Tag #151988 - Interview #93770 (Frida Palanker)

After I returned to Kiev in 1945 my neighbors told me what happened to my father. Some time before the war a German man moved into our house. He was a very polite and decent person. He changed when Germans entered Kiev. He walked as if he were too important to notice anybody or anything around. He gave away all Jews, including my father. My neighbors were afraid to hide my father. It was dangerous for them and their children. On 29 September a few policemen came for my father. They took him to the Babiy Yar and shot him. This German man left Kiev with the German army.

One evening I went to Kiev Theater of Musical Comedy. People came there to honor victims of the Babiy Yar. It was conducted by Mihoels that came from Moscow. I remember him making his speech holding a big crystal vase filled with ashes from the Babiy Yar. Then a girl that escaped from the Babiy Yar told her story. She was a young girl, no more than 20 years old, but her hair was as white as snow. Her classmate met her in the street and told Germans that she was a Jew. She was captured and taken to the Babiy Yar. Columns of Jews were going to the Babiy Yar along Artyoma and Melnikova streets. People were shot in groups. They had to undress and their bodies were thrown into the ravine. The next group of people waiting for their turn to be shot buried dead or wounded people. The land was stirring up and breathing… This girl was wounded. She got out of the ravine at night came home. Her neighbors were hiding her for the rest of the war. I remember her story as if she told it yesterday…