The Riddle Of Babi Yar: The True Story Told by a Survivor of the Mass Murders in Kiev, 1941-1943; by Ziama Trubakov, Reyzl Yitkin (Narrator).

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THE RIDDLE OF BABI YAR 

The True Story Told by a Survivor of the Mass Murders in Kiev, 

1941-1943 

By Ziama Trubakov

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The introduction sounds slightly familiar, but after reading over a dozen memoirs by holocaust survivors, that isn't surprising. 

"His name was Ziama – a beautiful Jewish name which he had to change to the Russian ‘Zakhar’ in order to conceal his origins. When all Jews were ordered to appear at a gathering point, he didn’t go and persuaded others not to go either. Pretending to be a collaborator for the occupation authorities, he kept on saving lives. He rode his bike to nearby villages to barter goods for his family, at the same time trying to get in touch with partisan units. Like a real ‘superhero’, he always had a narrow escape until denounced by a traitor.  Even then, in the concentration camp, forced to exhume and burn the corpses of those massacred in the first months of the occupation, he didn’t think of death – he thought of freedom. And he led others with him - out from the camp, towards life and a happy future – just a day before their scheduled execution. In the night-time streets of Kiev, hiding from patrols, they made their way home, to reunite with their families. 

"A dreamlike story, but a true one. 

"Some say, Ziama never existed and the story is  fiction. To contradict this statement and to prove the authenticity of the described events, I found transcripts of  interrogations by the KGB of the witnesses and of those guilty of the crimes committed in Babi Yar, Kiev, in 1941-1943. 

"This is the truth the world needs to know. The further away in time we are from the Holocaust, the more denial and the more lies we encounter. 

"So that no Jew should ever have to hide under a Gentile name, so that no Jew should ever have his life threatened for the mere fact that he is a Jew – read and spread Ziama’s message throughout the world. And if the worst happens and History repeats itself – let Ziama’s heroism be an example to all of us on how to fight back and not allow anything to destroy us. 

"Here at last, after 70 years, is the final truth about Babi Yar."

No, the name is familiar from general osmosis over several decades, more specifically since the late seventies and eighties, known to those of the colleagues who were either more aware - as in European colleagues in Boston - or others of fashionable intelligentsia elsewhere who follow trends to be in with the crowd. 

So one begins this with trepidation, expecting horrors familiar from other memoirs, or worse. 

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"To a large degree I was inspired by the writer Anatoly Kuznetsov whom I met many times and whose brilliant book “Babi Yar” vividly depicts many events of those terrible years."

That explains the name being in atmosphere of the colleagues aspiring to belong amongst fashionable intelligentsia. They professed love for all writers and writings Russian. And, of course, for the ideology. 

One not so easily taken in wondered, hearing them, why they spent a considerable proportion of their money on tape recorders and cassette tapes, if they weren't lying about beliefs of economic equalisation, instead of feeding the poor, who were all too plentiful around in the great metropolis crowded so very much. They had only to find the next suburban train station, if not next road intersection, to find street urchins. 

But of course, one had only contempt for their false professing for the ideology, which had nothing to do with the Russian literature, much less with the facts of Babi Yar - or other similar victims. One knew that much.

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"The numerous Ukrainian publishers that I approached couldn’t have cared less about Babi Yar and the Jews who perished there."

Perhaps it had to do with history of collaboration by Ukrainians, not all but some, and the general antisemitism prevalent? What one reads in the memoirs of holocaust survivors from various East Europe countries of that era, has one common theme amongst many others - the Ukrainian helpers of Nazi guards or police, the former far worse than latter, whether by degree of sadism being higher or by necessity of proving themselves to the German masters. 

Somewhere along the line one memoir did mention that Ukrainians were of origin from Kazakhstan. That would explain much, since history of Kazakhstan is of Mongols pushing eastwards and attempting to occupy lands West, of which Kazakhstan is smack in the middle on the road to Europe - which they did occupy for a while, more than once. 

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From introduction by translator:-

"Anti-Semitism is as strong as it has always been, and so are all kinds of racial and religious hatred. What happened back then during WWII may happen again, and not just to us Jews, but to any other racial or ethnic group. We should keep reminding the people of the world to stay alert and fight with all their strength against those who deem themselves racially superior and therefore authorized to dehumanize and annihilate others. 

"Because if we fail to do so, we may find ourselves lined up for another Holocaust. 

"Reyzl Yitkin Kiev, 

"Sept. 29, 2012"

That he includes every possible race or religion as victims of similar hatred, discrimination or holocaust, and reminds of need to fight against any of it, is valuable. 

Even as WWII raged, millions died in India because harvests were expropriated by British, and Churchill thought it was perfectly fine if millions died by starvation in India - so much so, ships filled with grains, sent by FDR to India for aid, were stopped at Australia and not allowed to proceed further by British government. 

And that's only one of the many, many manifestations of such attitudes and atrocities suffered by India at hands of conquistadores over a millennium and half, in name of not only race but, separately and compounded together, religion as well. 

British who changed the very meaning of the word "caste" so it's equated with India, even though it's an Anglo-saxon word and means box in German, had not only a firm caste system and still do, but had another, complex one they set up in India,  just as their predecessors had; this conqueror caste system put their own caste system at top, converts and mixed race in middle, and indigenous, if they were unconverted, at the very bottom, regardless of any question of capability; the British added another rung, in that previous conquerors and their caste system was put in the middle. 

