Editing Babi Yar (section)

==Further massacres==
[[File:Luftwaffe aerial photograph of Babi Yar, 1943.jpg|thumb|Luftwaffe aerial photograph of Babi Yar, 1943]]

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 residents of Kyiv of all ethnic groups,<ref>{{cite web |url=https://day.kyiv.ua/uk/article/panorama-dnya/babin-yar-dva-dni-dva-roki-dvadcyate-stolittya |title=Бабин Яр: два дні – два роки – двадцяте століття /ДЕНЬ/ |publisher=day.kyiv.ua |date=28 November 2007 |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20050405015440/http://www.day.kiev.ua/124453/ |archive-date=5 April 2005 }}</ref><ref>Юрій Шаповал (27 February 2009), {{cite web |url=http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |title='Бабин Яр': доля тексту та автора. |access-date=28 August 2010 |url-status=usurped |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100112222214/http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |archive-date=12 January 2010 }} {{Cite web |url=http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |title=«Бабин Яр»: доля тексту та автора |access-date=28 August 2010 |archive-date=12 January 2010 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100112222214/http://litakcent.com/2009/02/27/babyn-jar-dolja-tekstu-ta-avtora.html |url-status=usurped }} Літакцент, 2007-2009.</ref><ref>Yury Shapoval, "The Defection of Anatoly Kuznetsov", День, 18 January 2005.</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://1000years.uazone.net/babyn_jar.htm |title=Бабин яр – Бабий яр – Babij jar – Babyn jar |publisher=1000years.uazone.net |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120308235419/http://1000years.uazone.net/babyn_jar.htm |archive-date=8 March 2012 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005421 |title=Kiev and Babi Yar |publisher=Ushmm.org |access-date=7 March 2012 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120119051904/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005421 |archive-date=19 January 2012 }}</ref> mostly civilians, were murdered by the Nazis there during [[World War II]].<ref name="USHMM" /><ref name="Spector">Shmuel Spector, "Babi Yar," ''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', Israel Gutman, editor in chief, [[Yad Vashem]], Sifriat Hapoalim, New York: Macmillan, 1990. 4 volumes. {{ISBN|0-02-896090-4}}. An excerpt of the article is available at Ada Holtzman, "[http://www.zchor.org/BABIYAR.HTM Babi Yar: Killing Ravine of Kiev Jewry – WWII] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121230194729/http://www.zchor.org/BABIYAR.HTM |date=2012-12-30 }}", ''We Remember! Shalom!''.</ref> The [[Syrets concentration camp]] was also built in the area, which was notorious for its cruelty<ref name=":02">{{Cite journal |last=Aristov |first=Stanislav |date=2015 |title=Next to Babi Yar: The Syrets Concentration Camp and the Evolution of Nazi Terror in Kiev |url=https://doi.org/10.1093/hgs/dcv047 |journal=Holocaust and Genocide Studies |volume=29 |issue=3 |pages=431–459 |doi=10.1093/hgs/dcv047 |via=Oxford Academic}}</ref> and execution of three [[Dynamo Kyiv]] football players who played in the [[The Death Match|Match of Death]].<ref name="deathcamps.org">{{cite web |author=ARC |date=9 July 2006 |title=The KZ in Syrets |url=http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/syrets.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029234230/http://www.deathcamps.org/occupation/syrets.html |archive-date=29 October 2013 |access-date=28 October 2013 |work=Occupation of the East |publisher=Deathcamps.org}}</ref>

Mass executions at Babi Yar continued until the Nazis evacuated the city of Kyiv. On 10 January 1942 about 100 captured Soviet sailors were executed there after being forced to disinter and cremate the bodies of previous victims. In addition, Babi Yar became a place of execution of residents of five Gypsy camps. Patients of the Ivan Pavlov [[Psychiatric Hospital]] were gassed and then dumped into the ravine.{{citation needed|date=October 2011}} Thousands of other Ukrainians were murdered at Babi Yar.<ref>[http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/babiyar_2.htm Babi Yar (Page 2)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070611172138/http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/babiyar_2.htm |date=11 June 2007 }} by Jennifer Rosenberg (about.com)</ref> Ukrainian poet and activist [[Olena Teliha]] and her husband, and renowned [[bandurist]] [[Mykhailo Teliha]], were murdered there on 21 February 1942.<ref name="BYUnk1">Ludmyla Yurchenko, "[http://www.cym.org/archives/olena_teliha.asp Life is not to be sold for a few pieces of silver: The life of Olena Teliha] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070814045451/http://www.cym.org/archives/olena_teliha.asp |date=2007-08-14 }}", Ukrainian Youth Association.</ref> Also murdered in 1941 were Ukrainian activist writer [[Ivan Rohach]], his sister, and his staff.

