Babi Yar - Definition and Overview

Babi Yar (Ukrainian Babyn Yar) is the name of a ravine situated in the city of Kiev, Ukraine. It is the site of a mass murder by German Nazis during World War II.

During World War II, the mass murder of the Jewish population by German paramilitary execution squads was carried out at the site. According to the Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Report No. 101, at least 33,771 Jews from Kiev and its suburbs were killed at Babi Yar on September 29 and September 30, 1941: systematically shot dead by machine gun fire.

The massacre of Jews at Babi Yar inspired a poem written by a Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko which was set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich in his Symphony No. 13.

"Babi Yar" is also a title of Ukrainian motion picture portraying the above-mentioned massacre.

Reference

Anatoli, A. (Kuznetsov), trans. David Floyd, (1970), Babi Yar, Jonathan Cape Ltd. ISBN 0-671-45135-9

External links

• Visitors to Kiev can see a Jewish Babi Yar memorial in Babi Yar park, Kiev. (http://www.grapevine.org/menorah.jpg) To reach this park, take the metro to the Dorohozhychi station http://www.metro.kiev.ua/
• Copy of the Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Report No. 101 (http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/orgs/german/einsatzgruppen/osr/osr-101.html)
• "Babi Yar" by Yevgeny Yevtushenko in English (http://boppin.com/poets/yy_babiyar.htm)