Babi Yar: Critical Questions and Comments (ревізіонізм голокосту)

  Babi Yar: Critical Questions and Comments

  ( Ревізіонізм Голокосту )

  Herbert Tiedemann

  HERBERT TIEDEMANN

  Babi Yar: Critical Questions and Comments

  1. Preamble

  "Courage means seeking the truth and proclaiming it!"

  Jean Jaurés

  The subject of 'Babi Yar' is confusing in many respects. For a general overview, this brief summary shall therefore identify the major problem areas:

  1. The mass murder at Babi Yar took place almost four months prior to the Wannsee Conference, where the killing was allegedly first planned.

  2. Widely divergent dates are given for the murder.

  3. Depending on the source, the number of victims varies by as much as two orders of magnitude.

  4. Widely different methods and weapons are alleged for the murders.

  5. There is also no consensus on where the killings took place.

  6. The witnesses, or reports respectively, make highly contradictory claims in other respects as well.

  7. The number of alleged victims by far exceeds the number of Jews remaining in Kyiv after the Soviet evacuation.

  8. To date there has been no forensic investigation of the murder site and weapons. No attempts were ever made to ascertain and secure any evidence.

  9. It is also odd that the Soviets would use a site as a location for a garbage dump and incineration area where countless victims were allegedly murdered by the archenemy during the 'Great Patriotic War'.

  10. And finally, the allegations are disproved by wartime air photos.

  We shall employ standard scientific methodology to examine the issues briefly touched on above. Following some introductory information for a better general understanding of the topic, individual sections will present the first reports, eyewitness accounts, and other sources, and will discuss specific questions that arise in context. A separate section is devoted to general questions.[1]

  2. By Way of an Introduction

  The taking of Kyiv by the Germans on September 19, 1941, by no means heralded the end of unrest for this city. Kyiv had hardly been occupied when "tremendous explosions occurred one after another."[2] On September 24, the Hotel Continental was blown up, along with the Headquarters of the rear area of the 6th Army. On September 25 a conflagration of the downtown area of Kyiv, Khreshchatyk, continued to spread. Mines had destroyed almost all public buildings - after the German troops had moved in, and many died. By the end of September a Soviet map for setting of delayed action mines had been found which showed about 50 objects readied for radio detonation. In addition, an enormous quantity of mines, explosives and 'Molotov Cocktails' had also been discovered. Most of the city center had burned down and some 50,000 persons were homeless. Hundreds of German soldiers had been killed fighting the fires. Many organized saboteurs and partisans were left behind in the city abandoned by the Soviets; Kyiv was still a battlefield.

  According to a document of a rather suspicious origin presented at the International Military Tribunal (IMT), all Jews were allegedly arrested and 33,771 of them were executed on September 29 and 30 in retaliation for the 'arson'.[3]

  Prior to the evacuation, about 175,000[4] but possibly as few as 160,000[5] Jews lived in Kyiv. Yet Einsatzgruppen Event Report No. 106 of October 7, 1941, claims:

  "The number of Jews allegedly amounts to 300,000 [...]."[6]

  The Jews were allegedly instructed, by means of a poster,[7] to bring their possessions and gather at a street corner on September 29, 1941. From there, it is said, they would be marched to Babi Yar at the northwestern outskirts of Kyiv.

  'Babi Yar' translates roughly as 'Ravine of Old Women'. It is not, however, a ravine, but rather a branching system of erosion channels, from 30 ft. to about 3,000 ft. across and from zero to about 150 ft. depths at the wider sections of the larger western gorges.

  The eastern part of this erosion feature was about 1,300 ft. in length and a maximum of 30 ft. in width and extended from the north approaching the Jewish Cemetery lying on it's eastern side to about 200 ft. This Cemetery measured roughly 1,300 ft. Ч 1,000 ft. The broader branch of this erosion feature is located about 1/4 mile farther to the west. To the south of the Jewish Cemetery is Melnikowa Street, and to the southeast there is a large military camp that already shows up on air photos dating from May 17, 1939.[8] Not the erosion gully next to the Jewish Cemetery, but the entire extensively fissured area was called Babi Yar. On September 29 and 30, 1941, it is said, countless victims - most of them Jews - were murdered there. But also in this case, no one ever took the trouble of confirming the various allegations and witness statements by means of detailed forensic investigations. An objective analysis is thus required.

  3. Initial Reports

  1. On October 21, 1941, the London office of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA) reported that the pro-NS Ukrainian newspaper Krakiwski Wisti, published in Krakow, had written

  "[...] that soon after the occupation of the city [Kyiv], all Jews, including men, women and children of all ages, were taken from their homes and driven into barbed-wire enclosures located at the outskirts of Kyiv. From there they were driven by foot to an undisclosed destination."[9]

  • Some 160,000 to 170,000 Jews, but according to Einsatzgruppen Event Report 106 as many as 300,000 Jews, lived in Kyiv at the start of the war. The orderly gathering and transfer of such great numbers of people would have been noticed by countless witnesses, all of whom would have attested to a 'mass migration' of people with their possessions. Why are there no such witnesses?

