Russian missiles strike Kyiv's Babyn Yar: All you need to know about this World War II memorial site

The Russian attacks on Ukraine are not only causing human loss and physical damage, but also causing a ‘cultural catastrophe’ as several historical monuments and artworks in museums are being destroyed.

On Tuesday, Russia bombed a TV tower in Ukraine’s capital near Babyn Yar, a memorial site to one of the biggest single massacres of Jews during the Nazi Holocaust.

Reuters reported that two rockets struck the tower, killing five people who were walking nearby, said Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko, urging residents to stay off the streets due to the threat of attack.

Russian troops fired on the TV tower, near the Memorial complex #BabynYar.

Russian criminals do not stop at anything in their barbarism. Russia = barbarian. pic.twitter.com/MMJ6wSfpsS

— MFA of Ukraine 🇺🇦 (@MFA_Ukraine) March 1, 2022

We take a look at the historical significance of this site and how people have reacted to the bombing.

Babyn Yar in World War II

Babyn Yar is a large ravine on the northern edge of the city of Kyiv in Ukraine.

On 29–30 September 1941, the Nazis massacred more Jews in two days than in any other single German massacre, killing 33,771 Jews near the ravine.

According to historical records, the massacre took place after the German army entered Kyiv. The city’s Jews were told to gather near a train station in order to be resettled. Crowds were forced to undress and gather in a ravine, where they were shot. The Nazis wiped out nearly the entire Jewish population of Kyiv over the course of the war.

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According to the Britannica encyclopedia, Babyn Yar remained in use as an execution site for Soviet prisoners of war and for Roma {Gypsies} as well as for Jews.

The killings were described in detail by eyewitnesses and are vividly depicted in novels by Ilya Ehrenburg {The Storm; 1948} and Anatoly Kuznetsov {Babi Yar: A Documentary in the Form of a Novel; 1967}, as well as in firsthand accounts by non-Jewish eyewitnesses in a work entitled “The Good Old Days”: The Holocaust as Seen by Its Perpetrators and Bystanders {1991; edited by Ernst Klee, Willi Dressen, and Volker Riess}.

The massacre was led by paramilitary officer Paul Blobel, who was also involved in other similar operations in Ukraine. He was convicted and executed in one of the Nuremberg trials.

For 25 years after the war, the Soviet Union barely acknowledged Babyn Yar. In 1966, a small obelisk was constructed at the spot and later in 1974, a 50-foot memorial statue was finally erected.

Last year, on the 80th anniversary, Zelenskyy unveiled a modern art installation at the site.

Peter Hayes, a professor emeritus of Holocaust studies at Northwestern University, told New York Times that it only started to become a more formally recognized landmark since Ukrainian independence in 1991.

Reactions to the Russian bombing

Shortly after the bombing took place at the memorial site, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to Twitter to remind the world that ‘history is repeating itself’.

Zelenskyy, who is a Jew himself, wrote, “What is the point of saying ’never again’ for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating…”

To the world: what is the point of saying «never again» for 80 years, if the world stays silent when a bomb drops on the same site of Babyn Yar? At least 5 killed. History repeating…

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) March 1, 2022

“Once again, these barbarians are murdering the victims of Holocaust!” Andriy Yermik, the Ukrainian president’s chief of staff, was quoted as saying by Times of Israel.

Natan Sharansky, the chairman of the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center said in a statement: “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin seeking to distort and manipulate the Holocaust to justify an illegal invasion of a sovereign democratic country is utterly abhorrent. It is symbolic that he starts attacking Kyiv by bombing the site of Babi Yar, the biggest of Nazi massacres.”

Sharansky was referring to claims by Putin ahead of the Russian invasion of Ukraine that he was doing so, in part, to “denazify” the country.

“We, at the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center, built on Europe’s largest mass grave of the Holocaust, work to preserve historical memory following decades of Soviet suppression of historical truth, so that the evils of the past can never be repeated. We must not allow the truth to — once again — become the victim of war,” said Sharansky, who was born in Ukraine.

Israel’s Yad Vashem World Holocaust Remembrance Centre voiced “vehement condemnation” of what it described as a “deadly Russian attack on the vicinity of the (Babyn Yar) Holocaust memorial site”, although government statements on the incident did not mention Russia.

“We call for the sanctity of the site to be preserved and honoured,” Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said, also voicing “sorrow for the loss of human lives” following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine last week.

With inputs from agencies

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