U.S. Department of State - 09.28.2001

 

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U.S Department of State

60th Year Commemoration of the Babi Yar Tragedy in Ukraine

Washington, D.C.

Richard Boucher, Spokesman

September 29 marks the 60th year since the atrocities at Babi Yar, one of the most notorious events of the Holocaust. During a two-day period in 1941, Nazi soldiers killed over 33,000 people, most of them Jews, from the region in and around occupied Kiev, then part of Soviet Ukraine. Through the last year of World War II, the ultimate toll of those murdered, including Jews, Roma, homosexuals and others, is believed to have reached 100,000.  

As a symbol of mass murder Babi Yar will never be forgotten. Today, we welcome and celebrate the resurgence of religious freedom in Ukraine since the end of the Soviet Union, including the rebirth and steady growth of a thriving Jewish community. The memory of the evil committed at Babi Yar serves today to strengthen our resolve to  defend the values of freedom, tolerance and human dignity.