judges loom and threaten
All screams in silence; I take off my cap
And feel that I am slowly turning gray.
And I too have become a soundless cry
Over the thousands that lie buried here.
I am each old man slaughtered, each child shot.
None of me will forget.
Let the glad "Internationale" blare forth
When earth's last anti-Semite lies in earth.
No drop of Jewish blood flows in my veins,
But anti-Semites with a dull, gnarled hate
Detest me like a Jew.
O know me truly Russian through their hate!
Yevgeny Yevtushenko (1933 - ), author of "Babi Yar," is a Soviet Russian poet who became a standard-bearer of the
liberal Soviet intelligentsia following the death of Joseph Stalin. Yevtushenko frequently chose subjects that were
expressions of revolt against Stalinist traditions. (See p. 19.)
52
"The Ashes Of Babi Yar Are
Knocking In My Heart,"
August 16, 1991
said Boris Kochubiyevsky, when we called him at his home in Jerusalem to ask about his feelings
in connection with the 50th anniversary of the Babi Yar massacre. Now Boris uses the Hebrew
name Baruch Ashei.
"We must never forget and we must never forgive those who created the catastrophe and those
who aided them voluntarily. My grandfather was a rich man, a merchant of first order in Czarist
Russia. He had a factory. Bolsheviks came and took everything he had. He survived that time.
He lived in Zvenigorodka, near Kiev, and had good relations with the Ukrainians. Then World
War II began. Germans had not come yet, but the Ukrainians gathered all their Jewish
neighbors, "good friends," and shot them. Could it be forgiven? They eagerly aided in the
shootings at Babi Yar, where my father, a wounded Soviet officer, also perished I'll never forgive
the Ukrainians nor the Germans. We don't need to be loved. We need to be treated as human
beings. I have taught my two sons and my daughter to know what happened to Jews during the
war, in particular, at Babi Yar. I have taught them to hate those who betrayed and murdered our
people."
Boris Kochubiyevsky was a young Jewish radio engineer in Kiev when he went to Babi Yar and eulogized its Jewish
victims, charging the Soviet government with antisemitism. He was tried in 1969 and sentenced to three years in labor
camp, but was released and allowed to emigrate to Israel in late 1971 where he makes his home. (See p. 34.)
53
A Little Song For Drums
by Arkady Rivlin
Not by violin, not by flute,
Better by drum to play
How on a marble monument
Was described their last way.
Very "wisely," very "generously"
In five official lines -
About hundreds of thousands of innocents
Without a thought of children's cries.
Listen to drums over Babi Yar,
Listen to drums over the world:
Not the communists, not the partisans,
But it was the children who were the first to die.
The beating of drums will tell us,
How accompanied by mothers' cries,
Nursing babies and little children
Were thrown first in the Yar :
At the official pompous monument
Are a few official words
With no mention of numbers of children -
As if they killed them once more.
Translated by Bella Sitnyakovsky
Arkady Rivlin is a poet from Kiev who currently resides in Los Angeles. His poems about Babi Yar were never
published in the Soviet Union.
54
Tango Over Babi Yar
by Arkady Rivlin
Tango from Germany "Donna Klara"*
Thundered from radio over the Yar,
Muffling the sounds of guns and rifles,
Shouts over the slaughter. And cries And roars
And years later while walking the same slopes
A needle pierced my heart:
A familiar sound from a tape recorder
Tango from Germany "Donna Kla..."
Tango of perished ones over the planet
How easy became their steps,
Slowly moving by tango from Germany
Elderly, children and maybe me
The retro music over the green Yar
Is beating me with its notes.
O, how beautifully you sing, Donna Klara!
O, how nicely you appeal to us, Klara!
O, how often I see you in my dreams, frau Klara!
Seemingly it was not your role at all
Translated by Bella Sitnyakovsky
*As the victims were marched to their deaths, a German tango, "Donna Klara," was one of the musical pieces played
to muffle the sounds of the gunfire and the screams of the condemned.
55
Memorial Prayer
For The Martyrs Massacred At Babi Yar
O G-d, full of mercy, Who dwells on high, grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence -
in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones, who shine like the glow of the firmament - for the
souls of the holy and pure ones who were killed, murdered and slaughtered for the sanctification of
the Name, through the hands of the German oppressors at Babi Yar. May their resting place be in
the Garden of Eden - therefore may the Master of mercy shelter them in the shelter of His wings
for eternity; and may He bind their souls in the Bond of Eternal Life. G-d is their heritage, and
may they repose in peace on their resting places. Now let us respond: Amen.
Not far from Kiev lived an ordinary worker called Reuben
Schneiderman with his wife Bluma. They had many children
and grandchildren. You see them all in this picture. They were
altogether 18 people. 18, in Hebrew, "chai" means "to live."
But the war started and only five of them remained alive (those
marked with a cross). The rest were killed: the father and
mother with their children and grandchildren.
