Babi Yar is a ravine near
Kiev in the
Ukraine. It is the site of one of the largest
massacres in history. The Nazis murdered some 34,000 Jews there on Sept. 29-30, 1941, during
World War II.
The German army had captured Kiev and posted notices ordering the city's Jews to report for resettlement. The victims, carrying their belongings, were marched to Babi Yar ravine. Not far from its edge they were told to strip off their clothes and remove their valuables. In groups of ten they were marched to to the edge, whereupon they were machine-gunned and fell into the Yar. The accepted estimate is that 33,771 Jews were executed in this manner. The executions were carried out by the Einsatzgruppen.
By 1943, when the Germans retreated, the ravine had become a mass grave for more than 100,000 persons, most of them Jews. The Germans burned the bodies to destroy evidence of the deaths.
In 1961, Yevgeny Yevtushenko, a Soviet poet, wrote a poem called "Babi Yar" attacking prejudice against Jews. Dimitri Shostakovich based part of his Symphony No. 13 (1962), also called Babi Yar, on Yevtushenko's poem:
Babi Yar by Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Translated by Ben Okopnik
No monument stands over Babi Yar.
A steep cliff only, like the rudest headstone.
I am afraid.
Today, I am as old
As the entire Jewish race itself.
I see myself an ancient Israelite.
I wander o'er the roads of ancient Egypt
And here, upon the cross, I perish, tortured
And even now, I bear the marks of nails.
It seems to me that Dreyfus1 is myself.
The Philistines betrayed me - and now judge.
I'm in a cage. Surrounded and trapped,
I'm persecuted, spat on, slandered, and
The dainty dollies in their Brussels frills
Squeal, as they stab umbrellas at my face.
I see myself a boy in Belostok2
Blood spills, and runs upon the floors,
The chiefs of bar and pub rage unimpeded
And reek of vodka and of onion, half and half.
I'm thrown back by a boot, I have no strength left,
In vain I beg the rabble of pogrom,
To jeers of "Kill the Jews, and save our Russia!"
My mother's being beaten by a clerk.
O, Russia of my heart, I know that you
Are international, by inner nature.
But often those whose hands are steeped in filth
Abused your purest name, in name of hatred.
I know the kindness of my native land.
How vile, that without the slightest quiver
The antisemites have proclaimed themselves
The "Union of the Russian People!"
It seems to me that I am Anna Frank,
Transparent, as the thinnest branch in April,
And I'm in love, and have no need of phrases,
But only that we gaze into each other's eyes.
How little one can see, or even sense!
Leaves are forbidden, so is sky,
But much is still allowed - very gently
In darkened rooms each other to embrace.
"They come!"
"No, fear not - those are sounds
Of spring itself. She's coming soon.
Quickly, your lips!"
"They break the door!"
"No, river ice is breaking..."
Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar,
The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.
Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,
I feel my hair changing shade to gray.
And I myself, like one long soundless scream
Above the thousands of thousands interred,
I'm every old man executed here,
As I am every child murdered here.
No fiber of my body will forget this.
May "Internationale"3 thunder and ring
When, for all time, is buried and forgotten
The last of antisemites on this earth.
There is no Jewish blood that's blood of mine,
But, hated with a passion that's corrosive
Am I by antisemites like a Jew.
And that is why I call myself a Russian!
1 Alfred Dreyfus was a French officer, unfairly dismissed from service in 1894 due to trumped-up charges prompted by anti-Semitism.
2 Belostok is the site of the first and most violent pogroms, the Russian version of KristallNacht.
3 "Internationale": The Soviet national anthem.