Babi Yar

Compilation of still photos of atrocities. MCU, hanging corpses. VS, a group of journalists in the Babi Yar area. They are writing in notebooks, taking down the words of one man who stands in the center of the circle of journalists, as a witness, there are a few women in the crowd. Journalist speaks to camera, by a ravine, explaining the story of what happened during the massacre. Camera pans down and across the ravine. Several other journalists are standing along the downward slope of the ravine. Translation of Ukrainian narration and Russian witness testimony: Novograd-Volynskyi, Zhytomyr [Ukrainian cities]. Yes, this is that famous Paul Blobel whose team committed all those murders at the end of September and in the beginning of October 1941 ...[abrupt] testifies before the members of the State Commission that began investigation of fascists' crimes in Ukraine after Kyiv had been liberated. A newsreel saved the testimony of a witness Volodymyr Davydov. [Russian narration, the witness speaks] "Here, at this very place, which is called Babi Yar, fascist scum forced us, prisoners, who had accidentally been taken prisoner in 1941, to burn corpses of our Kievan civilians, Soviet citizens, killed by the German monsters during two years of occupation. Here, in Babi Yar, the ovens stood. Stench and stink spread. Under the threat of being shot, we were forced to take the bodies out and put them over the oven. To this place suffocated people, mostly naked women and children, were brought. They were suffocated inside the gas machines. During the time we worked here, we were forced to burn close one hundred thousand Soviet citizens. The Germans wanted to hide traces of their crimes. And after we completed our task they wanted to kill us as well. They failed. Of three hundred people who worked here, twelve survived."