The massacre began in late September 1941 when Nazi forces occupying Kyiv ordered its Jews to gather, bringing their warm clothes and valuables - as if they were to be taken elsewhere. The Jews were then marched to the steep Babiy Yar ravine and shot. 52,000 Jews were executed only in the first five days beginning September 29, 1941. A number of historians convincingly argue that the actual number of victims was three times larger. The massacre went down in the history of the long-suffering Jewish nation as the greatest ordeal. It is also true, however, that among the victims buried in the ravine are thousands of activists of the resistance movement of other ethnic origin: Ukrainians, Russians, Belorussians, Poles, Czechs and Georgians. Olena Telyha, a noted Ukrainian poetess, leader of nationalist movement and many other Ukrainian intellectuals died at Babiy Yar, along with the untold thousands of Jewish martyrs.
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