Daily Mail
A Nazi executioner who shot 250 Jews in a single day is among 160 named and shamed, 80 years after a massacre that’s been dubbed the ‘Holocaust of bullets’.
Babi Yar, a ravine on the edge of the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, became infamous after 33,771 Jews were shot there during just two days in September 1941.
But the Nazi atrocity has gone largely unpunished, with only 10 of the estimated 700 people that took part ever being convicted of a crime.
Now, 80 years later, the Babi Yar Holocaust Memorial Center has identified an initial 160 people it considers guilty of the killings.
Along with their names, new information about the killers – including biographies and testimony – has been made public.
One participant, Viktor Trill, who was a sergeant in the SS paramilitary group, described how he leapt down into the pits to kill any who survived the initial shooting.
He said that he shot between ‘150 and 250 Jews’, and chillingly added that they were ‘resigned to their fate like lambs.
He recalled: ‘I then saw a gigantic ditch that looked like a dried out riverbed. In it were lying several layers of corpses.
‘The Jews had to lay down on the corpses and were then shot in the back of the neck. More Jews were continually brought to be shot.
‘The shooters came out of the ravine and then another group of security policemen, including myself, had to go down.
‘I myself then had to work as a shooter for about 10 minutes and in this time I personally shot about 30 to 50 Jews.’
He continued: ‘During the shooting on this day I had to act as a shooter five or six times, each time for ten minutes.
‘It is possible that on this day I shot between around 150 and 250 Jews.
‘The whole shooting went off without incident. The Jews were resigned to their fate like lambs.’
The Czech-born truck driver described men and women of various ages among the victims.
And while he did not recall whether children were shot, he accepted that some mothers may have held their children in their arms.
Trill went to court over the killings in 1967, but was acquitted as no ‘base motive’ could be proven for his participation.
Obersturmführer August Hefner, who controlled the executions on both days, was sentenced to several years in prison for his role.
He told the court: ‘The SS troops had a section approximately 30 metres in length.
‘[Bernhard] Grafhorst told me that the Jews should lie down close to each other…
