[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
[May 12, 1995]
[Page 683]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Menorah Memorial at Babi Yar in Kiev
May 12, 1995

    Thank you, Rabbi, to the people of Ukraine, and especially to the 
veterans of World War II and the children who are here.
    Here on the edge of this wooded ravine, we bear witness eternally to 
the consequences of evil. Here at Babi Yar, almost 54 years ago, more 
than 30,000 men, women, and children were slaughtered in the first 3 
days alone. They died for no other reason than the blood that ran 
through their veins. We remember their sacrifice, and we vow never to 
forget.
    In late September 1941, the Nazi occupying army ordered the Jewish 
population of Kiev together, with their valuables and belongings. ``We 
thought we were being sent on a journey,'' one survivor recalled. But 
instead they were being herded to the ravine, stripped, and shot down. 
By year's end, more than 100,000 Jews, 10,000 Ukrainian nationalists, 
Soviet prisoners of war, and gypsies had been exterminated here.
    The writer Anatoly Kuznietzov was a child in Kiev during the war. He 
remembers the day the deportations began. ``My grandfather stood in the 
middle of the courtyard straining to hear something. He raised his 
finger. `Do you know what?' he said with horror in his voice. `They're 
not deporting them. They're shooting them.' ''
    Years later, Kuznietzov brought the poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko to Babi 
Yar. And that night, Yevtushenko wrote one of his most celebrated poems:

      Over Babi Yar there are no memorials. The steep hillside, like a 
        rough inscription. I am frightened. Today I am as old as the 
        Jewish race. I seem to myself a Jew at this moment.

These words speak to us across the generations, a reminder of the past, 
a warning for the future.
    In the quiet of this place, the victims of Babi Yar cry out to us 
still. Never forget, they tell us, that humanity is capable of the 
worst, just as it is capable of the best. Never forget that the forces 
of darkness cannot be defeated with silence or indifference. Never 
forget that we are all Jews and gypsies and Slavs. Never forget.
    May God bless this holy place.

Note: The President spoke at 12:12 p.m.