Babi Yar, page 38
The dugout was really a deep bunker with a narrow path leading sharply down into it. A machine-gun was aimed straight at the entrance from the tower outside and at nighttime there was a heavy guard right round the dugout. It had no windows and the one and only door, serving as both entrance and exit, was made of wire netting, to let in air so that the people inside should not suffocate. From time to time the guards would shine their torches through the wire to make sure everything was quiet in the dugout. The door, or gate, was locked with an enormous padlock.
The drunken guards used to get bored standing around all night and would occasionally make all the prisoners get up and come outside, where they would pretend to be setting up an execution under the floodlights. It was a frightful form of practical joke, because the prisoners would take it seriously. Then the guards would burst out laughing and drive them all back inside. The nights were dark, wet and foggy.
Somebody kept insisting that they should wait until the guards put on the next ‘performance’, get their irons off and rush them. The trouble was that the chains couldn’t be taken off quickly; they needed preparing to the point where they were only just holding. And how could anyone tell which night a ‘show’ was going to be put on?
It is scarcely credible, but there was an informer even in that dugout. There are informers and traitors everywhere. This one was a former police-chief from Fastov by the name of Nikon. The scoundrel got sent to Babi Yar for some very serious offence; he tried hard to get into the Germans’ good books, was ever ready to maltreat the prisoners brutally—he was as strong as an ox—and eavesdropped on all conversations. It is by no means impossible that the deaths of the sixteen young men were his work. If that jackal had got to know about the escape plan he would have betrayed it immediately.
That was why very few people were let into the secret until the last moment. This in itself made it more difficult for everybody to join in the action during the regular ‘performance’.
‘We’ve got to undo the lock,’ Yershov said, ‘then tell everyone to get ready, remove the chains and only then break out. We shall get away with it, lads! Maybe half of us will make it, perhaps only a quarter or even five of us. But someone must get out and get through to our own folk to tell them what went on here.’
The work going on in the ravine by this time resembled a major construction job. The Germans brought in building machinery, an excavator and a bulldozer, which ground away all day long opening up the trenches. [The excavator had a grab on the end which was lowered into the trench on wire ropes and, almost like a human hand, gathered up a bundle of corpses and brought them out to the surface, dropping pieces of body and heads as it did so.]
(The Germans themselves called Babi Yar a Baustelle, meaning a building site. Babi Yar appeared in German official documents under the title of a ‘building company’, and had a bank account of its own, because all that machinery and equipment had to be financed in some way.)
Another important circumstance ought to be mentioned here. The prisoners used to come across all sorts of unlikely objects, especially on the bodies [of the Jews] killed in 1941, because they had been preparing for a long journey and, although they had been stripped naked, every single one of them had found a way of keeping something of importance to himself. Some skilled tradesmen were found still to have tools on them which they had not parted with right up to the grave itself. On some of the women were found scissors, hair-pins and nail-files. Pocket-knives occasionally turned up. Somebody once found a bottle of ‘Red Moscow’ eau-de-Cologne and was going to drink it, but was persuaded to spray the dugout with it instead.
They often found keys, too, in the pockets of the dead people—keys of flats and sheds, sometimes whole bunches of them.
Yershov divided all the people who knew about the plan into groups of ten, each responsible for preparing its own part of the escape. The group which had been given the task of undoing the lock collected keys. They sorted over hundreds of them again and again, trying them out during the dinner-break when they were all herded back into the dugout but not locked in. Some of them would crowd around the gateway while Kuklya quickly tried the keys in the padlock.
On one of those days a prisoner by the name of Yasha Kaper, [one of the very few Jews who, by some miracle, had still survived,] found a key which fitted the lock. Someone on his way to his death in 1941 had brought it with him to Babi Yar, never suspecting that in 1943 Yasha Kaper would find it and that it would save several people’s lives.
Meanwhile others were collecting, bringing into the dugout and hiding away in the walls everything that might be of the slightest use to remove the chains or serve as a weapon. [David Budnik had the good fortune to find a pair of pliers and a hammer. One of the Goldsuchern, Zakhar Trubakov, had the pliers issued to him by the Germans themselves for pulling out teeth—he was entitled to them, so to speak.
One day an officer struck one of the prisoners for some minor offence and as the man fell down something rattled inside his shirt. They immediately stripped him and found some rusty scissors. Topaide went for him:
‘What are these for?’
‘I wanted to cut my hair.’
Topaide did not believe him, and they proceeded to beat the prisoner and kept on asking him why he needed the scissors. The rest looked on, terrified lest he should give the game away. That was a moment when the whole plan might have fallen through. But the prisoner did not talk, and he had already lost consciousness when they threw him on to the fire. And nobody, unfortunately, even knows what his name was.]
There was one young man amongst them from the Northern Bukovina—Yakov Steuc, an educated man, who knew several languages and had studied at one time in Bucharest. They used him as an interpreter when something had to be put across to the prisoners, and it was he who had saved Kuklya from being shot. He said:
‘It will work out even better than we think. Have courage, lads! You have no idea how cowardly and superstitious the Germans are. We must break out with wild shouts and whistles, and they’ll take fright, they’ll be scared stiff, you’ll see.’