  • The report mentions neither a date nor a place. It is claimed that the Jews were driven on foot from barbed-wire enclosures to an unknown destination, but not that they were murdered "at the outskirts of Kyiv".

  • During March 1996 major Ukrainian newspapers reported that Ukrainian American historians determined that the Jews were deported from Babi Yar via the nearby military railroad station to Minsk. During the stay behind barbed wired enclosures, Germans allegedly extracted from the Jews the customary war tax in valuables.[10]

  2. On November 13 the secret broadcasting station of the Polish Underground in Lvov (Lemberg) issued another report,[11] which was passed on through Warsaw and was received and deciphered in London on November 17 via 819 Selim, a secret Polish receiving station in Istanbul:[12]

  "Germans and Ukrainians are slaughtering Jews by the thousands: in Kyiv 35,000 [have been] shot, about 3,000 small children were murdered with clubs by Ukrainians [...]"

  • The tale of the clubbing murders was not publicized by the Polish government-in-exile.

  • How could the Jews be shot in Kyiv if, according to 1., they had been driven off to an unknown destination?

  • Why is no place or date given despite the importance of the message?

  3. On November 16, 1941, the JTA then offered the following cryptic message:[13]

  "Somewhere in Europe [...] from an unimpeachable source that 52,000 men, women and children [...] were mercilessly and systematically executed [...] in accordance with the cold-blooded Nazi policy of extermination [...]."

  • This hair-raising news flash was squeezed in among rather trivial reports. And this despite the fact that it could have prompted an international outcry?

  • Why, again, are the place and date, as well as further details, not given?

  • Was the Jewish Telegraphic Agency aware of the "cold-blooded Nazi policy of extermination" even before the 'Nazi' authorities themselves, who were responsible f
or the Final Solution and who were not even superficially briefed on the matter until January 20, 1942, at the 'Wannsee Conference'?

  4. On December 31, 1941, the JTA wrote:[14]

  "[...] the latest report from Kyiv which reached here today through secret channels gives a horrible picture of what has happened to the Jews in that city since the Nazi occupation. The report reveals that in addition to executing practically the entire Jewish male population of Kyiv on the charge that the Jews who remained in the city were 'Soviet spies and guerrillas', the Nazi military command ordered thousands of Jews confined in mined cemetery grounds. The victims, most of them women, were blown up by the exploding mines. Those who survived were machine-gunned to death by the German soldiers. (Earlier reports estimate that 52,000 Jews were murdered in Kyiv when the Nazis first occupied the city.)"

  And in the following paragraph:

  "[...] the Nazi military forces [...] issued an order in the middle of December requesting all the remaining Jews in Kyiv to report to the occupation authorities on a certain date. Aware of the fact that the order meant a new Jewish massacre, many Jewish mothers killed their children and committed suicide, while elderly Jews threw themselves to death by jumping from open windows [...]."

  • Did the armed forces commit the atrocities?

  • The men were shot. Where? When? The women were blown up by exploding mines, and in a cemetery. What happened to the children?

  • The latter would have required many tens of thousands of anti-personnel mines, which would then have been unavailable for more important use in the war. It takes a considerable amount of time and work to mine an area. And how were the bodies removed from the mined area afterwards?

  • How does the story of the Jews remaining in Kyiv fit in with the other reports?

  • How likely are the infanticides and suicides? Any witnesses?

  5. On January 6, 1942, Vyacheslav Molotov, the Soviet People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs, announced to the governments allied with the Soviet Union:[15]

  "A large number of Jews, including women and children of all ages, was gathered in the Jewish Cemetery of Kyiv. Before they were shot, all were stripped naked and beaten. The first persons selected for shooting were forced to lie face down at the bottom of a ditch and were shot with automatic rifles. Then the Germans threw a little earth on them. The next group of people selected was forced to lie on top of them, and shot, and so on."

  • It takes many workers and a great deal of time to strip and beat up tens of thousands of people. And how long would it take to force as many people as constitute the entire population of a medium-sized city, to lie down in groups at the bottom of a ditch? How many people would it take to shovel a layer of earth over each layer of bodies?

  • To shoot people with automatic rifles, one needs at least twice as many bullets as there are people to be shot. 100,000 rifle bullets weigh about 2,820 pounds. Since especially their lead core survives for practically forever, finding them ought to be an easy matter. Why have no investigations ever been conducted? Why do none of Kyiv's inhabitants mention the noise of firing?

  • Automatic rifles?

  • About 1,060,000 cu.ft. of soil must be excavated to accommodate 50,000 bodies. When was this excavation done, and by whom? Even given a mass grave depth of about 16 ft., the graves would have taken up more than 64,500 sq.ft. of space. Excavation problems, and the resultant time required?

  • Why do the needle-sharp air photos show not even the slightest trace of any disturbances of the ground?[16]

  • Molotov's alleged location contradicts other testimony.

  6. The JTA report of March 15, 1942:[17]

  "240,000 Jews executed by Gestapo in Ukraine"

  and

  "burying Jewish victims at one great tract of land, near Kyiv, by Germans even before life left them [...] ground moving in waves."

