Kiev, I think of chicken Kiev, of the Great Gate of Kiev
from Mussorgorsky’s music, “Pictures at an Exhibition” and of the
infamous Babi Yar. Kiev
The
“mother of all Russian cities” was once the very heart of Russia after its
founding in the 5th century and was literally its first capital.
To me, it’s a city of history and painful memory.
When I think of Kiev, I think of chicken Kiev, of the Great Gate of Kiev
from Mussorgorsky’s music, “Pictures at an Exhibition” and of the
infamous Babi Yar.
Arriving
in Kiev on a crisp autumn day we find an excellent wide road from the airport
driving into a surprisingly pretty and wooded city, full of parks and trees all
ablaze in their autumn finery. Yet,
the gray blocks of Soviet-style buildings are in evidence all around.
A tour of the city reveals wonderful colorful restored churches, many of
which look like wedding cakes with fabulous frescoes and mosaics inside.
I
hear echoes of my family's past. My
grandparents were born to the north in the Baltic state of Lithuania, but where
they came from before that, who knows? Perhaps Ukraine, which was one of the
focal points of Eastern European Jewry in the 19th Century.
In June 1941, the
Nazis invade and late in September 1941, posters appear on the walls of the
capital city of Kiev that all “dirty Jews (Zhid)” of Kiev and the vicinity
are to appear on Monday September 29, 1941 at 8:00AM with their money,
valuables, clothes etc. at a point in the northern part of Kiev called Babi Yar
to be resettled elsewhere. Over the
next two days, having been stripped of their belongings, and at the rate of 23
people per minute, a total over 33,000 Jews are lined up on the edge of a ravine
and methodically mowed down by machine guns set up on the opposite bank.
The dead and wounded men, women and children fall into the ravine and
those still alive are crushed by wave after wave of others as the Nazis
methodically carry out one of the largest mass murders of all time. In all at
least 80,000 Jews die at Babi Yar.
Today,
the Babi Yar memorial is at the end of a long, wooded and pretty path alongside
a television station. The path
actually follows the final mile that the Jewish victims walked to their deaths.
At the end of the path is a large menorah in a tranquil and attractive
site on the edge of a forest. Mothers
stroll here every day with their children, possibly quite oblivious to the horror that took
place there 59 years ago this week. It
is so quiet that one can almost hear the cries of the victims buried below this
terrible place.