Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975) and Babi Yar

Babi Yar is a ravine in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine.

In September 29 and 30, 1941, a special team of German Nazi SS supported by other German units and Ukrainian police murdered 33,771 Jewish civilians^5.12.

Figure: The Babi Yar monument and its Menorah

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The Babi Yar massacre is considered to be ``the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust''^5.13.

In the months that followed, thousands more were seized and taken to Babi Yar where they were shot. It is estimated that more than 100,000 people, mostly civilians, of whom a significant number were Jews^5.14, were executed by the Nazis there during World War II.

In today's Kiev, Babi Yar is located at the juncture of Kurenivka, Lukianivka and Syrets raions, between Frunze, Melnykov and Olena Teliha streets and St. Cyril's Monastery.

On September 28, leaflets in Russian, Ukrainian and German languages were posted in Kiev. The Russian announcement read (From the Russian translation):

All Jews of the city of Kiev and its environs must appear on Monday, September 29, 1941, by 8:00 AM on the corner of cemetery). You are to take your documents, money, valuables, warm clothes, linen etc. Whoever of the Jews does not fulfill this order and is found in another place, shall be shot. Any citizen who enters the apartments that have been left and takes ownership of items will be shot.

Figure: Public announcement

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More than thirty thousand of Kievan Jews gathered by the cemetery, expecting to be loaded onto trains for deportation. The commander of the Einsatzkommando^5.15 reported two days later:

Because of ``our special talent of organization'', 'the Jews still believed to the very last moment before being executed that indeed all that was happening was that they were being resettled^5.16

According to the testimony of truck driver Hofer:

I watched what happened when the Jews - men, women, and children - arrived. The Ukrainians led them past a number of different places where one after the other they had to remove their luggage, then their coats, shoes and over-garments and also underwear. They also had to leave their valuables in a designated place. There was a special pile for each article of clothing. It all happened very quickly and anyone who hesitated was kicked or pushed by the Ukrainians to keep them moving^5.17.

The estimated total number of dead at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation vary. The Soviet estimation stated that there were approximately 100,000 corpses lying in Babi Yar[10].

In 1946, the Soviet prosecutor L. N. Smirnov cited this number during the Nuremberg Trials, using materials of the Extraordinary State Commission set out by the Soviets to investigate Nazi crimes after the liberation of Kiev in 1943.

According to testimonies of workers forced to burn the bodies, the numbers range from 70,000 to 120,000.

Many artists created on this massacre. The poem written by the Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko; was set to music by Dmitri Shostakovich in his Symphony No. 13.

An oratorio was composed by the Ukrainian composer Yevhen Stankovych to the text of Dmytro Pavlychko (2006). A number of films and television productions have also marked the tragic events at Babi Yar, and D. M. Thomas's novel The White Hotel uses the massacre's anonymity and violence as a counterpoint to the intimate and complex nature of the human psyche.

In a recently published letter to the Israeli journalist, writer, and translator Shlomo Even-Shoshan dated May 17, 1965, Anatoli Kuznetsov commented on the Babi Yar tragedy:

In the two years that followed, Russians, Ukrainians, Gypsies, and people of all nationalities were executed in Babyn[sic] Yar. The belief that Babyn Yar is an exclusively Jewish grave is wrong. [...] It is an international grave. Nobody will ever determine how many and what nationalities are buried there, because 90 percent of the corpses were burned, their ashes scattered in ravines and fields^5.18.

Figure: Dmitri Shostakovich (1906-1975)

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This symphony, no. 13, in B flat minor, Op. 113 was first performed in Moscow on December 18, 1962 by the Moscow Philharmonic Orchestra and the basses of the Republican State and Gnessin Institute Choirs, under Kirill Kondrashin (after Yevgeny Mravinsky refused to conduct the work). The soloist was Vitali Gromadsky.

The Soviet authorities refused to admit the existing but hidden anti-semitism and the lyrics were considered heretic by politicians.

The work has five movements:

1. Adagio (Babi Yar) A criticism of Soviet anti-Semitism and official indifference to the Holocaust.
2. Allegretto (Humour) Humour is personified as a mischievous rascal who constantly eludes official attempts at censorship and silencing.
3. Adagio (In The Store) An ode to the hard-working women of the Soviet Union, always tired from standing in long lines at the store, often in bitter cold.
4. Largo (Fears) This movement recalls the pervasive atmosphere of dread during the Stalin era.
5. Allegretto (A Career) A celebration of Galileo's refusal to recant his discoveries about the nature of the heavens, even in the face of censorship and threats from the authorities.

For an English translation of the poems see: Appendice, page:.