Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity | Babi Yar

A ravine on the western outskirts of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, Babi Yar was the site on September 29 and 30, 1941, of the single largest Nazi shooting of Jews in the occupied Soviet Union. The massacre at Babi Yar (in Ukrainian, Babyn Yar) also stands out as a vivid example of the German military's involvement in the Holocaust. German forces entered Kiev on September 19, 1941. Five days later mines laid by the retreating Soviet authorities started to explode and set off a fire that demolished much of the city's center. SS and police officials together with officers of the Sixth Army found this an acceptable rationale for taking vengeance on Kiev's Jews, whom they had already started persecuting. Some time between September 25 and 27 they decided to murder all the Jews. On Sunday, September 28, the newly installed Ukrainian auxiliary police posted an order in Russian, Ukrainian, and German addressed to the Jews of Kiev and the...