Holocaust by Bullets: Remembering the Babi Yar Massacre

The systematic slaughter of Jews by the Nazis and their collaborators in other countries was not initially or exclusively about concentration camps, deportations, gas chambers, or crematoria. In this lecture, Dr. Berkowitz will examine the beginning stage(s) of this least-known chapter of Holocaust history, commonly referred to by scholars as the “Holocaust by Bullets.” It was the precursor to the industrial-scale extermination camps and the first stage of “the final solution to the Jewish Question.”  He will document the infamous Babi Yar Massacre of September 1941, which led to one of the largest execution-style mass murders of over 33,000 Jews in only two days. Dr. Berkowitz will carefully examine the social psychology of perpetrators, collaborators, and indifferent neighbors in this and other “genocides by mass shooting.”  He will underscore the importance of Ukraine’s acknowledgment and reconciliation of its collaborative role and elucidate the arguments supporting and opposing the recognition of this catastrophe as a Holocaust site to memorialize the genocide of Jews. This event is also available virtually.