Babi Yar is a name of a ravine outside the city of Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, which was part of the old USSR. On September 29, 1941 the Jews of Kiev were forced to march into the ravine. They were told to remove their clothes and any valuables. They were told to march in groups of ten. When they complied, they were shot to death by the Germans and fell into the ravine. The total number of Jews executed at Babi Yar was 33,771. In 1943 the Germans were trying to remove the corpses from Babi Yar by exhumation. This task was given to inmates of the concentration camp Syretsk. This operation was completed in six weeks. There was barely a trace left of thousands of innocent Jews who were murdered there and no one would have known except for the fifteen Jews who carried out the clean up work, who later escaped and alerted authorities.