Le massacre de Babi Yar est le plus grand massacre de la Shoah par balles mené par les Einsatzgruppen en URSS : 33 771 Juifs1 furent assassinés par les nazis et leurs collaborateurs locaux, principalement le 201e bataillon Schutzmannschaft, les 29 et 30 septembre 1941 aux abords du ravin de Babi Yar.
D’autres massacres eurent lieu au ravin de Babi Yar dans les mois suivants, faisant entre 100 000 et 150 000 morts (Juifs, prisonniers de guerre soviétiques, communistes, Tziganes, Ukrainiens et otages civils) jusqu’à la mise en place en 1942 du camp de concentration de Syrets.
Babi Yar (« ravin des bonnes femmes »2 ; en russe : Бабий Яр ; en ukrainien : Бабин Яр, Babyn Yar ; en polonais : Babi Jar) est un lieu-dit de la ville de Kiev (Ukraine) entre les quartiers de Louk’ianivka (Лук’янівка) et de Syrets’ (Сирець).
To comprehend the scale of the Jewish tragedy, we need to bear in mind that 33, 000 deaths (the Babi Yar 2-day total) took place each month in the most notorious German concentration camps such as Birkenau, Treblinka, Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, and Majdanek, and these murders if numbers are counted were committed by ‘locals’ including Police Officers who had joined the Nazis as willing collaborators. During the 1930s, a similar tragedy was occurring in Russia under Stalin’s orders. I would ask why, what purpose did it serve, and would mourn the wealth of great talent destroyed. This was a crime and 99% of those who took part were never traced or punished, this indifference is shocking.