Babyn Yar is a place of memory and reflection that gained worldwide infamy as a symbol of Nazi crimes against civilians during World War II and a symbol of the Holocaust.
In the two days of September 29 and 30, 1941, nearly 34,000 Kyiv residents were killed here just because they were Jews.
COME. HONOR. REMEMBER
Information on memorial events
We invite everyone to join the commemoration of the victims of Babyn Yar online with no time and space restrictions
WHEN: September, 29 at 10:00
WHAT: Senior state officials light up the symbolic commemorative flame, which will burn for two days.
WHERE: Monument to Kyiv city residents and POWS executed in Babyn Yar (9 Dorohozhytska Street, across from the Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education).
WHEN: September, 29 at 20:30
WHAT: Interfaith event (prayers) for everyone, regardless of their religion.
WHERE: Monument to Kyiv city residents and POWS executed in Babyn Yar (9 Dorohozhytska Street, across from the Shupyk National Medical Academy of Postgraduate Education).
WHEN: September, 29 and 30, from 10:00 to 19:00
WHAT: distribution of the symbolic stones and altar lamps for laying them to various monuments.
WHERE: special tents will be placed near the 4 memorial places:
Menorah-shaped monument
Monument to children killed at Babyn Yar
“The Gypsy Wagon”
Monument to Kyiv city residents and POWS executed in Babyn Yar
Attention. We will conduct all events in compliance with quarantine requirements. The Health and safety of visitors are our highest priority. Please observe a social distance of 1.5 meters at all commemorative events and handle hand antiseptic after laying stones or altar lamps.
In addition to the above requirements, it is mandatory to wear protective masks to participate in an interfaith event (prayer).
MONUMENT TO KYIV CITY RESIDENTS AND POWS EXECUTED IN BABYN YAR
location of the prayer service and “Fire of Memory” installation, with designated areas to light altar lamps and lay stones
"THE GYPSY WAGON" МONUMENT IN MEMORY OF ROMA KILLED AT BABYN YAR
designated areas to light altar lamps, lay stones and flowers in honour of the victims
MONUMENT TO CHILDREN KILLED AT BABYN YAR
designated areas to light altar lamps, lay stones and flowers in honour of the victims
MENORAH-SHAPED MONUMENT
designated areas to light altar lamps, lay stones and flowers in honour of the victims
What is Babyn Yar? What makes Babyn Yar globally known?
Babyn Yar is the age-old name for a ravine and the area surrounding it in the city of Kyiv.
“Whoever kills a human destroys the whole world. Whoever saves a human saves the whole world”.
Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon (Rambam)
Babyn Yar gained its worldwide notoriety because of the mass shootings of Kyiv Jews, when almost 34,000 of men, women and children were killed during two days in September 1941. This was one of the most massive civilian massacres committed by the Nazis during World War II. All of them were killed only because they were Jews, whom the National Socialist ideology proclaimed the main enemies of the “superior Aryan race” and sought to exterminate all over the world. Thus, Babyn Yar became a symbol of the Holocaust.
To bury the bodies of thousands of victims, Nazi sappers blew up the slopes of the ravine into the air, and thus covered them with earth, which the Soviet prisoners of war was then forced to level up.
Not only Jews were killed and buried during the war in Babyn Yar. During the two years of German occupation until November 1943, large groups of people or individuals who were also considered enemies of the Nazis were shot and buried here. Along with Jews, the Nazis killed Roma, Red Army prisoners, psychiatric hospital patients, civilian hostages, Ukrainian nationalists and Soviet guerrillas, and prisoners of the Syrets concentration camp on racial and political grounds.
Starting from August 1943, handcuffed prisoners in the Syrets camp dug up and burned the bodies of those shot in Babyn Yar.
The total number of victims was estimated at as many as 100,000 people, the vast majority of whom were Jews.
“A sense of common good leads a person to understand
that the common good is his own good, and his neighbours are like himself!”