The key was ready, the weapons gathered, night followed night, but a suitable moment never came. As luck would have it, the guard was strengthened and at night they kept coming to the dugout, shining their torches in and checking up. Yershov proposed:
‘Tonight!’
But the majority were in favour of making it the next night. ‘Tonight’ meant going to almost certain death, and nobody wanted to die that day. And supposing a better opportunity turns up tomorrow, they thought.
[Yershov agreed. He was a strange, highly-strung, fanatical individual, who encouraged and persuaded all the others but was himself exhausted and weak, and apparently cherished no illusions about his own prospects. On one occasion he told Davydov:
‘It’s a crazy scheme, Volodya, and it’ll do me no good. I’m already over forty. It’s the younger and stronger ones who’ll get away—you, for example …’]
It was a pure accident, a coincidence of dates, that the escape took place on September 29th, exactly two years after the first executions had taken place in Babi Yar. Some of the prisoners hoped superstitiously that it would be their lucky day.
The team working at the Kirillov Hospital returned to the camp, Yakov Steuc among them. On the way back he was chatting about nothing in particular with the escort, an elderly, talkative sergeant-major by the name of Vogt. On previous occasions Vogt had tried to cheer them up, saying: ‘When the work’s finished, it seems they’re going to move you to Zhitomir.’ But on this occasion the old fellow whispered to Steuc anxiously:
‘Morgen—kaput—you’re for it tomorrow.’
Why did he warn them? Just out of kindness? In any case the prisoners could see for themselves that the camouflage screens were being taken down and the tools packed away. There was still, however, one brand-new furnace.
That night two large cans of boiled potatoes were brought into the dugout. That also was rather odd. What had happened? Were they going to waste, so the Germans decided to let the prisoners eat them after all?
‘I’m opening the gate tonight,’ Kuklya announced.
Fyodor Yershov sent the word around: ‘We go today. Steady nerves.’ [He also gave the order for Nikon to be put out of the way. Nikon’s neighbour in the bunks, Boris Yaroslavsky, was ordered to kill him. The poor man’s hands trembled as he said:
‘But look, fellows, I’ve never even killed a cat in all my life.’
He was a kindly, intelligent man. They gave him a hammer.]
They waited for the very middle of the night. Somewhere around two o’clock Kuklya poked his hand through the netting, put the key in the lock and proceeded to open it. He gave it one turn and the lock made a loud click. Kuklya just managed to pull his hand back and retreat, covered in a cold sweat.
The guards heard the noise, started to look about them, came down to the gate and shone their lights in. Everybody in the dugout was lying on his bunk. The Germans walked away, went on talking for some time up above, occasionally striking matches.
The lock needed two turns to open it. Kuklya admitted in a whisper that he could hardly control his hands. The others reassured him, but he muttered:
‘Well, lads, I hope at least there’s a change of guard. Otherwise, if it clicks a second time …’
It was true that the guard was soon due to be changed, and they waited for that. Kuklya pushed his hand through again, turned the key very, very slowly, and the lock made no noise. Kuklya fell back into Davydov’s arms bathed in sweat.
‘It’s O.K.!’
‘Wake everybody, get your chains off and get hold of your weapons!’ Fyodor Yershov ordered.
[A dull thud was heard, a groan and then a second thud. Yaroslavsky had killed Nikon, and that was a sort of signal.] Sounds of activity could be heard in the dugout. Many of them found it too much for their nerves; they all started to hurry and there was a lot of scuffling and clattering, scratching and talking. All of them were trying, half crazed, to remove the metal collars from their ankles as quickly as they could with all sorts of chisels, knives and scissors. In the quietness of the camp it seemed as though a real din was going on, the guards rushed down to the gate, demanding:
‘What’s the matter?’
Yakov Steuc answered for the rest in German:
‘They’re fighting down here over your potatoes.’
Everybody in the dugout quietened down, and the Germans started to laugh. Of course, they found it funny that the prisoners they were going to shoot the next day were fighting to fill their stomachs with potato.
Twenty minutes passed. Quietly they opened the gates right back.
‘Run for it, lads!’ Yershov shouted.
And up the narrow exit, ten steps at a time, rushed the crowd of prisoners, uttering savage howls, screams and whistles.
As it turned out, Steuc was right. For the first few seconds there was not a single shot. The Germans were taken completely by surprise, dumbfounded. Dozens of prisoners managed to scramble out on top before the machine-gun began to fire. But the dogs set on them immediately.
It was dark and foggy, and impossible to make out what was going on: someone was struggling with a dog with his bare hands, someone else struck a German over the head with a hammer and they rolled on the ground, locked together.
They did not succeed in capturing the machine-gun. But it was difficult for the Germans themselves to use it, because they were unable to distinguish between their own men and the prisoners. Rockets were fired into the sky, and there was shooting the whole length of Babi Yar. Prisoners were running in all directions, some with chains still dangling from a leg and there was firing on all sides, as if it were the front. Motorcyclists were dashing along the roads and footpaths.
