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Retreating Nazis Destroy Evidence Of Grave For 60,000 Murdered Jewsv v vv v Vv v vBy EDDIE GILMOREKIEV, Russia, via Moscow, Nov. 29—(/P)—About five miles outside Kiev to the south not far from the Dnieper River is one of the most horrible places in the world today. It is called “Babii Yar (Wench'si Ravine).” There, the Russians say, between 60,000 and 80,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis and theirbodies were later burned.I have been there, but I’ll let the story tell itself., We first were escorted there by [ I Prof. Pavel Aloshin, the chief archill tect for the reconstruction of the Ukraine. He has been here during[the whole time of the German occupation.“I want you to see Babii Yar,”j he said. “I can t explain it, and I can’t explain why the Germans did such a thing.”IIIThe ravine is about 40 feet deep,about 100 feet wride and about a half mile long. He did not know why it was called ‘‘Babii Yar.”Mowed Down By Guns“In September, 1941,” said Aloshin, “thousands of Jews were brought here. Their clothes were removed land in small groups they were ! mowed down by automatic gunners. Then they were buried. Recently they were dug up and burned by the Germans wanting to destroy all the evidence.”We asked him how he first heard . of the slayings, and he said he heard about it from a German architect who bragged about the mass murders.We walked into the ravine with the professor.“I don’t know what we’ll find, he said, “because not long ago the Germans came out here as the Redarmy was advancing and burnedthe bodies on huge stoves.”Aloshin said the digging up of the bodies and the burning was done by Russian war prisoners,| some of whom went crazy after the grisly business was completed.We walked along the ditch, which today seemed to be just sand.Here and there were such things as fingers without hands. At another place there was a half-burned shoe with flesh inside. There were several bones about.We also uncovered lots ofbroken burned spectacles. Therewere several pairs of broken false teeth.We went back to the city. Finally the authorities took us back to the ravine. A commission was holdingan investigation prior to making a report to the central committee investigating atrocities.We were introduced to three men, all Jews, who reported that they were formerly Red army soldiers who had been captured in Kiev and later brought here to burn bodies.They were Efimir Vilkis, 33, a former porter in a Kiev railway station; Leonid Ostrovsky, 31, a former hat maker; and Vladimir Dav-idov, 28, a former carpenter.Vilkis did most of the talking.He said that on Aug. 14 he and the other war prisoners were rounded up and brought to a huge dug-out near the ravine. There were about 100 soldiers with him, including Ostrovsky and Davidov.On about Aug. 19 of this year, the Germans marched him and the others into Baii Yar and giving them shovels told them to dig in the soft sand.“We dug and began to come tobodies,” Vilkis said, “There were hundreds of them. They made us take tongs and drag these bodies up here.Burned Bodies“The Germans then made a layerof wood and then a layer of bodies and poured gasoline over them and set them on fire.”Vilkis said hundreds of bodies w?ere burned in this manner.Asked how many he himself!dragged to the fires he said he guessed about 4,000 or 5,000.After the bodies were burned, Vilkis, with the others nodding assent, said the Germans used hugecrushers to crush the bones and destroy the evidence.About Aug. 28 he saw the Germans building a new pyre. The word got around among the prisoners and , they assumed that they were to be shot and burned.We began trying to tigu out some way to escape and the best way seemed to be to make a key to fit the lock on our dugout door, he explained.One of the prisoners was a former j locksmith and he made such a kvy from a spoon.A couple of nights later Vilkis said he and the other prisoners unlocked the dugout door and rushed into the ravine.“We figured we would be killed anyway,” he said, “so we yelled and shouted as we ran. Some of us were shot dowrn, but we surprised the guards. There were not manyabout.”In the night he made his way to the country and hid there until | the Red army entered the sector.!s*I
Newspaper Details
Huron Evening Huronite
Huron, South Dakota, US
Mon, Nov 29, 1943
Page 2
Full Page
Clipped by
Grace P.
NA, 24 Apr 2022
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