  Patek also comments on this:[18]

  "S. Bertrand Jakobsen, chief representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, [...] quoted one Hungarian soldier declaring that [at] one great tract of land, near Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, he saw the ground move in waves. The Germans, he said, had just conducted mass executions of Jews and had buried their victims even before life had left them."

  • Place?

  • Date?

  • Murder weapons?

  • How can a ground move in waves?

  • Were spectators admitted - Hungarian soldiers, for example?

  7. On July 20, 1942, the Podziemna Obsluga Prasy Pozagettowej, the Warsaw ghetto's underground press agency, claimed:[19]

  "Not a single Jew is left in Kyiv because Germans have thrown the entire Jewish population in Kyiv into the river Dnjepr."

  • Was there not one among all those tens of thousands who could swim? This killing method would have endangered the troops' own water supply, while also causing a very considerable danger of epidemic - a nightmare for any troop commander.

  • The bodies would have drifted downstream and been noticed by countless witnesses. Why are there no such witnesses?

  8. On October 28, 1942, it was reported:[20]

  "[...] killing the Jewish victims by Germans on the site of the former Zaitsev's brick factory in Kyiv, followed by carting and dumping of bodies into the Dnjepr river."

  • Another version of the murder and the murder site!

  • How were they killed? Why are there no witnesses?

  9. The same issue adds yet another variant on the murder:[20]

  "[...] 32 Jewish orphans in the woods who were lined up and then the Nazis deliberately drove their tanks over these children, crushing all of them, and compelled the accompanying 118 non-Jewish orphans to bury them."

  • Did the German armed forces have nothing more pressing to do than to engage in murderous tank maneuvers in the woods? The German tanks of that time were not very well motorized and quite slow, and poorly suited for use in the woods and for such a task. Their chains were only about 12 inches wide, while the ground clearance was large, approximately 18 inches. Close-range visibility out of tanks was very poor.

  • Where are the witnesses from among the 118 non-Jewish orphans?

  • How credible is it that the murderers would let 118 witnesses (children!) watch?

  10. W. H. Lawrence reports from Kyiv:[21]

  "50,000 Kyiv Jews Reported Killed."

  • Instead of specifics regarding the place, date, murder weapons and further evidence, the New York Times wrote:

  "The evidence remaining is sparse."

  11. On the evening of February 28, 1944, Radio Moscow reported about German atrocities in Kyiv. They come up with another method of murder:[22]

  "More than 195,000 Soviet citizens were tortured to death, shot, or poisoned in murder vans by the Germans during the occupation of Kyiv."

  • Date? Place? The number of victims has grown to almost 200,000, which would make it even easier to secure evidence. Why was this not done?

  • 'Gas vans' are a very questionable killing method and are absent in later sources.[4],[5]

  4. Eyewitness Accounts

  1. In November 1943, one "Aloshin" told W. H. Lawrence, reporter for the New York Times:[21],[23]

  "[...] German troops [...] ordered them into the ravine, where they were directed to give up their valuables. Part of their clothing also was removed. Then [...] they were placed on a platform, machine-gunned and thrown into the ravine."

  • So now it was the Wehrmacht who were the killers. Does this fit in with the other reports, for example the 'Event Reports'?[24]

  • How were the clothing and the valuables removed from the ravine?

  • Mass murder on a platform? Why? And if so, then it would be possible for groups at most, not all at once. When was the platform built, and by whom?

  • In a narrow, winding ravine, the line-ups of people to be executed cannot be very long. One cannot simply swing the machine gun/s in any large angle one might wish to, without endangering one'
s own people, without losing accuracy and penetration at oblique angles, and without facilitating the escape of some of the victims.

  • The bodies must be removed as the groups are executed, otherwise they would result in an enormous pile. If one allows ten minutes for the undressing, shooting and removal of the bodies from each group of at most 100 people, then the murder would have taken at least 83 hours.

  • How is it possible to lead the victims into the ravine and then throw them into that same ravine after shooting them?

  • In late September dusk comes relatively early in Kyiv. On September 29 it rained heavily, all the roads were soggy, on the 30th it rained and snowed and road conditions grew even worse.[25] Since it is impossible to execute groups of any appreciable size in the dark, the murder could have been carried out only during the daylight hours, i.e., it would have taken more than a week. Bright floodlights are not an option in wartime, especially near the front - and with partisans in the vicinity. And Wiehn[26] raves about beautiful September days!

  2. Vilkis, a Jew born in Odessa, reports:[13],[27]

  "[...] a near-by Jewish cemetery, where marble grave markers were removed and brought to Babi Yar, where they formed crude stoves [...] but (the bodies) did not burn well because of lack of draft."

  • Vilkis goes on to claim that the Germans sent prisoners into the cemetery to get the iron rails from the graves, which were then used to construct cremation grates. During the cremation the Germans had also brought other victims in murder vans in which they had been asphyxiated. These too, he contends, were cremated.

  • People and transportation are required to move marble grave markers. Why has no one ever searched for these grave stones as evidence?