Pamela Mountbatten mentions her dad being concerned about not only his muslim servants but about general safety of muslims; and yet he did witness Lahore after partition, was aware of massacre of Hindus and Sikhs and others in Northwest, was aware that the only reason India could help Kashmir, before the marauders had control of Srinagar, was that they had stopped to rape nuns in a convent outside Srinagar first. But in the subconscious caste system, abrahmic adherents were superior for him, just as they were for another learned visitor from U.S. who described Buddhist monks in derogatory terms while describing muslim tribals of the same regions as noble. 

And all this after the very moderate estimate by a historian of West who estimates the holocaust suffered by Hindus of India to be to the tune of over a hundred million, over the millennium and half of attempted subjugation, by a religion bent on the kill-or-convert ideology. 

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"One of the inmates, a tailor by trade, was especially agitated. Most of all he was afraid to be left behind during the escape. Long before this moment he shared his fear with me, and now he was thoughtlessly trying to get ahead of all of us. 

"The noise drew the guards’ attention; they ran up to the dugout. 

“Was passiert ist? (What happened?) – the senior guard asked loudly. "“Was für ein Lärm? (What is this noise?) 

"We all froze. One more second and our plan would fall through. 

"The interpreter Yakov Steyuk saved the situation. He explained in German that there was a fight over boiled potatoes. The guards roared with laughter. They were amused. They had known for a long time that the following morning we were going to be shot dead. That was why all the leftovers from the guards’ dinner were sent to our dugout – it was supposed to be our last supper.

"Luckily for us, they didn’t show any desire to come in (that would have revealed that the door had been unlocked) and talked to us through the bars while illuminating the area with their powerful flashlights."

He was amonst those who managed to escape. Several were shot dead. 

"All this happened during the early morning hours of an autumn day. Only after I had found myself outside of the fence, in relative security, did I think that if I were to survive, I must remember this date: September 29, 1943. Much later, after the war had ended, it occurred to me that our escape took place exactly two years after the start of the mass shooting of Jews in Baby Yar on September 29, 1941. And then, much much later, when I was already living in Israel, I unexpectedly received in the mail a weighty tome. It came from Germany, from Professor Erhard Wien who had interviewed me in Kiev. From this book I learned about the existence of an official German document containing information about how many Jews had been shot on the outskirts of Kiev, in the ravine called Babi Yar. In the collection of documents “Die Schoah von Babij Jar”, edited by professor E.R.Wien, it says: 

"“….a classified review #6 had been sent to Berlin titled ‘On the situation and the activity of police task force and security service (SB) in Kiev and Kiev region’. We can learn from it in particular that: ‘All the Jews of Kiev had been arrested and on September 29 and 30 were executed the total of 33,771 persons. Gold, valuables, and clothes have been confiscated and transferred to the charge of the National Socialist organization.’ ”

"By the end of the 778-day Nazi occupation of Kiev this place had become a mass grave for over 100,000 people. This appalling figure has also been cited by Soviet historians. However, I’m inclined to believe that this number is both underestimated and vague. It doesn’t emphasize the fact that the majority of the victims were Jews. Regardless of this, the truth is that all the executed had been swallowed up by the 3-kilometer long ravine in an out-of-the-way suburb of Kiev. Alas! Nowadays this place is called the Syrets housing development; the fact that it was built literally on the bones of innocent victims is carefully avoided."

Startling to have a chapter in the Russian visit volume of Don Camillo series confirmed, although here he says housing development, and there it was a field, which too might be factual for all one knows. 

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He writes briefly, succinctly and well, about the antisemitism prevalent in Russia, the atmosphere before WWI and the consequent belief of Jews of Kiev that Germans were decent, until it was too late.

"Those days the weather was very windy. Because of it, fires were raging all over the city, while there was no water either in hydrants or in apartments. Besides, no one was going to put the fires out anyway. 

"Such was the scene of the first days of occupation. The radio was silent, and the only news available was the word on the street. 

"About one week later, on lampposts and fences, the new authorities pasted an order that has been burning my soul since I first saw it. It didn’t have a heading or a signature, and it was typewritten on low quality paper. In addition, the names of streets were distorted. In Kiev there aren’t any streets named Melnika and Dokterivska; they are called Melnikova and Degtiariovskaya. The order was in Russian, Ukrainian, and German. I tore one of them down and saved it. Here are its contents: 

"“All the Yids of Kiev and its environs are to appear at 8 am on Monday September 29 1941 at the corner of Melnika and Dokterivska Streets (next to the cemeteries). 

"Bring documents, money, and valuables, also warm clothes, underwear, etc. 

"If any Yids do not obey this regulation and are found elsewhere, they will be shot… 

"If any citizens break into the apartments abandoned by the Yids and appropriate their possessions, they will be shot…” 

"There is an opinion that all the Jews went to the given address, and from there – to Babi Yar. I disagree. I didn’t go and, as best as I could, I persuaded others not to go. I would tell them about the massacres of Jews by Nazis in Minsk, the capital of Byelorussia. People listened but, as it often happens, didn’t hear. They would usually reply that they didn’t have a choice, especially those with small children. And many simply didn’t believe that the worst could happen. 

