Babi Yar
Today, I shall speak more of my crimes. Well, Babi Yar, to be more specific.
The first part of it was just a very short time before it happened. Knowing that I was a spy who could speak fluent Russian, I was asked to translate something from German to Russian. Basically, it was instructions to the victims of Babi Yar, primarily the Jews of Kiev. I was a bit confused at that time because I initially found it useless to translate to Russian since we were going to Ukraine but maybe there’s people there who spoke Russian so might as well. It’s not like I was that aware of the world around me. Click the link for the text(https://goo.gl/images/kgStnQ).
This is what it meant in English: “All [Jews] living in the city of Kiev and its vicinity are to report by 8 o'clock on the morning of Monday, September 29th, 1941, at the corner of Melnikovsky and Dokhturov Streets (near the cemetery). They are to take with them documents, money, valuables, as well as warm clothes, underwear, etc. Any [Jew] not carrying out this instruction and who is found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilian entering flats evacuated by [Jews] and stealing property will be shot."
Now, I have no memories of my transport from Germany to Ukraine so I shall not speak of it for now but I do have a memory of the killing itself. At that time, I was being my more cold-hearted self, not feeling bad about the fact that I was murdering many people. There was a large pit in front of me, full of naked people who were condemned to death. My colleagues and I shot them all and I didn’t feel a single thing. I just wanted to get this over with.
I then looked down and saw that there were still a few people alive so I shot them too. None of the targets should live. Well, at least that’s how I thought of things back then. No, I didn’t descend and walk all over the bodies because I didn’t want to fall and embarrass myself. It was too risky. What if my colleagues laugh at me?
Anyways, after fulfilling my duties for the day, I took a break and went to sleep while the others were on their night duties. The massacre was continuous. The next day, I was a little harsher. I wasn’t on pit duty this time but I had to accompany the people marching to their deaths. If someone slowed down the rest, I would either push that person so that he/she’ll be faster accompanied by some yelling (mostly in English or Russian because I didn’t know Ukrainian) or worse case scenario, shoot that person and push him/her aside to keep things going, leaving the unfortunate one to die. This happened repeatedly.
By the way, for the yelling part, I did shout in German too but it was kinda rare because I thought that people there didn’t speak it but maybe a few did. Since I was asked to help with the Russian translation of the notice, I might as well speak Russian but with a strong German accent rather than my usual Russian accent or I’ll seem ‘suspicious’. Same goes for my accent when speaking English. I usually sounded more British. I could barely hold my laughter not really because I was a sadist who would laugh at people suffering(I wasn’t like that) but more like because of myself because that wasn’t how I usually spoke like wow.
The first part of it was just a very short time before it happened. Knowing that I was a spy who could speak fluent Russian, I was asked to translate something from German to Russian. Basically, it was instructions to the victims of Babi Yar, primarily the Jews of Kiev. I was a bit confused at that time because I initially found it useless to translate to Russian since we were going to Ukraine but maybe there’s people there who spoke Russian so might as well. It’s not like I was that aware of the world around me. Click the link for the text(https://goo.gl/images/kgStnQ).
This is what it meant in English: “All [Jews] living in the city of Kiev and its vicinity are to report by 8 o'clock on the morning of Monday, September 29th, 1941, at the corner of Melnikovsky and Dokhturov Streets (near the cemetery). They are to take with them documents, money, valuables, as well as warm clothes, underwear, etc. Any [Jew] not carrying out this instruction and who is found elsewhere will be shot. Any civilian entering flats evacuated by [Jews] and stealing property will be shot."
Now, I have no memories of my transport from Germany to Ukraine so I shall not speak of it for now but I do have a memory of the killing itself. At that time, I was being my more cold-hearted self, not feeling bad about the fact that I was murdering many people. There was a large pit in front of me, full of naked people who were condemned to death. My colleagues and I shot them all and I didn’t feel a single thing. I just wanted to get this over with.
I then looked down and saw that there were still a few people alive so I shot them too. None of the targets should live. Well, at least that’s how I thought of things back then. No, I didn’t descend and walk all over the bodies because I didn’t want to fall and embarrass myself. It was too risky. What if my colleagues laugh at me?
Anyways, after fulfilling my duties for the day, I took a break and went to sleep while the others were on their night duties. The massacre was continuous. The next day, I was a little harsher. I wasn’t on pit duty this time but I had to accompany the people marching to their deaths. If someone slowed down the rest, I would either push that person so that he/she’ll be faster accompanied by some yelling (mostly in English or Russian because I didn’t know Ukrainian) or worse case scenario, shoot that person and push him/her aside to keep things going, leaving the unfortunate one to die. This happened repeatedly.
By the way, for the yelling part, I did shout in German too but it was kinda rare because I thought that people there didn’t speak it but maybe a few did. Since I was asked to help with the Russian translation of the notice, I might as well speak Russian but with a strong German accent rather than my usual Russian accent or I’ll seem ‘suspicious’. Same goes for my accent when speaking English. I usually sounded more British. I could barely hold my laughter not really because I was a sadist who would laugh at people suffering(I wasn’t like that) but more like because of myself because that wasn’t how I usually spoke like wow.
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