Babi Yar Massacre – World History

Table of Contents

BABI YAR

Babi Yar is a ravine in the Ukrainian Kyiv and a site of massacres carried out by German forces during their campaign against the Soviet Union in World War II.
The first, and best documented, of the massacres took place on 29–30 September 1941, killing approximately 33,771 Jews.
Victims of other massacres at the site included Soviet prisoners of war, communists, Ukrainian nationalists and Roma. It is estimated that between 100,000 and 150,000 people were killed at Babi Yar during the German occupation.

Axis forces, mainly German, occupied Kyiv on 19 September 1941. Between 20 and 28 September, explosives planted by the Soviet secret police caused extensive damage in the city.
Two days later, on 26 September,the SS and Police Leaders, met at Rear Headquarters Army Group South. There, they made the decision to exterminate the Jews of Kyiv.

On 29 and 30 September 1941, the Nazis and their collaborators murdered approximately 33,771 Jewish civilians at Babi Yar.
In the evening, the Germans undermined the wall of the ravine and buried the people under the thick layers of earth.
According to the Einsatzgruppe’s Operational Situation Report, 33,771 Jews from Kyiv and its suburbs were systematically shot dead by machine-gun fire at Babi Yar on 29 September and 30 September 1941.

In the months that followed, thousands more were seized and taken to Babi Yar where they were shot. It is estimated that more than 100,000 residents of Kyiv of all ethnic groups,mostly civilians, were murdered by the Nazis there during World War II. A concentration camp was also built in the area.
In addition, Babi Yar became a place of execution of residents of five Gypsy camps. Thousands of other Ukrainians were killed at Babi Yar.

Estimates of the total number killed at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation vary. In 1946, Soviet prosecutor L. N. Smirnov at the Nuremberg trials claimed there were approximately 100,000 corpse.
According to testimonies of workers forced to burn the bodies, the numbers range from 70,000 to 120,000.
For his war crimes, Paul Blobel was sentenced to death by the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials in the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He was hanged on 7 June 1951 at Landsberg Prison.