85 years since the Babi Yar massacre

One of the cruelest episodes in the Holocaust.

On September 29-30, 1941, immediately after the German Nazi forces occupied Kiev, the mass killing of the Jewish population began. The day before, orders were published throughout the city requiring all Jews to report to a designated meeting point.

Official German reports from the time said that 34,000 Jews - men, women, elderly and children.

Babi Yar remained an execution site throughout the German occupation of Kiev, until 1943. Besides Jews, Roma, Soviet prisoners of war, patients in psychiatric hospitals, members of the Ukrainian military resistance and partisans were shot there.

The total number of dead in the ravine is estimated at about 100,000.