"Once in the street I held a conversation with a refined-looking Jewish woman. She turned out to be a pediatrician. I advised her to run for dear life, away from this barbarity. Said a few encouraging words to her. Someday she would save the lives of children, but not those here. With an upward glance I directed her attention to the heinous order pasted on the pole…"

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"My wife was Ukrainian. In this respect she was at ease with the new authorities. We had to figure out what to do about my Jewish origin. According to the order pasted all over the city I was subject to death by shooting because I hadn’t shown up at the corner of Melnikova next to the cemeteries! 

"We thought up one possible way out, although not a foolproof solution. The official document (the certificate) procured by Anya, stamped with a swastika, had a magical effect on everyone. To this we added Anya’s ‘forgery’: on my trade union ticket she skillfully changed the name ‘Ziama’ to ‘Zakhar’, neatly transformed letter Я into A and letter M into X, and then added the letter P. (ЗЯМА = ЗАХАР). From my military ID she dexterously cut out the page where my nationality was recorded. As for my passport, according to her version, it was confiscated by the Bolsheviks when they sent me to dig trenches. I was better off without my passport because it contained a record of one more fact I couldn’t really tell the Germans: that before they came I had worked at a classified factory, frantically welding rails and converting them into ‘hedge-hogs,’ anti-tank devices of iron bars en-tangled with barbed wire. 

"So, armed with this new adaptation of my life story, we began to adjust ourselves to the new order. Despite the long waiting lists for those who wished to move into some living quarters abandoned by Jews, we were promptly given a very good apartment at 69, Saksaganskogo St:"

"The only thing I strictly cautioned Anya against was telling anyone that I was in Kiev. Many of our acquaintances knew that I was Jewish. Just one careless word would be enough to send me to the Gestapo for interrogation. 

"Nevertheless, the very thing I was afraid of happened. One day Anya ran into her old friend Lyalya Tomskaya and, forgetting my warning, brought her home. When Lyalya saw me, her eyes got big: “Ziama, so you are hiding here in Kiev! Isn’t it dangerous?” 

"There was nothing else to do but plead with her: “Please, keep quiet and don’t tell anyone that you saw me.” 

"Further events revealed that my words had no effect on her. She secretly told everything to her mother who then wrote an anonymous letter denouncing me. In order to be above suspicion, this mean woman sent her young daughter to deliver it to the Gestapo."

" ... I realized that I would have to leave the city. I couldn’t save myself unless I joined the partisans. In Kiev it was rumored that they were hiding in the woods north of the city where the Germans wouldn’t dare to go. 

"However, trying to contact the partisans seemed risky, even reckless. The rumor had it that the Nazis employed special agents who recruited men to join the resistance and then delivered them straight into the clutches of the Gestapo. 

"On the other hand, there were special NKVD agents whose task was to plan and carry out bombings and all other sorts of subversive actions. It was not realistic for me to get in touch with them." 

" ... According to the commandant’s order, a reward of 1000 occupation marks was given for each communist or Jew handed over to the authorities. 

"Alcoholics, criminals, and every other lowlife went out of their way to claim it. Gradually, the campaign took on such a scale that Germans had neither the energy nor means to check all the ‘signals’ (denunciations) and to take immediate measures."

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"We had a next-door neighbor with an odd surname – Priyatel (Russian for ‘buddy’). We called him Ivan Gerasimovich. A former Red Army lieutenant, he was there during the siege and later was sent to the prison camp on Kerosinnaya Street. His wife got him out of there. It might have seemed illogical that Germans released healthy men from the camp; nevertheless, such was the order: to give the husbands back to Ukrainian women. For a considerable sum, bogus ‘wives’ would get their ‘husbands’ out."

Priya is a Sanskrit word, familiar to all India, and means dear, in the sense of heart, nothing to do with the other sense of the word dear.

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"In the meantime, the situation in Kiev was getting worse and worse. In response to the actions of NKVD agents who stayed in the city to conduct subversive activities, the Germans started reprisals against Ukrainians."

" ... Bombings and arson continued to occur. Most likely, the perpetrators were specially trained people who stayed in Kiev to carry out their orders. They weren’t bothered by the fact that the consequence of their actions would take a heavy toll on the civil population."

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"Then it was my turn to go all the way to Romanovka. He generously shared with our family whatever he had. Actually, he wasn't poor. It's only in war movies that they show starving peasants  leading miserable lives. Those are lies! In reality, the peasants stole all the goods from collective farms right down to the last grain of wheat and stored them in their sheds. Some of them even kept two cows. So there was no lack of food in the villages. It was in the cities that many people starved. What could they grow on asphalt?"

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He tried to join partisans, but was arrested. 

"There were some Karaims [Crimean Jews] in our cell. The oldest of them, a tall well-built man with black eyebrows and a thick good-looking beard, suddenly said: 

"“This is their policy. They execute the Jews openly and all others – with the first good excuse…” 

"We pricked our ears up listening to his heartfelt  speech. He went on: 

"“What do you expect from them? Justice? Even if you have a tattoo of Adolf Hitler on your butt they won’t believe you. Let’s assume we are all Jews in this cell… And how many cells are there in this building? They all are filled with non-Jews. Does it matter to them? Jew, non-Jews – all of us will be executed…” 

"His monologue was interrupted: Yurko had a bad fit of coughing. Lionya Doliner gave him some water. Then Yurko said in a barely audible voice: 

"“He’s telling the truth… They don’t consider us human… Good I’m not married. Had a fiancée before the war… didn’t have time for a wedding. Now she’s at the front. I think about her all the time, is she alive?... It’s all over… these are my last days, maybe hours…” 

"I got goose bumps all over my body listening to him. It was painful to look at this dying man, even though Lionya and I were doomed because of him and our children were going to become orphans."

