Babi Yar, Kyiv (Kiev), Ukraine

Ukrainian narration. Title: "Ilya Grigorievich Ehrenburg speaks." He and several men, are seated around a large table having a discussion. Anniversary of Sholem Aleichem. Staged wedding in a kolkhoz. Jewish people, song in Yiddish. Intertitle in Russian reads, "Kiev met those who would surrender not an inch of our land". Prewar Kiev, before the arrival of the Germans. Red Army parade. Soldiers dancing with local women. The merriment is inter-spliced with shots of approaching German bombers for heightened dramatic effect. Bombardment of Kiev, AVs of city, bombs dropping (stock shots), explosions, destruction, rubble, bodies in ruins and rubble, people walking through the rubble. Intertitles read, "The first act" and "Golgotha". Women with shovels, working. VS of soldiers erecting barricades. Several intertitles and signs, newspaper headlines in Russian. One reads, "The Fascists shall not be allowed to take the capital of Soviet Ukraine. Everything for the defense of our home, of all we love!" More German planes, then Soviet guns aimed at the sky. Another intertitle reads "Mikhailyuk: a participant in the defense of Kiev". Street life - it would seem that this footage was intended to show that life goes on in Kiev even in the middle of war: there are a advertisements for the circus, for the theater, people walking about the park, two elderly Jews on a bench talking, a young couple on another bench, children in a playground, going down a slide, children dancing in a circle. Elderly peasant woman walking. Testimony of survivors of Babi Yar. Ehrenbourg was a Soviet writer, b. Kiev in 1891, d. Moscow in 1967. His works include "The Extraordinary Adventures of Julie Jurenito" (1921) and "Trust D. E." (1923). He celebrated socialism in various works of propaganda. During WWII he published one of his most recognized works: "The Fall of Paris" (1941-1942). Following the war, other well-known titles were published which express the sense of hope of the Russian people following the death of Stalin: "The Storm" (1948) and "With the Thaw" (1954).