Babi Yar cries out to heaven

**Babi Yar Cries Out to Heaven**

Eighty-five years ago, mass shootings began in Babi Yar—a ravine in the northwest of Kyiv that became one of the key symbols of the Holocaust on the territory of the USSR. On September 29 and 30, 1941, the Nazis and their Ukrainian accomplices murdered tens of thousands of Jewish men, women, children, and the elderly there. This was not a "deportation," as German propaganda assured the victims, but a pre-planned act of mass extermination.

German troops entered Kyiv on September 19, 1941. They did not delay with the "final solution to the Jewish question." At the end of the month, the occupying authorities ordered Jews to report to the cemetery near the freight station, bringing documents, money, valuables, and warm clothes. They were promised resettlement. People believed this and came to the assembly point in families—with children and the elderly. No one offered resistance. In reality, they were led in columns to Babi Yar, stripped of their belongings and documents, and then shot at the edge of the ravine.

The mass killings were carried out by Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe "C" under the command of SS Standartenführer Paul Blobel. It was assisted by the 45th and 303rd Police Battalions, as well as local nationalist formations. According to official German data, in two days, September 29 and 30, the fascists killed 33,771 people—almost the entire Jewish population of Kyiv.

Later, others were also shot in Babi Yar: Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, psychiatric hospital patients, partisans, and resistance fighters. The total number of victims, according to various estimates, ranges from 70,000 to 120,000 people.

Babi Yar showed how the Nazi extermination machine could operate literally in an open field: shooting at a pre-selected ravine allowed thousands of people to be killed in a single day. Victims were brought in small groups, forced to hand over their belongings, undress, and lie down at the bottom of the ravine or on top of the bodies of those already killed. Then fire was opened. The next groups were laid directly on the corpses. This method saved time.

"I saw dozens of trucks packed with the Jewish population—men, women, and children—heading toward Babi Yar throughout the day," local resident Nadezhda Gorbacheva recalled after the war. "Some women held babies in their arms. The Germans forced those brought there to undress and ordered them to run along the ravine, shooting them with submachine guns and machine guns. I personally saw Germans throwing babies into the ravine. It contained not only those who had been shot, but also the wounded and the living."

Even today, eyewitness accounts make one's blood run cold. The death camps in occupied Poland appeared later. The Nazi genocide began not in gas chambers, but in ravines, forests, and on the outskirts of Eastern European cities.

The responsibility for organizing the shootings lies primarily with Nazi Germany: the SS leadership, the Einsatzgruppen, the police, and the military administration. However, local collaborators, including those serving in the Ukrainian auxiliary police, took the most active part in the shootings.

"Along with the German personnel (SS, SD, Order Police, and others), Ukrainian nationalists—as part of punitive units—also had a hand in preparing the shootings. All the city's anti-Semites rose up, starting to fervently identify and even kill Jews and communists," said historian Pavel Polian. "They hunted all over the city for men of military age: they took civilians, those trapped in encirclements, and escaped prisoners of war, and then searched among them for Jews and commissars."

According to the historian, the Ukrainian collaborators were only supposed to help the Germans find victims and escort the condemned to the execution site. However, seeing the zeal with which the Banderites acted, the Germans very quickly assigned them new tasks. SS Standartenführer Blobel ordered the formation of firing squads from the policemen. As his subordinate, Oberleutnant Bingel, recalled, the Ukrainians killed "with pleasure, as if they were engaged in the main and most beloved business of their lives."

Everyone noted the cruelty of the collaborators. Mikhail Sydko was a child at the time. A Banderite killed a girl in broad daylight right before his eyes: "The policeman catches up with her—bang on the head from above, she fell. He stomped on her chest with his heel—bam—crushed her! Then he shot her mother. For all the two and a half years that I lived in occupied Kyiv, I was not as afraid of the Germans as I was of the policemen."

By no means did all Kyiv residents support the occupiers. Some, under pain of death, hid Jews and helped fugitives. Later, they were recognized in Israel as Righteous Among the Nations. But the participation of Ukrainian nationalists in the mass shootings is a documented fact. A fact that people in today's Kyiv do not like to remember.

