‘In the very midst of civilised Europe…the existence
of an entire population is threatened.’ Anatole France et al, 1919
Ukraine, like all countries, is an invention;
an abstraction on a map; a conqueror’s
caprice; an accident of history;
an actual, continual pit of war,
occupation, partition, rebellion,
displacement, famine – and pogroms
under Chmielnicki’s Cossacks, the Tzar’s
Black Hundreds, the Soviets, the Nazis…
***
Until the Germans occupied Ukraine
my grandfather, a Tzarist refugee
in London, had had regular letters
in Yiddish from his parents and siblings
in Kyiv. After September ’41
no more arrived. Approximately
thirty four thousand Jewish men, women
and children – in two days – were shot to death
by the Germans and their collaborators,
the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police.
Each fresh layer of bodies in Babyn Yar –
a ravine four miles from the city centre
and not far from the River Dnipro –
was covered by sand. As the Russians
advanced, re-occupying Ukraine,
the SS attempted to remove
the evidence by exhuming the corpses,
burning them, and scattering the ashes
on neighbouring farmland. Though the odd
piece of bone or necklace turned up, Stalin
ordered the massacre kept secret,
to pretend the retreat had never happened.
***
Before the latest invasion you could
book a tour of the Jewish sites of Kyiv –
the five synagogues, Golda Meir’s birthplace,
Babyn Yar – for less than £50 pounds
per person. Included would be a
selfie with the driver.
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By David Selzer