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BS: Babi Yar
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Subject: BS: Babi Yar From: beardedbruce Date: 27 Sep 06 - 03:54 PM "KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Bells gently tolled as Ukrainian and foreign dignitaries on Wednesday commemorated the 65th anniversary of the Nazi massacre of Jews at the Babi Yar ravine, placing flower-encircled candles at the foot of a giant monument to the tens of thousands of victims." "The massacre began on Sept. 29, 1941, when Soviet Kiev's Nazi occupiers ordered all Jews to report to a ravine on the outskirts of town. The Jews thought they would be taken to a ghetto, and Kiev residents recalled their Jewish neighbors lugging their most valuable belongings out to the ravine. But when they got there, the Jews were forced to undress and gather in lines along the ravine's steep embankment. There, the Nazis machine-gunned down the crowd, killing at least 33,771 over 48 hours. In the ensuing months, the number of people killed at Babi Yar grew to more than 100,000." "Moshe Kantor, founder of the World Holocaust Forum that is organizing the events, said the world's silence after Babi Yar emboldened the Nazis to embark on their "final solution" of death camps that ultimately killed 6 million European Jews. "We must be carriers of these stories," Kantor said. The exact death toll at Babi Yar remains unknown. The Nazi executioners recorded the number of Jews killed in the first two days, but there are no exact records of subsequent killings. In 1943, as the Red Army approached to free Ukraine, the Nazis ordered Jewish prisoners to dig up the corpses and burn them." |
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Subject: Babi Yar (Yevgeny Yevtushenko) From: Wolfgang Date: 27 Sep 06 - 04:15 PM Yevgeny Yevtushenko Babi Yar No monument stands over Babi Yar. A drop sheer as a crude gravestone. I am afraid. Today I am as old in years as all the Jewish people. Now I seem to be a Jew. Here I plod through ancient Egypt. Here I perish crucified, on the cross, and to this day I bear the scars of nails. I seem to be Dreyfus. The Philistine is both informer and judge. I am behind bars. Beset on every side. Hounded, spat on, slandered. Squealing, dainty ladies in flounced Brussels lace stick their parasols into my face. I seem to be then a young boy in Byelostok. Blood runs, spilling over the floors. The barroom rabble-rousers give off a stench of vodka and onion. A boot kicks me aside, helpless. In vain I plead with these pogrom bullies. While they jeer and shout, "Beat the Yids. Save Russia!" some grain-marketeer beats up my mother. O my Russian people! I know you are international to the core. But those with unclean hands have often made a jingle of your purest name. I know the goodness of my land. How vile these anti-Semites- without a qualm they pompously called themselves the Union of the Russian People! I seem to be Anne Frank transparent as a branch in April. And I love. And have no need of phrases. My need is that we gaze into each other. How little we can see or smell! We are denied the leaves, we are denied the sky. Yet we can do so much -- tenderly embrace each other in a darkened room. They're coming here? Be not afraid. Those are the booming sounds of spring: spring is coming here. Come then to me. Quick, give me your lips. Are they smashing down the door? No, it's the ice breaking ... The wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar. The trees look ominous, like judges. Here all things scream silently, and, baring my head, slowly I feel myself turning gray. And I myself am one massive, soundless scream above the thousand thousand buried here. I am each old man here shot dead. I am every child here shot dead. Nothing in me shall ever forget! The "Internationale," let it thunder when the last anti-Semite on earth is buried forever. In my blood there is no Jewish blood. In their callous rage, all anti-Semites must hate me now as a Jew. For that reason I am a true Russian! copied from http://boppin.com/poets/yy_babiyar.htm by Wolfgang |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: beardedbruce Date: 27 Sep 06 - 04:17 PM Thanks, Wolfgang. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: GUEST Date: 27 Sep 06 - 04:20 PM The last trip home . . . . |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: Charlie Baum Date: 27 Sep 06 - 05:21 PM Shostakovich set Yevtushenko's poem to music. His Symphony #13 is basically a cantata of five Yevtushenko poems. I had a chance to perform Shostakovich's Symphony #13 with the Yale Russian Chorus and the New Haven Symphony in 1981, and when the Yale Russian Chorus went to the Soviet Union in June 1982, I brought a copy of the vocal score with me. Our tour included a trip to Kiev, adn while there, a group of us sang an a cappella version of the first movement (the "Babi Yar" poem) at the Babi Yar monument that then existed (though not at the accurately historical site, nor did it mention Jews). The design of that monument was about, of, for, and against anti-semitism, all simultaneously. --Charlie Baum |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: bobad Date: 27 Sep 06 - 05:33 PM Never Again! |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: Bill Hahn//\\ Date: 27 Sep 06 - 08:04 PM This evening the poem is being recited at the museum of the Jewish Heritage in lower Manhattan dedicated to the Holocaust---it will be recited by the author. The Shostakovich pieces will be played by Misha and Cipa Dichter. Bill Hahn |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: wysiwyg Date: 27 Sep 06 - 10:23 PM I remember. ~S~ |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: katlaughing Date: 28 Sep 06 - 12:32 AM Thank you for this reminder. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: GUEST,Mrr Date: 28 Sep 06 - 09:27 AM The only reason I'd even heard of this is an Alistair McLean novel... which is sad... |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: beardedbruce Date: 28 Sep 06 - 10:04 AM "A Survivor's Eyewitness Account by Dina Pronicheva "It was dark already...They lined us up on a ledge which was so small that we couldn't get much of a footing on it. They began shooting us. I shut my eyes, clenched my fists, tensed all my muscles and took a plunge down before the bullets hit me. It seemed I was flying forever. But I landed safely on the bodies. After a while, when the shooting stopped, I heard the Germans climbing into the ravine. They started finishing off all those who were not dead yet, those who were moaning, hiccuping, tossing, writhing in agony. They ran their flashlights over the bodies and finished off all who moved. I was lying so still without stirring, terrified of giving myself away. I felt I was done for. I decided to keep quiet. They started covering the corpses over with earth. They must have put quite a lot over me because I felt I was beginning to suffocate. But I was afraid to move. I was gasping for breath. I knew I would suffocate. Then I decided it was better to be shot than buried alive. I stirred but I didn't know that it was quite dark already. Using my left arm I managed to move a little way up. Then I took a deep breath, summoned up my waning strength and crawled out from under the cover of earth. It was dark. But all the same it was dangerous to crawl because of the searching beams of flashlight and they continued shooting at those who moaned. They might hit me. So I had to be careful. I was lucky enough to crawl up one of the high walls of the ravine, and straining every nerve and muscle, got out of it." http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/h-b-yar.htm |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: Dave (the ancient mariner) Date: 28 Sep 06 - 01:17 PM Qui tollis peccata mundi Dona eis requiem....Sempiternum http://history1900s.about.com/library/holocaust/bleinsatz2.htm Yours, Aye. Dave |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: nutty Date: 28 Sep 06 - 02:46 PM Many moons ago I read an account of the massacre written as a biography by one of the few survivors. It was a very moving story of an event that has never had the publicity it deserved. |
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Subject: RE: BS: Babi Yar From: beardedbruce Date: 29 Sep 06 - 12:14 PM refresh |