Simha Mogilyevsky
Frida Grinberg, Riva and Sara Raskin and Boris Izikson
56
Klara Kupershmit
Klara Belilovsky with her son
Berele
Bella Belilovsky with her son Boris
57
Timeline
1941
June 22
Germany invades the Soviet Union
September 19
German Army captures Kiev
September 26
Germans decide that all the Jews of Kiev should be put to death
September 28
Notices posted in Kiev ordering all Jews to assemble the following morning
September 29
Jews assemble and are marched to Babi Yar ravine
September 29-30
33,771 Jews are massacred at Babi Yar
1943
July
Paul Blobel, SS-Standartenfuehrer, returns to Kiev
to arrange for all traces of the Nazis' mass murder to be erased
August -
Under Nazi orders, inmates of a nearby concentration
September
camp exhume and cremate the corpses at Babi Yar
1948
April 10
Paul Blobel sentenced to death together with other Einsatzgruppen leaders
1959
October 10
Viktor Nekrasov, distinguished Soviet writer, voices concern about the
lack of a monument at Babi Yar
1961
September 19
Yevgeny Yevtushenko publishes "Babi Yar"
1962
December 18
"Babi Yar," set to music by Dmitry Shostakovich in his
"Thirteenth Symphony," premieres in Moscow
1963
March 8
Yevtushenko publicly denounced by Premier Nikita Khrushchev
1966
August 1
Serialization of Anatoli Kuznetsov's documentary novel Babi Yar begins
1967
October 1967 -
Eleven defendants from Einsatzgruppe C,
November 1968
Sonderkommando 4a convicted in the Babi Yar massacre
1969
May 13
Boris Kochubiyevsky, a Jewish engineer from Kiev,
placed on trial for eulogizing Jews at Babi Yar
1974
Monument, with no specific mention of Jews, erected at Babi Yar
1991
August 1
U.S. President George Bush speaks at Babi Yar
September
International Commemoration of the
October
50th Anniversary of Babi Yar
58
Glossary
Babi Yar: Ravine located in the northwestern part of Kiev
Blobel, Paul (1894-1951): SS-Standartenfuehrer; member of
the SD; commanding officer of Einsatzgruppe C,
Sonderkommando 4a.
Einsatzgruppen: Mobile killing units of the Security Police
and SS Security Service that followed the German armies into
the Soviet Union in June 1941. They were supported by units
of the uniformed German Order Police and auxiliaries of
volunteers (Ukrainian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian) for
the murders. Their victims, primarily Jews, were executed by
shooting and were buried in mass graves from which they were
later exhumed and burned. At least a million Jews were killed
in this manner. There were four Einsatzgruppen (A,B,C,D)
which were subdivided into Einsatzkommandos.
Final Solution: The cover name for the plan to destroy the
Jews of Europe, the "Final Solution of the Jewish Question."
Beginning in December 1941, Jews were rounded up and sent
to concentration camps in the East. The program was
deceptively disguised as "resettlement in the East."
Khrushchev, Nikita (1894-1971): Premier of the Soviet Union 1958-1964
Kiev: City in Ukrainian SSR, on right bank of Dnieper River
and 460 miles southwest of Moscow; 1939 population 846,293.
Kuznetsov, Anatoli: Soviet writer; author of documentary novel Babi Yar
NKVD: Soviet secret police; People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs
59
SD (Sicherheitsdienst): The SS security and intelligence service
SIPO (Sicherheitspolizei): Nazi security police, composed of the Gestapo and
the Kriminalpolizei (German Criminal police).
Sonderkommando: "Special Squad"; SS or Einsatzgruppe
detachment
SS: Abbreviation usually written with two lightning symbols for
Schutzstaffel (Protective Units). Originally organized as Hitler's
personal bodyguard, the SS was transformed into a giant
organization by Heinrich Himmler. Although various SS units
were assigned to the battlefield, the organization is best known
for carrying out the destruction of European Jewry.
SS-Standartenfuehrer: German military rank equivalent to lieutenant colonel.
Yevtushenko, Yevgeny (1933 -
): Poet and spokesman for the younger
post-Stalin generation of Russian poets; author of the poem "Babi Yar"
60
Babi Yar
Study Questions
1. Discuss the Nazis' ideology of racial superiority and how that concept led to mass
murder. Before the Nazis murdered their victims they sought to dehumanize them.
How was this accomplished?
2. Who were the members of the Einsatzgruppen? Were they volunteers? What was
their educational and social background? Were they forced to participate in the mass
execution of civilians or could they have transferred out of the Einsatzgruppen?
3. What would you do in a similar situation? What would be the most important
factors (religious, ethical, social, etc.) that would go into your decision?
4. Were there any attempts by the local population to obstruct the Nazi policy of
mass murder? If none, why not? How do you think you and your friends would
react if you were witnesses to persecution?
5. Babi Yar was more than just a massacre. Discuss how the Nazis utilized existing
local antisemitic sentiments to help in implementing the "Final Solution" as first
evidenced by the Einsatzgruppen and then by the deportation to death camps. For
example, how did the attitude of the Ukrainians toward Jews contribute to Babi Yar?
