Massacres of civilians during World War II
Babyn Yar Massacre Near Kyiv: 33,771 Jews Murdered in 2 Days (1941)
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On 29 and 30 September 1941, Nazi German forces murdered 33,771 Jewish men, women and children at Babyn Yar, a ravine near Kyiv in German-occupied Soviet Ukraine. It was one of the largest single mass shootings of the Holocaust. However, the killings continued throughout the Nazi occupation, with an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 people murdered at the site, including Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, Ukrainian partisans and other victims.
Following the German capture of Kyiv on 19 September 1941, explosions in the city provided the Nazis with a pretext to target its remaining Jewish population. Under the direction of senior SS and police officials, including Friedrich Jeckeln, Otto Rasch and Paul Blobel, thousands of Jews were ordered to assemble for what they believed was an evacuation. Instead, they were taken to Babyn Yar, stripped of their belongings and systematically shot.
Among the few survivors was Dina Pronicheva, who escaped by pretending to be dead. In 1943, the Nazis attempted to conceal their crimes by exhuming and burning the victims' bodies. After the war, several perpetrators, including Blobel and Jeckeln, were brought to justice and paid for their crimes.
This World History documentary explores the Babyn Yar massacre, the estimated 100,000 to 150,000 victims, the Nazi officials responsible and the postwar trials.