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Last Survivor of Babi Yar Massacre Remembers Every Detail

(Ynet News) Itamar Eichner - Michael Sidko was 6 when he witnessed German forces and their Ukrainian collaborators murder his 4-month-old brother Volodya, his 3-year-old sister Clara, and his mother, who screamed in pain while the Nazi troops kept firing to make sure she was dead. Sidko, 85, is the last living survivor of the massacre in the Babi Yar ravine in Kyiv, Ukraine, where 33,771 Jews were murdered on Sep. 29-30, 1941. For 60 years Sidko kept his Jewish identity and what he had witnessed at Babi Yar a secret, even from his own family. "I remember everything, even the small details, but I don't want to, it hurts too much," says Sidko. "My mom was holding my brother, and Clara stood next to her, holding her skirt. One of the Ukrainian collaborators took Clara, hit her in the head, and stepped on her chest until she suffocated to death. My mom saw the whole thing and fainted. Then my baby brother fell, and the collaborator approached him and killed him. Mom woke up, started to scream and he shot her, then they grabbed them all by the legs and threw them into the pit." Sidko and his older brother Grisha survived thanks to Ukrainian neighbors, including Sofia Kondratieva, who was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, a title used for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis.
2021-10-07 00:00:00
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