Language:
English
Year of publication:
2016
Titel der Quelle:
New Eastern Europe
Angaben zur Quelle:
1〈20〉 (2016) 160-171
Keywords:
Babi Yar Massacre, Ukraine, 1941
;
Babi Yar Massacre, Ukraine, 1941 Public opinion
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945) Commemoration
;
Holocaust, Jewish (1939-1945)
;
Public opinion
Abstract:
In Babii Yar (Babyn Yar in Ukrainian), on 29-30 September 1941, 33,771 Jews of Kiev were killed. Babii Yar was used by the Nazis as a killing site also later, when various categories of "racial enemies", Jews and non-Jews, as well as political opponents and Soviet POWs were shot. Although there is no consensus among historians concerning which local collaborationist units took part in the massacre of September 1941, it is clear that some did, and that the action was perpetrated not only by Germans. In 1945 the Soviet Ukrainian government decreed the construction of a memorial at Babii Yar, but the first monument was erected only in 1976, and its focus was on POWs and "Soviet citizens" shot by the Nazis. Since Ukraine gained independence in 1991, the state has not pursued a clear national commemoration policy; the site of Babii Yar remains an object of competition among various groups. Different monuments, Jewish and non-Jewish, have been erected at Babii Yar over the years. Various kinds of official commemorative discourses were compiled, but they were all silent on Ukrainian participation in the murder of Jews. Since 2013 the history of Babii Yar has been instrumentalized by pro-Russian propagandists, who try to depict the murder as an action by "Ukrainian nationalists", although the collaborators were not necessarily ethnic Ukrainians. The main Jewish monument at Babii Yar has been vandalized at least six times.
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