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A new inmate was fifteen year old Misha from Voronezh, who'd been separated from his mother and threatened by his Ukrainian stepfather, and caught when he tried to walk to Kiev to join his mother. 

"On the walls of our new cell we saw lines scribbled in blood. Each line contained the same: name, surname, birthdate, and date of  execution. Before these people had died, they wanted to let others know about them."

They were taken in a van to the camp. He quotes another inmate's description. 

"“Syrets concentration camp in Kiev was built by the German invaders according to an improved design. The total territory of the camp was surrounded by three rows of wire that stretched for several kilometers. The first and the third rows, each three meters high, were constructed from barbed wire whereas the middle row consisted of bare wires that conducted high voltage electric current. There were sentries placed at equal intervals along this fence…”"

He discovered a cousin. 

"Kiva drew his lips near my ear and whispered: 

"“Remember, during the first month here we lose weight. During the second month we start to swell from malnutrition. Then some of us die right here, on their bunks, others get shot while working. The final stage you're a goner…""

"Then Kiva asked me about his parents. Did they evacuate in time? I wished I had better news for him: his parents had lost their lives in Babi Yar. This happened on the very first day, September 29, 1941."

They were made to work whole day on starving rations, and forced to exercise at night. 

" ... They tormented us to their hearts’ content till three in the morning. 

"We crawled into the dugout so completely enervated that we tumbled on the bunks in our wet and dirty clothes and fell asleep at once. Three hours later, the banging woke us up. Unbearable pain pulsated through our bodies. We had to coax Misha Korshun to get up. Kiva warned him that if he were found in the dugout, he’d be shot without further ado. For Misha, Kiva’s word had its weight, so he obeyed."

Misha found loads heavy. Zakhar told him to get some cables lying around. 

"I used these cables to make a strap for Misha. Now, when he carried the barrow, the strap took the load off his hands onto his shoulders. He felt better and cheered up. I used this situation as a pretext to teach him that a man should always struggle to make his life easier. 

"“Yes, Uncle Zakhar,” agreed the boy and then added in a sad voice: “Only it seems to me that I will never get out of here and will never see mama… I love her so much… and she will never know where her son died….” 

"Our conversation was interrupted by noise and screams: the guards, these Nazi lackeys, were battering an old man who had fallen down from  exhaustion. He struggled to get up but his legs wouldn’t obey him. Then the guards pulled him from the pit where  we were scooping earth into our wheelbarrows and went on tormenting him. At this moment came the Rotführer. He saw the old man’s body, stretched on the ground, and kicked it a few times with the steel toe of his boot. The man was just lying on his back and groaning. Tears were streaming down his withered face. The Rotführer kicked him once more, then turned him over, face down, and shot him in the back of his neck."

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"Radomsky always brought his dog with him to the camp. It was a well-fed, powerful, and ferocious German shepherd named Rex. Radomsky derived a sadistic pleasure from sicking Rex onto the prisoners. But if he were in a good mood, which was extremely rarely, he would order 50 blows with a stick on the naked buttocks of some selected prisoners. After that he'd let his victims go. 

"Today his car didn’t stop. When it was out of sight, policeman Shevchenko told me that this morning Radomsky had shot two women who were carrying parcels to the camp. Upon hearing this, I felt beside myself with nervousness."

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"“All felt boots in the possession of the civilian population, including children’s felt boots, are subject to immediate requisition. The use of felt boots is forbidden and the punishment is the same as for the illicit use of weapons.” 

"After the harsh winter of 1941-42 the Germans were terribly afraid of the approaching cold weather so they undertook to supply their army with felt boots."

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"We were lucky to be at the construction site, away from the camp: the situation in the camp was getting worse and worse every day. Radomsky became absolutely monstrous. He wouldn’t go home until he had shot two or three people. 

"He liked to arrive early in the morning and force one of the squadrons to do a barbarously exhausting workout. If for some reason he didn’t like someone, he would set his dog upon him. Rex would pounce and tear chunks off the poor wretch’s body. Then Radomsky would calm down."

"While all of the prisoners, more than 2500 men, marched in ranks across the camp, Radomsky watched them with his sinister eyes from the platform. Rex would usually be lying at his feet. It was hard to determine which one of them was more vicious and what this beastly man would be up to at any moment. 

"To humor the Sturmbannführer and gain his favor the obsequious sotniks and kapos became more and more unrestrained in their brutality. He urged them on in colorful German which he alone understood."

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" ... Incredible as it sounds, there were quite a few of them there. Just in our dugout were gathered people from all walks of life: carpenters, shoemakers, lathe operators, barbers, you name it. There were also intellectuals: teachers, doctors, painters, musicians, and even a theater critic. That’s why in the evening, after our main work, sotniks and kapos would come to our dugout, and our service center would get going. We fixed shoes, altered or made clothes, repaired watches and clocks. We even had a laundry, our best washer was Tabakov, a violinist.  We took up many trades in order to service and please the lousy ‘elite’ of our camp. The reward was a portion of bread, but more often than not we didn’t get anything at all. 

