The Holocaust was an endless litany of unspeakable horrors. Somewhere within that atrocious chapter of history, there would inevitably have to be one incident that stood above all others. A moment that represented the absolute pinnacle of evil amidst humanity’s darkest atrocity. That moment was the Babi Yar Massacre. For two days on September 29th and 30th, 1941, 33,771 Jews were massacred by members of the Nazi Einsatzgruppen and their Ukrainian collaborators. It was the highest concentration of death in the entire Holocaust and stands as one of, if not there, most abominable crimes in history.
Today on A Day In History, we will take you through the Babi Yar Massacre. Who perpetrated it? Why? How? And delve into its complicated legacy.
The Nazis in Kyiv
The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union commenced on June 22nd 1941. The armies of the Third Reich took the Soviets by surprise and seized hundreds of miles of territory in mere weeks.
Accompanying the regular Wehrmacht soldiers were special units of the Einsatzgruppen. Formed during the invasion of Poland in 1939, this Einsatzgruppen had a simple mission: to achieve Hitler’s racial goals in Eastern Europe. This meant the ‘removal’ of those the Nazis deemed inferior, including Slavs, Roma Gypsies, and Jews. This could mean physical relocation, but too often it meant immediate execution. Never numbering more than a few thousand men at a time, fresh soldiers were regularly rotated in and out of the Einsatzgruppen as German leaders found that the scale of murder they were asked to commit might break even the most devout of the Nazi frontline soldiers. In the first 9 months of Operation Barbarossa, the Einsatzgruppen claimed around half a million lives.
The Ukraininan capital of Kyiv fell to the invaders on September 19th 1941. Most of the population had fled the city already, especially the Jews who knew to expect mistreatment at Nazi hands. Around 35,000 Jews remained in the city when Nazi forces assumed control. Immediately, the Nazis set about destroying Communist and pro-Soviet elements, destroying major buildings and executing captured Soviet leaders. Episodes of sabotage were recorded in the days after the city’s capture, which the Nazis blamed in large part of the city’s Jewish population. As one report noted:
“Jews played a preeminent part. Allegedly 150,000 Jews living here… Verification of these statements has not been possible yet… Execution of at least 50,000 Jews is anticipated.”
This pretext formed part of the basis for what came next, but really there was no future in which the Jews of Kyiv would be left unharmed. The Third Reich’s racial ideology already called for the elimination of its declared racial enemies, and linking the Jews of Kyiv with sabotage was ultimately inconsequential. The Nazis had no shortage of other self-justifying excuses.
#babiyar #holocaust #wwii
Sources:
Christopher R. Browning, The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939-March 1942, (2004)
Geoffrey P. Megargee, War of Anihilation: Combat and Genocide on the Eastern Front, 1941, (2006)
Gerry Van Tonder, Einsatzgruppen: Nazi Death Squads, 1939-1945, (2018)
Martin Gilbert, The Holocaust: The Human Tragedy, (1979)
Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen and the Invention of the Holocaust, (2003)
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