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As the Red
Army approached, the Germans decided to attempt to efface their
genocidal actions. A special unit, Sonderkommando 1005, was
established for this purpose. On August 18, the members of this unit
began to exhume and cremate the corpses at Babi Yar. For this
purpose, the Germans brought in 327 prisoners, including 100 Jews.
They were housed in a bunker dug into the side of the ravine; it had
an iron latticework gate that was locked at night and was guarded by
a sentry armed with a machine gun. The prisoners were bound in metal
chains at night and were treated brutally; those who slackened were
shot at once. A bulldozer exposed the mass graves, and the prisoners
dragged the bodies to a cremation pyre composed of wooden logs,
doused in gasoline, on a base of railroad ties. The bones that could
not be incinerated were crushed, for which purpose the Nazis brought
in tombstones from a Jewish cemetery nearby. The ashes were sifted
to retrieve any gold or silver they might have contained.
As they
completed their work on September 29, the prisoners discovered that
they were about to be put to death. In a hasty consultation, some of
them decided to attempt to escape that night. After midnight, 25
prisoners broke out, 15 escaped, and the remainder were shot
immediately or murdered the next day. After the Nazis’ covering-up
action, almost no trace remained of the site where, according to
research of a Soviet commission, it is estimated that 100,000 people
had been murdered. |
