Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel; New, Complete, Uncensored Version

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Macmillan, 1970 - Fiction - 478 pages

An internationally acclaimed documentary novel that describes the fateful collision of Russia, Ukraine, and Nazi Germany, and one of the largest mass executions of the Holocaust

“I wonder if we will ever understand that the most precious thing in this world is a man’s life and his freedom? Or is there still more barbarism ahead? With these questions I think I shall bring this book to an end. I wish you peace. And freedom.”

At the age of 12, Anatoly Kuznetsov experienced the Nazi invasion of Ukraine, and soon began keeping a diary of the brutal occupation of Kiev that followed. Years later, he combined those notebooks with other survivors’ memories to create a classic work of documentary witness in the form of a novel. When Babi Yar was first published in a Soviet magazine in 1966, it became a literary sensation, not least for its powerful and unprecedented narratives of the Nazi massacre of the city’s Jews, and later Roma, prisoners of war, and other victims, at the Babi Yar ravine—one of the largest mass killings of the Holocaust. After Kuznetsov defected to Great Britain in 1969, he republished the book in a new edition that included extensive passages censored by Soviets, and later reflections.

In its fully realized form, Babi Yar is a classic of Holocaust and World War II testimony. With sustained immediacy, it relates a scrappy but principled boy’s day to day fight to survive, and provide for his family. He dodges bullets and transport to Germany, befriends black market horse dealers and prerevolutionary aristocrats, wonders at the pomp of the Nazi’s opera performances, overhears his mother and grandparents debate the merits of German and Soviet rule, collects grenades, digs hiding places, and confronts the moral dilemmas of assisting neighbors or looting stores—all the while hearing the constant hum of bullets at the Babi Yar ravine nearby. In a bravura feat of reporting, he tells the story of what happened at Babi Yar—from the deceptive roundup of the city’s Jews and execution of the national soccer team to the memoires of the site’s few survivors, and the story of a daring escape. The book’s once-censored passages explore the Soviet effort to hide the realities of the massacre, and other facts about wartime the regime did not want discussed. In the manner of Elie Wiesel’s Night or The Diary of Anne Frank, here is a book that tells some of the most uncomfortable truths of the past century—and the most essential.

 

Contents

Ashes
13
The End of Soviet Rule 21
21
Lootings a Lot of Fun But You Have to Know How
32
A Word from the Author
63
The Kreshchatik
76
The Order
88
Babi Yar
99
A Chapter of Reminiscences
120
A Word From the Author
262
Excessively Clever People are Enemies
274
Potatoes in Flower
280
A Legend and the Truth
289
The System
296
AntiNazi
311
To Kill a Fish
321
A Chapter of Original Documents
327

A Chapter of Original Documents
149
Burning the Books
157
Go Into Business
166
Kharkov Falls
172
A Beautiful Spacious Blessed Land
186
The KievPechersk Monastery
194
Night
202
Man Lives to Eat
209
Enemies of the People
218
Business Becomes Dangerous
230
Death
237
Hitlers Birthday
249
Off to Germany
256
How to Turn a Horse into Sausages
337
Cannibals
347
Escape from Silence
357
The Final Phase
370
A Word from the Author
389
Degtyaryovs Achievement
398
Masses of People on the Move
405
ProfessionFireRaisers
413
How Many Times Should I Be Shot?
419
A Chapter From the Future
448
La Commedia é Finita
462
Getting Rid of the Ashes
468
Copyright

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About the author (1970)

Anatoly Kuznetsov was born in Kyiv in 1929. During World War II, he endured the Nazi occupation of the city, and later described his experiences in the documentary novel Babi Yar, which appeared in a Soviet magazine in 1966 and was later published abroad. He defected to Great Britain in 1969, and an uncensored version of Babi Yar was published in the United States in 1970 under the pseudonym A. Anatoli. He died in London in 1979. Anatoly Kuznetsov was born in Kyiv in 1929. During World War II, he endured the Nazi occupation of the city, and later described his experiences in the documentary novel Babi Yar, which appeared in a Soviet magazine in 1966 and was later published abroad. He defected to Great Britain in 1969, and an uncensored version of Babi Yar was published in the United States in 1970 under the pseudonym A. Anatoli. He died in London in 1979.

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