Babi Yar Massacre Begins Near Kyiv

Context

The German invasion of the Soviet Union, codenamed Operation Barbarossa, began in June 1941 and brought rapid advances into Ukraine. Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, fell to German forces on September 19 after weeks of heavy fighting. The city and surrounding region were placed under the administration of Reichskommissar Erich Koch within the newly established Reichskommissariat Ukraine.

What Happened

Prior to the occupation, roughly 160,000 Jews lived in Kyiv, about one-fifth of the population. Some 100,000 had fled eastward or were already serving in the Soviet military by the time German troops arrived, leaving approximately 60,000 behind—mostly women, children, the elderly, and the infirm. In the first week after the German arrival, explosions along Khreshchatyk Street, the result of mines left by retreating Soviet forces, killed German soldiers and officials. Nazi authorities used these incidents as a pretext to target the remaining Jewish population.

Aftermath

On September 29, German authorities posted notices throughout Kyiv ordering Jews to assemble the following day with their documents and valuables for supposed resettlement. Thousands complied and were marched in groups to the Babi Yar ravine north of the city. There, members of Sonderkommando 4a from Einsatzgruppe C, supported by German police and auxiliary units, forced the victims to undress before shooting them in small groups into the ravine. German operational reports recorded 33,771 Jews killed over the two days of September 29 and 30.

Legacy

The killings at Babi Yar continued on a smaller scale through 1943, claiming additional Jewish lives as well as those of Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, and Ukrainian civilians. As the Red Army approached in late 1943, German forces exhumed many of the bodies and burned them in an attempt to erase evidence of the crimes. The site later became a focal point in postwar memory politics, particularly in the Soviet Union where the specifically Jewish nature of the initial massacre was frequently minimized.