Babi Yar

Anatoly Kuznetsov began keeping a diary at age fourteen during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. Years later, he combined those notebooks with other survivors' accounts to create this documentary novel. A censored version was first published in a Soviet magazine in 1966 and became a literary sensation for its accounts of the Nazi massacre at Babi Yar ravine in Kyiv—one of the largest mass killings of the Holocaust. This edition presents the full, uncensored text. The narrative follows a boy's day-to-day survival under occupation: dodging bullets, avoiding deportation to Germany, witnessing Nazi cultural events, hearing debates about German versus Soviet rule, and confronting moral choices while the sounds of executions echo from the nearby ravine. Kuznetsov documents what occurred at Babi Yar, including the roundup of the city's Jews, the execution of the national soccer team, and accounts from survivors. The book also reveals Soviet efforts to conceal wartime realities. It serves as a work of Holocaust and World War II testimony.