RFE/RL: Historian Timothy Snyder says Babyn Yar a tragedy for all Ukrainians (Interview)

Ukraine's Raisa Maistrenko pays her respects during a visit to the Babi Yar Menorah monument in Kyiv on September 23, 2016 a few days before Ukraine marks the 75th anniversary of the September 1941 mass executions of Jews by the Nazis during World War II at Babi Yar in Kyiv. "We were gathered here and sent along 'the death path'," a petite woman said, pointing to a Kyiv green alley that 75 years ago was witnessed one of the great tragedies of World War II. Raisa Maistrenko was only three years old when the Nazis murdered 34,000 Jews -- mainly the elderly, women and children -- between September 29-30, 1941. Maistrenko is the Ukrainian capital's last survivor of the 29 people who managed to escape execution, either by falling into the ravine before they were shot in the back, to lie on top of thousands of corpses and later flee, or wearing crosses to hide their true religion.

Photo by AFP PHOTO / Sergei Supinsky

U.S. historian Timothy Snyder says there are several lessons to draw from Babyn Yar, where more than 30,000 Jews were killed by the Nazis on September 29-30, 1941. One is that it was a tragedy for all Ukraine. Another is that we must stop thinking about people in terms of ethnic categories or be doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.

Snyder, a professor at Yale University and an expert on the history of Central and Eastern Europe and the Holocaust, spoke with RFE/RL’s Ukrainian Service correspondent Natalia Churikova in Kyiv, in Ukrainian.