In 1961, sixteen years after the end of World War Two, Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtuschenko wrote his haunting work “Babyn Yar,” which mournfully and famously opens with the line “No monument stands over Babyn Yar.” Indeed, a visit to the scenic park which now marks the area of Babyn Yar in Ukraine’s capital Kyiv gives little indication of the horror which unfolded there just over 79 years ago. Just days after the Nazis occupied Kyiv in September 1941, around 34,000 of the city’s Jews were marched to the Babyn Yar ravine and were callously shot dead over a two-day period. It became a seminal moment, ushering in the mass shooting of around 1.5 million Jews in Eastern Europe. Later large-scale killings at the same site saw the Nazis also murder tens of thousands of Ukrainian political opponents, Russian prisoners, Roma, mentally ill and others. Babyn Yar is Europe’s largest mass grave.
EU Reporter: Bringing the story of Babyn Yar back to life
A woman takes a picture of the installation opened at Babyn Yar on Sept. 29, 2020 during a ceremony marking the 79th anniversary of the beginning of the mass execution of Jews by the Nazis in September 1941.
