History of the Babi Yar Massacre

On September 28, notices were posted in Kiev which stated:

"It is ordered that all Jews living in the city of Kiev and its environs are to report on the morning of Monday, September 29, 1941, by 8 o'clock to the corner of Melnyk (sic) and Dokterivsky Streets (near the cemetery). They are to take with them documents, money, underwear, etc. All who do not heed these instruction will be shot. Anyone entering apartments evacuated by Jews and stealing property from those apartments will be shot."

The Jews of Kiev gathered by the cemetery, expecting to be loaded onto trains. The crowd was large enough that most of the men, women, and children could not have known what was happening until it was too late: by the time they heard the machine-gun fire, there was no chance to escape. All were driven down a corridor of soldiers, in groups of ten, and then shot. Anatoly Kuznetsov described the massacre:

The massacre at Babi Yar

"There was no question of being able to dodge or get away. Brutal blows, immediately drawing blood, descended on their heads, backs and shoulders from left and right. The soldiers kept shouting: "Schnell, schnell!" laughing happily, as if they were watching a circus act; they even found ways of delivering harder blows in the more vulnerable places, the ribs, the stomach and the groin."The

Jews were then ordered to undress, beaten if they resisted, and then shot at the edge of the Babi Yar gorge. According to the Einsatzgruppen Operational Situation Report No. 101, 33,771 Jews from Kiev and its suburbs were systematically shot dead by machine-gun fire at Babi Yar on September 29 and September 30, 1941.SS-Standartenführer Paul Blobel commanded Sonderkommando 4a of Einsatzgruppe C that was active in the Ukraine. Following Wehrmacht troops into Ukraine, the Einsatzgruppen would be responsible for "liquidating" political and racial undesirables. Blobel was primarily responsible for the Babi Yar massacre at Kiev.

From July 1942 to 1944, he was entrusted with Aktion 1005, the task of eliminating all traces of mass murder and massacre carried out by the Germans in the Soviet Union. This was carried out by exhuming the bodies from mass graves and burning them, a task that Blobel optimized with techniques he had developed: alternating layers of bodies with firewood or the use of rails as grills.

Up to 59,018 executions are attributable to Blobel, though during testimony he alleged to have killed "only" 10,000-15,000. He was later sentenced to death by the U.S. Nuremberg Military Tribunal in the Einsatzgruppen Trial. He was hanged at Landsberg Prison on June 8, 1951.

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