"The administration would often send for actors. For instance, superintendent Prokupek liked the singing and dancing of Ivan Talalayevsky.  On Sundays there were all-camp concerts. Even von Radomsky attended them, together with his escort of SS officers. 

"Those concerts were amazing, beyond compare with anything I had ever seen."

"The  Kiev Opera House soloist Vladimir Vesiolyi sang at these concerts; Alexander Sheremetiev, an actor from the Russian Drama Theater, performed scenes from various plays. 

"It was heartbreaking to watch Vesiolyi. If his theatrical name, Vesiolyi (Joyful), had been changed to Sad or Mournful, it would have suited him much better. Just his looks alone reflected his emotional, psychological and physical condition: scars and bruises all over his face, a galosh on one foot and a broken shoe on the other; dressed in worn-out fatigues and a ragged shirt. 

"It was a real torture to watch the actors. To see what the uncouth Nazis had done to these talented and refined people. We saw how they suffered. And how the bandits mocked them, and not just them and their art, but all of us as a group. Compared to the magnitude of our national humiliation, our personal pain seemed insignificant."

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"“ ... More specific arrangements as to the extermination of Soviet citizens Himmler made in June of 1942 at one of the conferences of German punitive organs in Ukraine that took place at his headquarters in the forest near Zhytomir. 

"“He made a one-and-a-half-hour long report emphasizing the importance of our task to clear the territory of Ukraine and to prepare it for German settlers.”"

"“Ukrainian civilian population has to be reduced to a minimum,” instructed Himmler. When it came to deciding the fate of Jews, this arch-anti-Semite formulated his intentions bluntly and unequivocally: 

"“As for the Jews, they are to be eliminated immediately. We cannot tolerate Jews on German territory…”"

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" ... Sturmbannführer had started to give direct orders to the kapos about how many prisoners should not return to the dugouts every day. The kapos had a free hand in selecting and finishing off their victims. They worked out the simplest procedure:  those next to die were forced to do the most exhausting work till they literally were run into the ground. Then while they lay on the ground unable to move, the kapos kicked and beat them with extreme brutality. After all these torments, they were finally shot. Usually it was a guard’s job to shoot them, but if there was an SS officer around, he would attend to this ‘work’ personally. 

"For example, the Kapos invented this savagery: they selected several prisoners in the last stage of prostration and yoked them to a roller for flattening dirt roads. When one of them fell and couldn’t get up, they ordered the other ten prisoners to run him over with the roller.

"It was a blood-curdling scene. The roller kept rolling back and forth and the poor wretch kept screaming his head off. The kapos grew more and more exasperated; they kept whipping the prisoners to make them pull the roller. Even if the prisoners  wanted to put their buddy out of his misery, they had no strength left in them to move the roller. So the guards brought ten more prisoners. All together, weeping, the prisoners ran the roller over the doomed fellow. His blood spurted in a gushing stream all over the place. His body was buried right there, on the road which then was flattened with the very same roller. Nothing was left of him –just a flat spot on the road…unmarked…as if he had never existed. 

"On the same day the life of our talented violinist Tabakov ended. He seemed strong enough to endure and survive all sorts of torture. However, his fate had already been decided; he was sentenced to die on this day. From the very morning, a kapo with the odd surname Maykabog had been tormenting him. He battered Tabakov repeatedly with a stick made of hard but flexible acacia wood. Each time Tabakov would fall under its blows but rise immediately because he knew that the beatings would get worse if he stayed down. 

"He fought desperately for his life. The beatings went on all day long. After work all the squadrons gathered in the yard, only Maykabog’s squadron was not there. Finally its ranks appeared running towards the yard; only about 40 steps were left to the line-up when Tabakov collapsed unconscious on the ground. His coworkers tried to drag him ahead, but they were on the brink of collapse themselves and kept dropping him. 

"His spectacles glistening, Radomsky advanced towards the men.  He gestured for them to leave Ta-bakov and drew his pistol from its holster. We knew what was going to happen next. Many of us tried not to look. A shot rang out: the Sturmbannführer finished what the kapo had started in the morning."

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Radomsky carried out reprisals against guards and kapos, shooting to death or lashes or both.

"It seemed to me that there was an expression of pride and superiority on the faces of the majority of Germans who were present. They felt a great sense of self-satisfaction about their Nordic descent, and considered all others, Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews, subhuman."

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Misha had a headache. Zakhar shared his prized aspirin with him, which Anya had brought. 

"At breakfast I shared my bread and sugar with him. Sweet coffee made him feel better: 

"“I think, now I’ll get through the day… You know, Uncle Zakhar, I woke up at night and cried… I thought it was the very last night in my life – I would fall down during the day at work and they would shoot me …. And I so much want to live…” 

"I was listening to him with a broken heart. He was only sixteen but looked twenty-five, so much he had aged during the last six months. 

"As usual, I cheered him up: 

"“Hold on Misha, you’ll make it!” 

"“I’m trying, Uncle Zakhar…”"

"Misha was sent to the construction site of the new grounds. The kapo there was Piotr Maykabog – the most merciless of them all. He would usually come to our dugout, mocking us: 

"“Why so sad? Pray to me, Yids! I am your true god and I'm your mother! ” (A play on words: ‘mayka’ means ‘mother’ and ‘bog’ means ‘god’)"

[In North India, the word 'mayka' means 'mother's home', only and strictly in context of a married woman; and the universal Hindu word for a personified Divine is Bhagawaan, which the word 'bog' seems clearly related to.]

