Posted on 06/24/2008 10:22:07 AM PDT by mnehring
Jewish Prisoners Executed at the Babi Yar Ravine
Yesterday, I posted a thread here regarding Patrick J. Buchanan’s new book, the controversy surrounding it and included a photo taken at Babi Yar near the city of Kiev, Ukraine. This was the site of a horrific slaughter by Hitler’s Einsatzgruppen officers of 34,000 Jewish men, women and children in September of 1941. Accompanying my text was a photograph I mistakenly described as a mass of corpses. On further research this morning, spurred by commenter Bantam, I discovered the photo had been miscaptioned at the site where it was originally found. The photo in question is of Nazi soldiers looting through clothing of Jewish victims who were forced to strip naked before they were mowed down by machine gun fire. It was not enough to murder these defenseless people - the Germans found it necessary to humiliate them in their final moments of life on this earth.
A Jewish Woman Being Shot Trying To Stand Up
I am posting here graphic photos taken by Nazis at the time of the mass murders at Babi Yar. It is important to note Babi Yar had remained somewhat of a mystery until after the war and the few survivors had been located and interviewed. The German army was retreating from Russian territory and very unsure of their ability to hold the Kiev area. It was decided serious measures to hide evidence of the mass murders were required.
Hundreds of Jewish slave laborers from the nearby Syrezk Camp were brought in September, 1943 to the ravine at Babi Yar. The prisoners were forced to bring headstones and iron fence railing from the adjacent Jewish cemetary to the ravine and construct enormous pyres. The SS officers then ordered the laborers to excavate the 100,000 corpses and pile them onto the pyres and set them afire. Special details of prisoners were assigned to hand sift throught the ashes to retrieve any traces of gold or silver from jewelry or dental work. The remaining bones were hand crushed and pulverized on the gravestones, mixed with the ashes and asphalt to be used in paving area roads. The slave laborers were then ordered to clean up and smooth out the enormous ravine to conceal what had happened there.
This project served to conceal from casual investigation the circumstances of the Nazi’s actions. It was only the fact there were survivors who witnessed this barbarism that led to the following testimony being entered into the record at Nuremberg on February 18, 1946 by Colonel L. N. Smirnov, a Russian prosecutor in the trials.
‘As prisoners of war we were interned in the Syrezk concentration camp, in the outskirts of Kiev. On 18 August, 100 of us were sent to Babi-Yar. There were we shackled in chains and ordered to exhume and burn the corpses of Soviet citizens who had been murdered by the Germans. Here the Germans brought granite monuments and iron railings from the cemetery. From these monuments we made platforms on which we placed rails, and on top of these rails we laid the iron grills to act as fire bars. On the iron grills a layer of fire wood was placed, and on top of the firewood we placed a layer of corpses. On the corpses we placed a further layer of firewood and poured paraffin over the whole. Following this order the corpses were piled up in several layers and then ignited. 2,500 to 3,000 corpses were placed in each of these “ovens”. The Germans detailed special gangs for the removal of earrings, rings, and also gold teeth from the dead.
When all the corpses were burned, new “ovens” were built, and so on. The bones were crushed into small particles by bulldozers and the ashes strewn over the Yar, so that no traces should be left. The men worked from twelve to fifteen hours a day.
The Germans used excavators in order to expedite the work. From 18 August until the day of our escape - 29 September - approximately 7,000 corpses were burned.’ “
Jewish Women Forced To Disrobe Before Execution
Jewish Prisoners Waiting To Be Shot
I would not want there to be any misunderstanding of my original article or, most certainly, of the events which occurred in 1941 and 1943 in a ravine called Babi Yar near the city of Kiev in the Ukraine.
Also, I purposefully removed the images, if you want to view, click on the source link.
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