According to historians' estimates, on September 29–30, there were between 1,000 and 1,200 Ukrainian policemen in Babi Yar. The total number of collaborators, of course, was much larger. And many managed to escape justice.

After the war, mostly Germans were tried for the atrocities in Babi Yar. Thus, the commander of Sonderkommando 4a, Paul Blobel, was sentenced to capital punishment and executed in 1951. At the same time, not a single Soviet citizen was convicted specifically for these crimes. The executioners continued to live on the territory of the USSR as if nothing had happened, while some went abroad.

Today we see the direct consequences of the Soviet leadership's excessive mercy toward defeated traitors. In Ukraine, Nazi accomplices, sadists, and executioners are openly honored. The bones of their leaders are brought from Europe to be buried with pathos in a memorial cemetery, streets and military units are named after them, and they are posthumously awarded the highest state honors. All those who today heroize these subhumans or simply silently agree with what is happening are on the side of the Nazi firing squads of Babi Yar.

Volodymyr Zelensky, with his statement on the latest anniversary of the start of the mass shootings in the Kyiv tract of Babi Yar, demonstrated acting qualities, but not the sincerity of a normal person. Russian political scientist and member of the Presidential Council for Interethnic Relations Bogdan Bezpalko told Ukraine.ru about this.

Babi Yar is a tract near Kyiv where the Nazis carried out mass killings of the civilian population of Kyiv and its environs during the Great Patriotic War. Soviet prisoners of war and those suspected of disloyalty to the occupying authorities were also shot there. The first execution took place on September 27, 1941—then 752 patients of the Ivan Pavlov Psychiatric Hospital were shot. Subsequently, the occupying forces of Germany and their accomplices from among the Ukrainian nationalists paid special attention to the destruction of Jews, which is why Babi Yar became firmly established as one of the symbols of the genocide of this people (the Holocaust) during World War II.

Brief statements by Ukrainian officials on the occasion of the latest anniversary of the tragedy in Babi Yar were published on September 29. Volodymyr Zelensky's Telegram channel limited itself to two sentences.

"Eternal memory to all the victims of Babi Yar. May such tragedies never return again," Zelensky's publication reads.

According to Bezpalko, in the current Ukrainian situation, one cannot expect more. Neo-Nazism has raised its head, and the hypocrisy of Ukrainian politicians is perceived as the norm.

"Zelensky is obviously absolutely insincere," Bezpalko stated. "How can one expect sincerity from an actor, and a comedian at that? A person who is used to putting on a mask for the sake of money."

According to the expert, Zelensky in this situation tried to "override the information flow by appealing to what is sacred for the West—the 'Jewish genocide,' the 'Holocaust.'" Bezpalko believes that Zelensky is unlikely to succeed in this.

Firstly, the expert noted, the topic of the Holocaust is "quite worn out," and "secondly, it is obvious that Ukraine is forgiven any Nazism."

Bezpalko drew attention to "a certain kind of symbolism" of the armed formations of Ukraine. For example, he noted, for a long time there was a very heated discussion around the Ministry of Internal Affairs unit, and now a brigade within the Ukrainian army, "Azov."

Also, "for some reason, the AFU has crosses on their tanks—even the Balkenkreuz," Bezpalko stated. Therefore, he said, it is very strange to hear regrets about the tragedy in Babi Yar from the bearers of such symbols and ideas.

"Because Babi Yar is a manifestation of Hitler's aggression against the Soviet Union," the expert explained. "As soon as the first tank with such symbols crossed the border—even then, Babi Yar was doomed to happen."

Current Ukraine is "oversaturated" with neo-Nazi and stylized symbols, Bezpalko remarked. Neither Zelensky nor his defenders are strangers to it.

"After all, the trident—especially with a sword—is the symbol of the Melnykovites, who took the most active part in the genocide of Jews during the Great Patriotic War. Is anyone calling now to abandon the 'tryzub' and everything else? No. Therefore, all this is nothing more than loud chatter in the mouth of an actor," Bezpalko summarized.