The Babi Yar massacre occurred just outside Kyiv, Ukraine, where significant population locations became targets as the Nazis advanced in their campaign against the Soviet Union. In late September, German forces and local Ukrainian collaborators began rounding up Jews under the pretext of evacuation. On September 29 and 30, 1941, an estimated 33,771 Jewish men, women, and children were taken to the Babi Yar ravine and brutally executed. The systematic nature of this mass murder was notable as it exemplified the broader Nazi policy of extermination. The killings at Babi Yar were conducted with shocking efficiency, as victims were made to undress, and then shot en masse, with the bodies left in the ravine, adding to the grotesque scene.

This critical event quickly highlighted the collaboration of local populations with Nazi occupiers, demonstrating both the complicity and participation in the Holocaust. In the aftermath, additional atrocities continued in Babi Yar, with thousands of Roma, Soviet POWs, and Ukrainian nationalists also murdered there. The massacre was a lonely precursor to the horrors that would unfold throughout Europe.

In later years, Babi Yar became a symbol of the Holocaust's atrocities. Efforts to memorialize the site and the events became integral to Jewish and Ukrainian collective memory, though for decades under Soviet rule, the massacre went largely unacknowledged. Literature and art inspired by this event strive to keep the memory of the victims alive and educate future generations about the implications of hatred and genocide.