6. For over four decades Communist officials refused to recognize the Jewish
dimension of suffering during the Holocaust at Babi Yar and elsewhere in the Soviet
Union. Today, the political situation in the USSR and the Ukraine remains unclear.
How have politics impacted on Babi Yar? How can we avoid politicizing its
memory? What do you feel is the most important thing we should remember about
Babi Yar?
61
Babi Yar
A Selected Bibliography Of English Language Titles
Anatoli (Kuznetsov), A. Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1970.
Arad, Yitzhak, Shmuel Krakowski, and Shmuel Spector, eds. The Einsatzgruppen Reports. New York: Holocaust Library, 1989.
Dawidowicz, Lucy S. "Babi Yar's Legacy." New York Times, Sept. 27, 1981, pp. 48ff.
Ehrenburg, Ilya and Vasily Grossman. The Black Book. New York: Holocaust Library, 1981.
Korey, William. "Babi Yar." In Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972.
Korey, William. "Babi Yar Remembered." Midstream, March 1969, pp. 24-39.
Korey, William. "No Monument Over Babi Yar." Chap. in The Soviet Cage, New York: Viking Press, 1973.
Seiden, Othniel J. The Survivor of Babi Yar. (Fiction) Boulder, CO: Stonehenge Books, 1980.
Spector, Shmuel. "Babi Yar" and "Einsatzgruppen." In Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, ed. by Israel Gutman. New York: Macmillan
Publishing Co., 1990.
St. George, George. The Road to Babyi-Yar. London: Spearman, 1967.
Vinokurov, Joseph, Shimon Kipnis, and Nora Levin. Yizkor Bukh Book of Remembrance. Philadelphia: Publishing House of Peace,
1983.
West, Benjamin. "Kiev." In Encyclopaedia Judaica, Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1972.
Wiesel, Elie. "Return to the Past." In Against Silence: The Voice and Vision of Elie Wiesel, ed. by Irving Abrahamson. New York:
Holocaust Publications, 1985.
Yevtushenko, Yevgeny. A Precocious Autobiography. London: 1963.
The following general works on the Holocaust may also assist you:
Bauer, Yehuda. They Chose Life: Jewish Resistance in the Holocaust. New York: American Jewish Committee, Institute of Human
Relations, 1973.
Dawidowicz, Lucy S. The War Against the Jews, 1933 - 1945: 10th Anniversary ed. Toronto and New York: Bantam Books, 1986.
Gutman, Israel, ed. Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 1990.
Hillberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. Student ed. New York: Holmes & Meier, 1985.
Note: "Based on the three-volume revised and definitive edition." Hillberg, Raul. The Destruction of the European Jews. 2nd
ed. NewYork: Holmes & Meier, 1985.
Levin, Nora. The Holocaust. The Destruction of European Jewry, 1933 - 1945. New York: Schocken Books, 1973.
62
Sources
page 8:
"Einsatzgruppen Murderers' Trail: September - October 1941."
The Macmillan Atlas of the Holocaust. p. 76.
page 11:
Announcement on the gathering of the Jewish population of Kiev
Simon Wiesenthal Center Archives #86-092/10.
page 12:
Nazis distribute "rations" among the doomed Jews of Kiev who
came to the gathering point, but did not know that these were the last hours of their
lives. Simon Wiesenthal Center Archives #86-092/10.
page 13:
Butchers ransack and loot the belongings of those killed in Babi
Yar. Simon Wiesenthal Center Archives #86-092/10.
page 14:
Excavations in Babi Yar (1944). Simon Wiesenthal Center
Archives #86-092/11.
page 15:
"Operational Situation Report USSR No. 101" The Einsatzgruppen
Reports. p. 168.
page 16:
Shattered stones, from the Jewish cemetery near Babi Yar, which
the Nazis used to crush the bones of the Jews they murdered. Yizkor Bukh Book of
Remembrance. p. 200.
page 18:
This alley in 1941 was "a road of death" for 70,000 Jews. Ibid.
p. 201.
page 20:
Beginning and end of the ms. for the poem "Babi Yar," by Yevgeny
Yevtushenko. Encyclopaedia Judaica. vol. 4, p. 29.
page 23:
Nikita Khruschev on a cruise along the Dnieper River.
Khruschev Remembers. Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1970. p. 509.
page 37:
Kiev, at the monument to Soviet civilians and military taken as
prisoners of war and killed by the Germans in Babi Yar. Simon Wiesenthal Center
Archives #86-092/43.
page 42:
Usherka Baram, his wife and two children. Simon Wiesenthal
Center Archives CRP #01374-7/2 and #01374-7/3.
page 43:
Babi Yar ravine after the victims had been covered over. Simon
Wiesenthal Center Archives #91-131/5.
Pages 56-57:
Selected photographs of martyrs killed at Babi Yar. Yizkor Bukh Book of
Remembrance. pp. 181, 185, 186, 187, 198.
*Complete bibliographical information is provided in the Bibliography for sources cited in both places. (See p. 62.)
63
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