Misha was ordered by Maykabog to climb a huge tree, and stay there as others were ordered to chop that tree down. Misha cried, frightened, begging to be allowed to come down. Others expected it was a joke and they'd be told to stop before it was too late. But they dared not stop until allowed.

"Finally the tree, together with Misha, fell on the ground. He was still alive and groaned pitifully. The guards stood around him and tried to finish him off with clubs. When blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils, they dragged him from under the branches and threw him into a shallow pit nearby. On the kapo’s order the prisoners started to fill up the pit where Misha was lying, half-alive but still breathing. He came around and instinctively was trying to sweep the dirt from his face; it was getting into his nose and mouth and he was choking on it. 

"Policeman Volodya came up and ordered them to dig out the boy. Misha was lying on his side, unconscious. The policeman grabbed an ax: 

"“You are dying hard!” he said, swinging the ax and chopping off the boy’s head. 

"After this monstrous murder the guards turned round and walked away, just as if nothing had happened. The prisoners just stood there, frozen and bewildered by what they had witnessed. I was sobbing uncontrollably at the loss of this boy who had become so close to me. 

"All day long I couldn’t come to myself. I couldn’t do anything: Misha’s face was there  be-fore my inner eye. Just recently I had helped him when he had a cold, gave him my last aspirin. And now this sweet boy was gone. And he had held life so dear! Patiently, without complaining, he worked hard and silently endured our hungry existence, hoping that he would live to be reunited with his mother. 

"After work, when the prisoners had gone to their dugouts, the clanging on the rail called them to line-up. What for? To watch somebody else being tortured? 

"This time I was wrong. They assembled us to announce that from this day forward we were ordered to sing when we worked. (Hearing this, many of us exchanged bewildered looks). Those reluctant or too lazy to sing would receive fifty blows with a whip or a stick! 

"There was an orchestra conductor among the newcomers. He was told to step forward. He climbed on top of the table in the middle of the yard and explained what was expected from us. Our choir, in an orderly manner, without a rehearsal, belted-out Из-за оcтрова на cтрежень -- a popular Russian folk song about Stenka Razin, the leader of the Don Cossacks, the River Volga, paint-ed sail boats, and about how Razin threw from the deck, into the rolling wave, a Persian princess, a gift from another Don Cossack."

"In the beginning we couldn’t understand why the camp commandment needed such a huge choir. It turned out that for the Nazis it was nothing but window-dressing: they wanted to convince people on the other side of the fence that life in the camp wasn’t that bad at all, just the opposite: the prisoners were having a good time! Why else would they be singing?"

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Inmates got Nikolai Shevchenko, a friendly guard, to help them plan an escape. They rejected his plan because it mean one escapee being shot by him for cover, possibly others too by camp authority. 

"Meanwhile, the German newspapers (which our wives used to wrap the food parcels) wrote more and more frequently about ‘the straightening of the front line.’ That meant a successful military offensive by Soviet forces. The camp bloodsuckers walked around looking embittered and angry. Needless to say, they took it out on us."

But the escape planners were betrayed and organisers executed. 

"The Nazis even came up with a project to make soap from these bodies; the project would serve two purposes: practical (to utilize the organic matter) and tactical (it was time they started to cover up all traces of their crimes).  So they acted according to a plan: they delivered the equipment and set-up a soap-boiling workshop. But, thank God, it all ended where it had started: the Red Army retook Kiev."

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"On August 18, 1943, at seven in the morning, we all lined up, as we did every day. Our experienced eyes immediately noticed something was out of the ordinary. It was the number of guards: more than usual. The situation became clearer when high ranking SS officers drove inside the perimeter of the camp."

"Then the generals left and a senior officer stayed. ... "

A hundred of them were selected and taken to Babi Yar. They were made to go into a ravine, with armed guards around.

" ... When we emerged from the hollow, the first thing we saw were lots of chains on the ground. They were similar to those used in the villages instead of ropes, to tie buckets or pails to wells. 

"Camp locksmiths Anatoly Baranovsky and Andrew Novichek were busy placing chains around prisoners’ legs.  Now we looked like hobbled horses. 

"When all of us, the entire group, had been fettered this way, the guards started goading us in the direction of the collection point. But it wasn’t easy: our legs kept getting caught in the steel chains, we stumbled along awkwardly, many of us fell more than once before we finally got up the hill."

They were made to dig a ditch size of a mass grave, and then told to get out.

"We couldn’t comprehend what was going on. Our confusion increased when we were taken to a specially prepared dugout. It could easily accommodate three hundred men. As soon as we had gone inside, the steel bars were locked behind us with an ordinary barn padlock. Generously, they left us alone for the night."

"Little did we know that our worst nightmare was still ahead of us. 

"Next day, August the 19th, they woke us up at six in the morning, ran us out of the dugout and we were ordered to sit on the ground."

They were taken to dig. They were certain they were digging their own graves. 

"How-ever, it was only on the fourth day that we finally hit solid rock. Having looked closer at it, we realized it wasn’t rock but…human remains. We had reached the corpses of those shot here in 1941. 

