Babi Yar Park - a living holocaust memorial

Babi Yar park is one of the most unusual park in Denver. Babi Yar Park is a 27-acre memorial landscape that provides a place of quiet contemplation to reflect upon crimes against humanity and genocide. Native vegetation and trees encourage solace, and a small grassy amphitheater is available for gatherings and dialogue. In 1969 Mayor William H. McNichols, Jr. designated the land for the purpose of creating “a place that would demonstrate a unified public protest.”

Visitors enter the park via a narrow passage between two inscribed, rough-hewn, black granite monoliths. 

 

This park is dedicated to the memory of the two hundred thousand victims who were killed in Babi Yar, Kiev, Ukraine, USSR in 1941-1943. The dark story of slaughtering of thousands of Jews carried by Nazis and another well known synonymous of Holocaust.

The memorial is laid out around a pathway configured as a Star of David, with distinct zones located at three points of the star: an amphitheater, a grove, and a ravine. Each zone is accentuated with a monument. The edges of the site are managed as a prairie, with native grasses, yucca, and prickly pear.

Named after a Ukrainian massacre site, Babi Yar opened in 1982 to commemorate the Holocaust with some of Denver’s most striking, minimalist public art and design elements.

The Grove of Remembrance, where 100 linden trees are planted in a grid representing the 200,000 people killed at Babi Yar. The inscription on the memorial in the middle of this small forest reads: "Below this marker is located a capsule containing earth for the Babi Yar ravine, Kiev, Ukraine, U.S.S.R. Presented to the Babi Yar Park Foundation by Colorado Senator John R. Bermingham". 

A pedestrian bridge to the north-west that replicates the cattle cars in which the victims were transported to the camps. The bridge is black with tall sides. There are two small slots on each side to allow one to replicate the view the victims had while being transported to the camps. I find this to be a gut-wrenching piece. The inscription on the stone reads:

"Freedom or Power - The Eternal Struggle
Bridges or Cattle Cars - Choose!
Me...But You To - The Eternal Dilemma
Before and After All - The Rock
Rabbi Raymond A. Zwern, Inscription"

Pictures were taken on March 07, 2018.