Babi Yar

 

“Wild grasses rustle over Babi Yar

The trees look sternly, as if passing judgement.

Here, silently, all screams, and, hat in hand,

             I feel my hair changing shade to grey.”   -  

  Yevgeny Yevtushenko  ("Babi Yar" 1961)

 

In 2002, my daughter and I attended a summer program at the University of Vilna, Yiddish Institute. As part of the experience, and to satisfy the burning desire in me to reconnect with our recent family past, we toured the shtetles (Yiddish for small towns) where both my parents came from in Lithuania and Belarus. We also visited the mass graves where some of my young first cousins perished.  We lit a Yahrtzeit candle and recited the “Kaddish.”

Though none of our family members, at least not ones that we are aware of, were murdered in the Ukraine, I decided to go there and visit Babi Yar, the mass gravesite, near Kiev, where many of our Jewish brothers and sisters were brutally massacred (most of the estimated 100,000 victims were Jewish). It was our sole purpose for visiting that country. Beforehand and in a wish to make the visit more meaningful, I taught my daughter the powerful poem “Babi Yar,” which still brings tears to my eyes and from which the above quote is derived.

The eerie feeling that welcomed us as we approached the deep ravine, covered by the “wild grass,” still haunts my sleepless nights. The yelling and crying of men, women and children are still echoed against the walls of the chambers of my heart.  The image of their blood calling us from the ground still blurs my vision.

Unlike 1961, when Yevtushenko wrote his powerfully moving poem, nowadays, there is a monument which stands over Babi Yar. The eternal trees, now, just as during Yevtushenko's days, still “look sternly, as if passing judgement.” Babi Yar is an eternal reminder to my People and, hopefully, a lesson to others, not merely of what “man has made of man.” Rather, for me, it, also, symbolizes how, these days, similarly to other dark chapters in world history, Man has not done enough for his fellow Man when he could and should have. It is an admonition that at the defining moment of Truth, “walking the talk,” the talk of solidarity, support, and freedom is seized by paralysis. It stands to cautiously warn us that a friend in need is not as we are taught, always a friend indeed.

Unfortunately, the chronicles of history have proven to us, time and again, the validity of the words of our wise Jewish sage Hillel, “If I am not for myself, who is for me?”

Hoping and looking forward to better days for all.