"This terrible discovery made many of the prisoners feel nauseated; they broke out in a cold sweat and hyperventilated. But we had to go on working; we weren’t allowed to show our feelings. I was tormented by one thought: we have reached the boundary beyond which survival wasn’t possible because we have been let in on a terrible secret. 

"It all became clear now: the Germans were looking for the spot where they had buried their innocent victims. They had obviously received an order to liquidate all traces of the executions. That’s why Sturmbannführer von Radomsky was person-ally working on it and had found Topaydo to carry it out. Now we knew why our squadron had been selected. As soon as we had completed the task we would be liquidated too. They wouldn’t let us leave this place alive!"

" ... Some prisoners transferred headstone slabs from the Jewish cemetery while others dismantled and hauled iron fences from the Russian graveyard."

"Our next task was landscaping a patch of ground  sized 10x10 meters. We couldn’t figure out what they needed that for. On it we put some tombstones in a checkerboard pattern, then rails, and on top, the metal fence. Only then it dawned on us what Topaydo had come up with: it was a furnace with an ash-pit. On it were arranged in three levels  the twigs, the wood, and finally, the dead.

"Then the unendurable began. We had to break up a thick layer of the bodies. Almost all of them lay face down. Women clutched their children in a deadly embrace. And all this mass of corpses was pressed from above by dozens of tons of soil. 

"In the first few days of work we didn’t have any special tools. With our bare hands, we were forced to pull out the corpses from this pile one by one. It was grueling work. 

"The bodies, still dressed in now rotten clothes, were, for some reason, wet (someone suggested that during those days of mass executions there were torrential rains); they were so tightly compressed that they simply cohered into one sticky, slippery mass. We were unable to detach corpses from one another, and for this we were beaten about the head again and again. 

"Two of us inmates couldn’t take this violation of the human psyche any longer  and went insane. The guards shot them on the spot, the locksmiths removed their fetters and, on Topaydo’s command, threw the poor wretches into the fire. 

"This day none of the working prisoners said a word. I had a feeling that there were only the mute and the deranged working here in the pit and that everything we were doing was happening in some unreal world. When we received blows, we simply didn’t feel anything: it was as if we had been anaesthetized. We just looked around and silently, with clenched teeth, continued to pull dead bodies out of this Nazi hell. 

"Of course, the chief Satan in this infernal kitchen was the twitching, jerking Topaydo. Not only did he continually shout “Schnell!” but he also forced the guards to check the strength of our chains three times a day."

The prisoners were to separate bodies, which was so difficult metal hooks were brought and used; check clothes and mouths for gold; finally, throw them in the oven. Several prisoners lost their minds or quietly committed suicide by hanging. Guards had them too thrown in the oven. Strict accounts were kept of everything. Each kiln had 3,000 bodies before fires were lit. Smoke was seen from afar, which was cause for reprimand, and next they used a fluid to prevent smoke, which made the prisoners sick. Afterwards the prisoners were made to grind bones and sieve it, so more gold was found, and finally ashes spread on earth and mixed into soil. 

"This way the Nazis covered, or rather believed that they would succeed in covering, all traces of their unprecedented and appalling crimes."

"At Babi Yar, we struggled against suicide as best  we could. The SS men, on the other hand, spent their human resources without stint. The whole system was set up to destroy the ‘living dead’ in the greatest possible numbers. In place of one prisoner who had ended his unbearable life, ten more would be delivered from the main camp."

"Among the many prisoner teams working in the ravine there was one whose duty was to camouflage the area. I’ll explain what that means: they put tall poles and stretched wire netting between them and fortified it all with a thick palisade of branches and bushes so that no one could see from a distance what was going on in Babi Yar."

Zakhar was determined to live, and when one newcomer escaped successfully, rest were jubilant. 

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One day, they were told to unload vans full of dead and naked female bodies.

" ....The SS men stood on guard because some of the asphyxiated women would suddenly begin moving when thrown in the fire; the guards just shot them. 

"During that day we unloaded four trucks altogether. Later we found out that there was a brothel for German officers at 72, Saksaganskogo Street; that was where these doomed ‘priestesses of love’ were brought from. The order to liquidate this ‘institution’ came from Berlin. A secret telegram signed by Reichsführer SS Himmler was delivered to Kiev via field control; it was addressed to the Commander in Chief of the SS and police force Obergruppenführer Prutzman. This punctual general immediately ordered this action. Thus the Nazis continued to hastily cover up their traces."

"In the early years of the war,  Tuesday and Friday were execution days at the Gestapo; I have already mentioned this in the beginning of my narrative. Now the trucks loaded with corpses made six to seven trips daily; every truck contained one hundred and ten bodies. ... "

Germans attempted using explosives to speed up disposal of the hundreds of dead bodies in pits. 

"Soon the Germans had to give up this ‘innovation:’ the blasts threw the remains around for a long distance and the search for them was time-consuming, so we received an order: go back to working by hand."

Young boys died faster. One was shot dead for trying to get more bread. 

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Zakhar was looking through dead people's clothes, many had their keys. One fit the lock to the dugout they were kept in. Next they collected various instruments to remove their chains before escaping. 

"For some time in Babi Yar at night we could distinctly hear shelling from the other bank of the Dnieper River. Our guards would get more and more nervous. Everything indicated that Soviet troops were advancing. That’s why the Germans hurried to  finish their secret dirty work quickly."

