Babyn Yar

Babyn Yar is a wooded ravine and memorial park in the Syrets and Dorohozhychi area of northwest Kyiv, Ukraine, and the site of one of the largest single massacres of the Holocaust in the Soviet Union. German forces occupied Kyiv on 19 September 1941, and after explosions in the city centre they ordered Jewish residents to assemble. On 29 and 30 September 1941, more than 33,000 Jewish men, women and children were shot at the ravine by SS units, police battalions and Ukrainian auxiliary police. Over the following two years, until the Germans retreated in 1943, Babyn Yar was used for killing Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, Ukrainian nationalists, communists and hospital patients, and the total number of victims is generally estimated in the tens of thousands more. In 1943 the Nazis forced prisoners to exhume and burn bodies to hide the evidence. For decades the Soviet authorities did not acknowledge the Jewish identity of the victims, and the ravine was partly filled in and built over. A memorial to Soviet citizens was erected in 1976, and the Menorah monument was installed in 1991. Other markers in the park include a memorial to the children killed there, a monument to the Roma victims and a cross for Ukrainian nationalist victims. In recent years the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center has developed documentation and exhibitions about the site. The park is landscaped with paths between memorials, and the ravine's original shape is largely lost. The site is a place of mourning, and the approach is commemorative rather than museum-based. Visitors should dress and behave respectfully. Part of the area has been affected by wartime damage and security measures, so conditions should be checked locally.