Бабий Яр

A journalistic study on the Nazi massacre of Jews in Babii Yar. Based largely on eyewitnesses' accounts, both Jewish and non-Jewish, describes events before, during (29-30 September 1941), and after the massacre. The murder of the Jews was preceded by a series of huge explosions in Kiev between 24-27 September, which set the city center on fire. Rejects the widespread explanation (used also by the Nazis) of the massacre as a reprisal for the explosions; the action was well prepared and in no way an improvisation. In the Nazi view, Kiev was to serve as an experimental ground for the future genocide in large cities. Many techniques of deception, tried for the first time in Kiev, were later applied in other places. Emphasizes the role played by Ukrainian nationalists in the genocide; it was the "Bukovina column" which perpetrated the massacre in Babii Yar together with the SS, and it was the Ukrainian police which hunted for hidden Jews after 30 September. After the war, hardly any of the German perpetrators (Einsatzkommando 4a) were punished in West Germany. The book is interspersed with reflections on Nazism and Nazi antisemitism. (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)