Yesterday Catharina took me to Bykivnia - a beautiful pine and birch forest just outside Kiev.
This beautiful forest unfortunately witnessed terrible events in 1937 -1938.
One of the historians calls it “Kiev Killing Field” as it is a mass grave of Stalin victims during the Great Terror years.
Unofficial estimates put the number of bodies in the grave at 200,000 to 300,000.
For decades the official soviet history blamed Nazi’s for a mass grave.
In 1944 the Bykivnia graves were qualified by a Soviet war crimes commission as ones belonging to inmates of the Darnytsia [Nazi] POW camp. This sounded convincing as the camp where 75,000 Red Army officers and man had died was located nearby. However, talk about mass shootings prior to the war continued. In 1971 a new governmental commission studied Bykivnia. It confirmed the findings of the previous one. Ditto the third commission that studied the place in 1987. To make the picture even more convincing, a gravestone was placed with the legend, “Buried here are Soviet soldiers, partisans, and civilians massacred by the fascist aggressor in 1941-43” in May 1988. However villagers protested calling previous investigations “cover ups by blaming Nazi’s” and in December 1988 forced Ukrainian authorities to establish the fourth commission.
The graves turned out to contain the remains of victims of purges before WW II.
So finally official history confirmed what villagers knew but could not say for five decades. Finally elderly witnesses could talk about trucks dripping blood en route to the site in the 1937, before the Nazis occupied the area.
In March 1937 Politburo with its resolutions signaled the launch of a “cleanup” throughout the country where Stalin’s socialism now reigned. Month after month the Cheka/NKVD methodically closed their cases of “enemies of the people” using the method of mass shootings.
In big cities thousands were massacred and the authorities found themselves faced with a serious problem: what to do with the material evidence, bodies? The NKVD leadership decided to bury them in the suburbs and place the sites under special control. With time the security details were withdrawn and no one seemed to remember the victims. When the Wehrmacht occupied a part of the Soviet territory the Nazis tried to demonstrate to the rest of the world the scope of Stalin’s atrocities. The Soviet media immediately blamed the Nazis for the mass executions.
As a memory to victims trees are wrapped with “rushnyki” – ceremonial embroidered towels. On some trees family survivors put small plate.
Surrounded by beautifully trees I had a somberly walk.
This beautiful forest unfortunately witnessed terrible events in 1937 -1938.
One of the historians calls it “Kiev Killing Field” as it is a mass grave of Stalin victims during the Great Terror years.
Unofficial estimates put the number of bodies in the grave at 200,000 to 300,000.
For decades the official soviet history blamed Nazi’s for a mass grave.
In 1944 the Bykivnia graves were qualified by a Soviet war crimes commission as ones belonging to inmates of the Darnytsia [Nazi] POW camp. This sounded convincing as the camp where 75,000 Red Army officers and man had died was located nearby. However, talk about mass shootings prior to the war continued. In 1971 a new governmental commission studied Bykivnia. It confirmed the findings of the previous one. Ditto the third commission that studied the place in 1987. To make the picture even more convincing, a gravestone was placed with the legend, “Buried here are Soviet soldiers, partisans, and civilians massacred by the fascist aggressor in 1941-43” in May 1988. However villagers protested calling previous investigations “cover ups by blaming Nazi’s” and in December 1988 forced Ukrainian authorities to establish the fourth commission.
The graves turned out to contain the remains of victims of purges before WW II.
So finally official history confirmed what villagers knew but could not say for five decades. Finally elderly witnesses could talk about trucks dripping blood en route to the site in the 1937, before the Nazis occupied the area.
In March 1937 Politburo with its resolutions signaled the launch of a “cleanup” throughout the country where Stalin’s socialism now reigned. Month after month the Cheka/NKVD methodically closed their cases of “enemies of the people” using the method of mass shootings.
In big cities thousands were massacred and the authorities found themselves faced with a serious problem: what to do with the material evidence, bodies? The NKVD leadership decided to bury them in the suburbs and place the sites under special control. With time the security details were withdrawn and no one seemed to remember the victims. When the Wehrmacht occupied a part of the Soviet territory the Nazis tried to demonstrate to the rest of the world the scope of Stalin’s atrocities. The Soviet media immediately blamed the Nazis for the mass executions.
As a memory to victims trees are wrapped with “rushnyki” – ceremonial embroidered towels. On some trees family survivors put small plate.
Surrounded by beautifully trees I had a somberly walk.
Photos of this tragic location are at : http://picasaweb.google.com/gordie26/April25?authkey=Gv1sRgCM2AsISxycCJEQ&feat=directlink
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