Babi Yar

I've mentioned before that this country has some pretty incredible history. Strangely most of it is associated with World War II. (Why is it never written World War 2?) On this day in 1941, and also tomorrow (29th and 30th) there was a historical incident that occurred in Kiev. Babi Yar is known as the largest single execution of Jews in the history of WWII - 33,771 Ukrainian Jews according to the accounts by Nazi offers. Although perhaps graphic, here are the accounts of the incident according to Wikipedia ...which is always 110% accurate.

The Nazi's put up posters that led the Jewish people of Ukraine to believe they were being deported. This is what the signs said:

Kikes of the city of Kiev and vicinity! On Monday, September 29, you are to appear by 08:00 a.m. with your possessions, money, documents, valuables, and warm clothing at Dorogozhitskaya Street, next to the Jewish cemetery. Failure to appear is punishable by death.

The summary of what happened next is essentially that they were stripped naked and driven to the nearby ravine and shot. Over 30,000 of them. An account taken from a book written is this:

One after the other, they had to remove their luggage, then their coats, shoes, and overgarments and also underwear … Once undressed, they were led into the ravine which was about 150 meters long and 30 meters wide and a good 15 meters deep … When they reached the bottom of the ravine they were seized by members of the Schutzpolizei and made to lie down on top of Jews who had already been shot … The corpses were literally in layers. A police marksman came along and shot each Jew in the neck with a submachine gun … I saw these marksmen stand on layers of corpses and shoot one after the other … The marksman would walk across the bodies of the executed Jews to the next Jew, who had meanwhile lain down, and shoot him.

So yeah, there's your history lesson for the day.