". . .Things that happened just yesterday, historically speaking, when people were exactly as they are today."* [J.J. Sefton]

Last Thursday and Friday marked the 75th anniversary of Babi Yar, the single most murderous day of the Shoah where over 33,000 Jews in Kiev were shot and buried in a ravine on the outskirts of the city. Some were buried alive, either wounded or feigning death as they fell into the pit. One of them, Dina Pronicheva survived the war and gave eyewitness testimony.

"It was dark already...They lined us up on a ledge which was so small that we couldn't get much of a footing on it. They began shooting us. I shut my eyes, clenched my fists, tensed all my muscles and took a plunge down before the bullets hit me. It seemed I was flying forever. But I landed safely on the bodies. After a while, when the shooting stopped, I heard the Germans climbing into the ravine. They started finishing off all those who were not dead yet, those who were moaning, hic-cupping, tossing, and writhing in agony. They ran their flashlights over the bodies and finished off all who moved. I was lying so still without stirring, terrified of giving myself away. I felt I was done for. I decided to keep quiet. They started covering the corpses over with earth. They must have put quite a lot over me because I felt I was beginning to suffocate. But I was afraid to move. I was gasping for breath. I knew I would suffocate. Then I decided it was better to be shot than buried alive. I stirred but I didn't know that it was quite dark already. Using my left arm I managed to move a little way up. Then I took a deep breath, summoned up my waning strength and crawled out from under the cover of earth. It was dark. But all the same it was dangerous to crawl because of the searching beams of flashlight and they continued shooting at those who moaned. They might hit me. So I had to be careful. I was lucky enough to crawl up one of the high walls of the ravine, and straining every nerve and muscle, got out of it."

September 29-30, 1941 of that year coincided with Yom Kippur, the climax of the Jewish High Holidays. Tonight, on Rosh Hashanah eve, please pause to reflect and remember.

*excerpt from the last page of "Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel" by Anatoly Kuznetsov.

posted by Open Blogger at 12:01 PM

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