Metropolitan Andrii Sheptytskyi
In the tragedy of Babyn Yar, along with the incredible cruelty of the murderers and the meanness of their local accomplices, who helped the murderers and betrayed their own neighbours, there were manifestations of the highest mercy and courage. After all, among the people of Kyiv, there were those who, risking their own lives and the lives of loved ones, rescued and hid people doomed to death.
Ukraine ranks fourth among the countries in the world in the number of people who hold the title of “Righteous Among the Nations”. This title is awarded by the State of Israel to those other nations representatives who rescued Jews from the Holocaust during World War II. As of today, 2,673 people from Ukraine have received it.
And this despite the fact that the open search for and honouring such people in our country began only in the late 1980s, shortly before the collapse of the Soviet Union.
During the period of Ukraininan independence the following trends were formed: the realization that the Jewish tragedy was not the only one in this place, and, consequently, the different, sometimes conflicting memories may coexist; activity of various public organizations, informal groups and local authorities began in order to perpetuate the memory of their “own” victims, as well as the gradual removal of the state from active participation in the process of integrated memorialization of Babyn Yar.
Each community affected by the tragedy, as well as some organizations, erected memorials to honour the victims. Thus, more than 30 individual monuments and memorials, as well as their groups, appeared. In particular, memorial signs to the prisoners of Syrets concentration camp, Kyiv football players, Ukrainian nationalists, a monument “The Gypsy Wagon” in memory of Roma killed at Babyn Yar, an Orthodox cross with a memorial inscription to the executed for calling to protect the homeland from German invaders Archimandrite Oleksandr Vyshniakov and Archpriest Pavlo, a Monument to children killed at Babyn Yar. In 2009, a Monument to the underground organization and the hero of Ukraine Tetiana Markus was erected, and in 2017 – to Olena Teliha and her associates.
Babyn Yar is a tragedy of all mankind, but it happened on Ukrainian soil. That is why both Ukrainian and Jew has no right to forget about it. Babyn Yar is our common tragedy – first of all, the tragedy of the Jewish and Ukrainian peoples.
Ivan Dziuba
Researchers, civic activists and concerned residents pressed the Cabinet of Ministers to establish the National Historical and Memorial Reserve “Babyn Yar” in 2007. In 2010, following a submission by the Ukrainian Institute of National Memory, the Historical and Memorial Reserve “Babyn Yar” was granted “National” status.
For the last few years its team managed to properly design the land to preserve most of the historic area from commercial development, to establish clear protection zones of the area, approve scientific documentation, including the plan of organization of the territory, transfer into state ownership the only preserved historic building – the old office of the Jewish cemetery at 44 Illienko Str., and also set up lighting, brush up the park, arrange alleys, preserve the surviving parts of the old cemeteries and to start the process of integrated memorialization of Babyn Yar.
Although the process of the tragedy’s memorialization is far from complete, it is safe to say that Ukrainian society has managed to overcome the Soviet “conspiracy of silence.” With Independence, the desperately-needed public dialogue about the events in Babyn Yar occurred has resulted in a clear understanding of Babyn Yar’s place in Ukraine’s history and in all of human history.
In 2017 a special working group was established at the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, which included historians, museum specialists, architects and lawyers. The team of authors has developed a concept of a comprehensive vision of Babyn Yar memorialization as a unique place of memory.
The concept envisages the creation of an integral memorial complex, which will consist of: Babyn Yar Memorial Park, Babyn Yar Memorial Museum, Ukrainian Holocaust Museum and Memorials, monuments and memorials outside the memorial park.
For the 80th anniversary of the Babyn Yar Tragedy, the co-organizers of the memorial events prepared an information and reference guide about Babyn Yar for a wide audience. The guide answers the question “What is Babyn Yar?”, “Why is Babyn Yar globally known?”, tells about Babyn Yar during the Nazi occupation in 1941-1943, its history during the Soviet era, as well as Babyn Yar in the times of independent Ukraine.
The publication was developed with the assistance of the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Ukrainian Institute of National Memory with the support of the Ukrainian World Congress.
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