Upon the Soviet liberation of Kyiv in 1943, Soviet officials led Western journalists to the site of the massacres and allowed them to interview survivors. Among the journalists were [[Bill Lawrence (news personality)|Bill Lawrence]] of ''[[The New York Times]]'' and [[Bill Downs]] of [[CBS News|CBS]]. Downs described in a report to ''[[Newsweek]]'' what he had been told by one of the survivors, Efim Vilkis:

[[Image:Syrets (Syretskij concentration camp) Kiev.jpg|thumb|A barbed wire fence of the [[Syrets concentration camp]]]]

{{blockquote|However, even more incredible was the action taken by the Nazis between August 19 and September 28 last. Vilkis said that in the middle of August the SS mobilized a party of 100 [[Soviet prisoners of war (Nazi Germany)|Russian war prisoners]], who were taken to the ravines. On August 19 these men were ordered to disinter all the bodies in the ravine. The Germans meanwhile took a party to a nearby Jewish cemetery whence marble headstones were brought to Babii Yar {{sic}} to form the foundation of a huge [[funeral pyre]]. Atop the stones were piled a layer of wood and then a layer of bodies, and so on until the pyre was as high as a two-story house. Vilkis said that approximately 1,500 bodies were burned in each operation of the furnace and each funeral pyre took two nights and one day to burn completely. The cremation went on for 40 days, and then the prisoners, who by this time included 341 men, were ordered to build another furnace. Since this was the last furnace and there were no more bodies, the prisoners [realized] it was for them. They made a break but only a dozen out of more than 200 survived the bullets of the Nazi machine guns.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Downs|first=Bill|title=Blood at Babii Yar – Kiev's Atrocity Story|journal=Newsweek|url=https://archive.org/details/sim_newsweek-us_1943-12-06_22_23/page/22/mode/1up|date=December 6, 1943|page=22}}</ref> }}

=== Number of people who were murdered ===
Estimates of the total number of people who were murdered at Babi Yar during the Nazi occupation vary. At the [[Nuremberg trials]] in 1946, Soviet prosecutor [[Lev Smirnov]] claimed that approximately 100,000 corpses were lying in Babi Yar; he made this estimate using documents which were published by the [[Extraordinary State Commission]] which the Soviets set up in order to investigate Nazi crimes after the liberation of Kyiv in 1943.<ref name="Spector" /><ref>Materials of the Nuremberg Trial in Russian: {{lang|ru|Нюрнбергский процесс, т. III. M., 1958. с. 220–221.}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |first=Iosif |last=Kremenetsky |url=http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |title="Babi Yar – September 1941" |access-date=16 May 2007 |archive-date=29 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929083508/http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |url-status=dead }} {{Cite web |url=http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |title=Шоа. Информационно-аналитический портал - Бабий Яр - сентябрь 1941 |access-date=16 May 2007 |archive-date=29 September 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929083508/http://shoa.com.ua/php/content/view/84/9/ |url-status=dead }} {{in lang|ru}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://nurnbergprozes.narod.ru/011/6.htm |title=Из Сообщения Чрезвычайной Государственной Комиссии о Разрушениях и зверствах, Совершенных Немецко – Фашистскими Захватчиками в Городе Киеве |trans-title=From the Communication of the Extraordinary State Commission on the Destruction and Atrocities Committed by the German-Fascist Invaders in the City of Kyiv |access-date=29 August 2007 |archive-date=6 December 2007 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071206193239/http://nurnbergprozes.narod.ru/011/6.htm |url-status=dead }} Нюрнбергский Процесс. Документ СССР-9. {{in lang|ru}}</ref>

In a recently published letter to the Israeli journalist, writer, and translator Shlomo Even-Shoshan which was dated 17 May 1965, [[Anatoly Kuznetsov]] commented on the Babi Yar [[wikt:atrocity|atrocity]]:

{{blockquote|In the two years that followed, Ukrainians, Russians, Gypsies and people of all nationalities were murdered in Babi Yar. The belief that Babi 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% of the corpses were burned, their ashes were scattered in ravines and fields.<ref name=shapoval>Yury Shapoval, [https://day.kyiv.ua/en/article/history-and-i/defection-anatoly-kuznetsov "The Defection of Anatoly Kuznetsov"] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090113132258/http://www.day.kiev.ua/130699/ |date=January 13, 2009 }}, ''{{lang|uk|День}}'', 18 January 2005.</ref>}}