Babyn Yar Helps Understand How A Holocaust Was Possible – History Professor

What You Need To Know:

✅ “If we want to understand how a holocaust was possible, it’s Babyn Yar we have to understand;”
✅ Two years after the Babyn Yar massacre, Auschwitz became the main place for killing Jews;
✅ The massacre was a crucial time in the history of the Holocaust.
✅ “It’s the time when the idea of a final solution – that is a vision of a world without Jews becomes the reality, becomes the mechanism, becomes the process, the example of how Jews can actually be killed.”

“If we want to understand how a holocaust was possible, it’s Babyn Yar we have to understand,” says Timothy Snyder, History Professor at Yale University. Babyn Yar is the site of a two-day massacre where 34,000 Kyivan Jews lost their lives on September 28-29, 1941. Two years later, Auschwitz became the main place for killing Jews.

According to the Snyder, the massacre was a crucial time in the history of the Holocaust. After invading the Soviet Union, Germans began killing Ukraine’s Jewish population. Combining their SS with local collaborators, the Germans realized they could “create a moment where tens of thousands can be killed all at once.”

“It’s the time when the idea of a final solution – that is a vision of a world without Jews becomes the reality, becomes the mechanism, becomes the process, the example of how Jews can actually be killed,” he explains.

Hromadske spoke to Timothy Snyder, History Professor at Yale University in September 2016 in Kyiv.