Babyn Yar
29/09/26, 12:00
International Understanding Article Project
Sponsored by ZenGroup Inc.
On September 29, Ukraine honours the victims of Babyn Yar—one of the most widely recognized symbols of the mass murder of civilians during the Second World War. The Babyn Yar ravine in Kyiv became the site of one of the greatest tragedies of the Holocaust, the genocide of European Jews.
On September 29–30, 1941, Nazi occupation forces and their auxiliary units murdered 33,771 Jews at Babyn Yar, most of them residents of Kyiv. The victims were ordered to assemble under the pretext of resettlement and were then taken to the ravine, where they were shot in groups. The massacre of September 29–30 was one of the largest mass killings of Jews perpetrated by the Nazis during the Second World War.
Mass killings at Babyn Yar continued until the autumn of 1943. Tens of thousands of people from different backgrounds and walks of life were murdered there, including Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, civilians, members of the Ukrainian underground and others persecuted by the Nazi occupation regime. Patients of a psychiatric hospital were also among the victims. The total number of people murdered at Babyn Yar between 1941 and 1943 is estimated at approximately 100,000.
The tragedy of Babyn Yar is one of those chapters of history that requires particular responsibility in preserving the truth. Behind the statistics of mass murder were individuals, families and entire communities whose lives were destroyed by the Nazi occupation regime.
For Ukraine, the tragedy of Babyn Yar holds particular significance today, as Russian terror against the civilian population continues every day. Russian missiles and drones strike residential neighbourhoods, hospitals, shops, businesses and other places where people are present. Civilians are killed and injured while going about their daily lives—on their way to work, in the streets, in their own cars, in shops and at their workplaces. The attacks occur both day and night.
On September 29, Ukraine honours the victims of Babyn Yar by preserving their names and the truth about crimes that must never be forgotten.