"“Dear Prutzman! 

"…We must ensure that during the withdrawal from the areas of Ukraine, not a single person, not a single head of cattle, not a quintal of grain, not a single rail remains behind us; destroy every single house, disable every coal mine for many years ahead, poison every single well. The enemy must find his country razed to the ground. Immediately discuss these issues with Stapf and do everything humanly possible to achieve this goal…” 

"Yours, Himmler"

For a while vans delivered fresh corpses with clothes on; the prisoners were required to remove them, and were able to exchange them for the rags they wore. They'd already done that with shoes. 

"From the way the victims were dressed we concluded that the gas vans had reached the countryside. Later they started to deliver whole families from the city. Older men, teenagers, well-dressed women with young children. 

"Oh, how hard and scary it was to unload those vans! If they brought women, each of them would be tightly holding a child."

" ... I think that on someone’s barbaric order the intelligentsia was subject to elimination. This guess was not unfounded. While I was still a free man, I once read in the Nazi newspaper “New Ukrainian Word” the Commandant’s new order: 

"“All the residents of Kiev, who have university degrees, are to appear for registration…” 

"They did, and that was how they got into the enemy’s clutches: they submitted their names and addresses."

This whole operation of covering up traces of mass murders was codenamed 10005, because it was to be conducted with 1000 prisoners supervised by 5 SS; and covering up was of murdering whole populations.  

"While giving instructions to Paul Blobel before traveling to Ukraine, Himmler required the operation be kept strictly secret. After competing  work in a specific area, 1,000 prisoners were to be shot without exception, and the 5 SS men would move to another area where they would select another 1,000 prisoners from a local concentration camp to carry on the oppressors' black deeds."

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They heard September 29 was to be their last day, and escaped at night, several shot dead. Zakhar kept running. 

"Lots of people were moving along the street, with bundles, wheelbarrows, children. We approached one family, all of them were elderly, and asked where everyone was going. Why was there such a panic? “Did you fall from the moon?” they looked at us in surprise. “The Germans are evacuating Kiev…”"

They hid at homes of neighbours, friends and relatives. 

"After some time, the occupation authorities posted an order: the residents of Solomenka were to be evacuated from Kiev. We interpreted it this way: there were going to be heavy battles and the Germans feared that the local population would help the advancing troops."

Zakhar went with his family to live with relatives in village, getting off before the destination of the train intended by Germans to evacuate Kiev. They ended up at a farm of an uncle of Anya. It turned out his wife was a relative of Nikon Kutsenko.

"After a few days of life on the farm, on one quiet autumn evening, our generous hostess spoke again about Nikon Kutsenko. We felt she was heavy-hearted because of something that she alone knew. She told us that Nikon personally shot to death Jews who lived in Kozhanka. In one family this monster spared only a 15-year-old girl. “Well, at least for one person he had compassion,” everybody thought. Not at all, it turned out. He abused her and then took her to where her parents had been murdered. There he murdered her. 

"Only after the Red Army had liberated Fastov, I told Anastasia Fiodorovna what Nikon did at Babi Yar and how the prisoners had finished him off. She approved of our verdict, saying that she  would have hanged this thug and rapist with her own hands had she gotten the chance. 

"Our life in Kozhanka was all the time under the guns of the Germans. The cheerful and jolly Wehrmacht soldiers, who used to condescendingly ex-plain to bewildered Ukrainian villagers about German superiority and the idea of the “New Order,” were now haggard losers, frantically de-fending their positions."

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"Right after the liberation of Kiev, Davydov, Kuklia and I applied at the draft board to join the army. The Commissar looked at us, skeletons of our former selves, and said: 

"“After all you’ve been through…maybe you shouldn’t….But, on the other hand, there is a shortage of people. If you insist…. We’ll send you a letter.” 

"We left the recruiting office overjoyed. However, we absolutely forgot that it was our duty to report of all we had seen to the State Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes. When the Commission learned about our intention to go to the front, we were summoned to its office. In the reception area we were ordered to sit down and not to leave the premises. We were at a loss, what had happened? 

"Then we found out. The representative of the Commission, Vladimir Shevtsov, went to the recruiting office. There he collected documents that would exempt us from military service. Handing them to us, he said: 

"“You are needed here more than at the front!”"

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"So, may what you have read about in this book never happen again, anywhere in the world. I, Zakhar Abramovich Trubakov, eyewitness and protagonist in those terrible events, say this to you. I, the only survivor of those 327 who started the up-rising in Babi Yar. 

"I am already eighty-five years old. Regardless of what I've been through and to spite all the anti-Semites, I’m going to live to be at least 120. I have the same toast for all Jews and to all people of good will, in Israel and all around the world: 

"“Live to one hundred and twenty! Biz hundert un zvanzik! Ad mea ve esrim!""

The number, related to expectancy of life, common to mist cultures, is one hundred. In ancient India it was at least 120, and is so mentioned alternatively in various traditional stuff. Does Ziama have it from East Europe, Russia, Ukraine, or Jewish and /or Mediterranean tradition?

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March 31, 2020 - April 7, 2020, - 

December 03, 2020 - December 07, 2020. 

NEW SPECIAL 2nd EDITION 

Translated; edited; expanded and illustrated 

By Reyzl Yitkin 

2014
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