Davydov ran round the dugout, bumped into one German and then another, dashed off into the darkness and, unable to see his way, ran right into the camp. He felt his way along the wire and by the vegetable gardens met Leonid Kharash. The two of them ran in the direction of some cottages in the distance. It was already getting light; the shooting was still going on, there were cars and motorcycles driving around and much shouting and swearing to be heard.
Davydov and Kharash caught sight of a woman doing something outside her house.
‘Lady—hide us!’
She looked at them and seemed about to faint.
‘God! You must be from the Yar! I’ve got children; they’ll shoot me.’
Then her sister came running out.
‘Get into the chicken house under the straw!’
They crept in underneath the straw, but asked her:
‘You won’t give us away?’
‘No, my boys, we’ll do you no harm.’
Later she went and made them some soup and brought them a whole bowlful of it—real, delicious Ukrainian borshch.
Those two sisters were called Natalya and Antonina Petrenko. Davydov visited them later in Kurenyovka, on Tiraspol Street, where they still live. Only 15 of the 330 prisoners escaped. They later joined the Soviet Army and some were killed at the front. Fyodor Yershov did not succeed in getting out of the Yar, but perished there, just as he anticipated. [Boris Yaroslavsky was also killed there. There are today nine people still living who took part in that unique revolt.] Vladimir Davydov is working as foreman of a building site in Kiev. [Yakov Steuc teaches German and Greek in the Kaluga teachers’ training college. Others are still alive and working in Kiev: Vladislav Kuklya, Yakov Kaper, Zakhar Trubabkov, David Budnik, Semyon Berland, Leonid Ostrovsky, and Grigori Yovenko. Every year on September 29th they can be seen, with Dina Pronicheva, at Babi Yar, whither many people make their way unofficially to honour the memory of those who perished there.]
A WORD FROM THE AUTHOR
[A former high-ranking officer in the Gestapo declared recently in an interview that there had never been any death camps, ovens or gas-chambers, that all such things had been invented by propagandists. He stated, quite simply, that they had never existed. He was not as mad as he might seem. He goes on living and working like an automaton, conditioned by rules based on the principle of ‘Keep on lying—something will stick; call black white, death happiness, the Leader a god, and promise mountains of gold in the future—there will always be people ready to believe you.’
For example, for many long decades there were officially declared to be NO concentration camps in the U.S.S.R. And, officially, there are none today. You have just read in this book how the Soviet N.K.V.D. blew up the Kreshchatik and the monastery and announced at once that it was ‘a crime committed by the German-Fascist invaders’, while the Gestapo organized a complete ‘building company’ to demonstrate that Babi Yar did not exist.
All these systems based on lies and the use of force have exposed very clearly and turned to their own advantage one of man’s weakest spots: his credulity.
There is a great deal wrong with the world. So some benefactor comes along with a plan for changing everything. The plan demands sacrifices today against a guarantee of universal blessings when it is complete. A few inflammatory words and a few bullets in the heads of the sceptics, and in no time at all millions of people are carried away with enthusiasm. It’s amazingly crude, but it works!
Then, with the very best of intentions and the selfless heroism of devoted young boys and girls, patriotic mothers and grey-haired old men, it all starts—the acts of aggression, the purges, the informing, the executions, the humiliations and the cynicism. And I suspect it doesn’t much matter what the objective really is. It is quite sufficient to assert, without adducing any proof, that it will be marvellous. They will believe.
I did not write this book simply to recall the past: I am writing today about the occupation of Kiev, which I happened to witness and which is well documented; because the same sort of thing is happening now; and there is no guarantee whatever that even more sinister events will not occur tomorrow. Not the slightest guarantee.
Just reckon up what proportion of the world’s population is today living under political systems based on force.
The world has learnt nothing. It has become only a more gloomy place. It is crammed with misguided puppets and unthinking blockheads who, with the light of fanatical conviction in their eyes, are ready to shoot at any target their leaders may command, and trample underfoot any country they are sent to; and it is frightful to think of the weapons they have in their hands today.
If you tell them out loud, to their faces, that they are being deceived and that they are no more than cannon fodder and tools in the hands of scoundrels, they won’t listen. They will say it is only a malicious slander. And if you produce facts, they just won’t believe you. They will say: ‘Such things never happened.’
Ask people who have lived a little longer in this world. When the first reports came from Germany about the Nazi death camps, the rest of the world did not believe them. People were much more disposed to believe the fair words of the scoundrels. Many of those who ended their days as smoke from the chimneys of Buchenwald started by believing.
Let us recall that the Jews of Kiev believed that they were being sent to Palestine, and that even when they could hear the shooting they went on discussing how their belongings would be ‘divided up equally’ when they got there. How many such Palestines has the world already been promised?
You suggest that something has changed? Only for the worse. With the fanaticism of a suicidal maniac, mankind reaches for the poisoned honey, whoever offers it to them; there really is no limit to human credulity.
People will put their trust in absolutely anybody—in Lenin or in Stalin, in Hitler or in Khrushchev, in Mao Tse-tung or Brezhnev, and in all sorts of Fidel Castros lower down the scale. They excuse the crimes that are committed because of the grandeur of the ultimate aims; they deny the facts and put their faith in the mere good intentions.
All right, go on believing …
