Babi Yar: Critical Questions and Comments

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

• 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]

• 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]

• 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 for 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]

And in the following paragraph:

• 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]

• 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]

and

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]

• 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]

• 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]

• 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]

• 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]

• 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]