Curran, Richard F.

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The Linacre QuarterlyVolume 35 | Number 4 Article 4November 1968'Babi Yar' and BabiesRichard F. CurranFollow this and additional works at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnqRecommended CitationCurran, Richard F. (1968) "'Babi Yar' and Babies," The Linacre Quarterly: Vol. 35 : No. 4 , Article 4.Available at: http://epublications.marquette.edu/lnq/vol35/iss4/4'\ . 'Babi Yar' and Babies Richard F. Curran, M.D. Babi Yar was a ravine in Kiev. Babi Y ar means "Old Wives' Gully." There is no gully today. It is ·ft.lled in, and over the flll runs a highway. Buildings are being erected along the stretch of highway. Where these buildings stand 200,000 lives were ended between September, 1941 and October, 1943. The dead were covered with dirt and later dug up and burned. "N9 monument - stands over Babi Y ar" reads the opening line of Y evgeny Yevtushenko's poem "Babi Yar." This year an estimated 20 ·million lives will come to an end in a peculiarly similar way. The mo_st important similarity is that death wtll be the result of another person's decision. These· are unborn lives. The dead will be dug out and thrown into a toilet, sink or ash can. No monument will stand over ther graves. What is it all about? Those who waited their turn on the banks of Babi Y ar are silent now, and cannot answer. They had only a few moments to ponder this question. But even though these moments were spent wrapped in the merciful numbness that horror invites, they were compelled to think of the meaning of life. 240 "Why must I die? V lt have I done? Who are these n · ? Why are they so angry? TheJ took my clothes and laughed a t ~ ·. They are in such a hurry. K,, . the line moving. I fell and they . d the dog on me. Even the dogs ~~ · angry and hurried. They smoke with one hand. They whip w l • another. They are amused, they are impatient. They . -Ice. They command. They sc; '; ffi . They know their job. The\ must have done it before. I will , G and they will live. They will li\ to smoke another cigarette, t o .~rink from their coffee tin, to sL ep another night. But we are the ;;. ,me. We are human beings. We live d.S they. w~ breathe and feel and know eac other. How could this. }.~~ PJ?en? I km helpless. My brother IS g mg to me." In the womb another life awaits its end. There are no lines. soldiers or dogs. While it waits there is warmth · not and growth an·d purpose . It ts Dr. Cu"an is in private practice in · . h d'rector Danvers, Mass. He zs also t e 1 th of the Laboure' Center Jtfental Heal. t Clinic. He is the author of "The Quze Murder,'·' LQ, Nov., '66. Linacre QuarterlY nor still. There is a pulsation, an of fluids; the determined d motion of life. ·It is life a life. It trusts, it waits, it is . But the guardian of that made a decision, "I will that r life should end." We do not know who ordered the at Kiev. Anatoly Kuznetsov in novel "Babi Yar" does not reveal But we do know the author of in the womb. She is the of the life, that is there. the executioners we know At Babi Yar they were German They were big and tough and They had guns, fists, shovels dogs. They were under orders to bury. It is not known whether were specifically ordered to spit, bludgeon, strangle and beat with The intruder of the womb is under orders. 'It may be a he or a The orders are simple: Kill, and destroy. Technique and ue left to one's discretion. Kiev it took only two days to the first 50,000. They were small, stunned groups to the of the gully and shot. The was precise and almost They fell into their grave , dead, some alive. There was movement and sound in the hole more dirt and bodies pressed it one returned to tell of it. destroy the unborn takes no than a few minutes. The life is not evasive. It does not run . It is small. It is weak. It to the blade and the curette. It to die when the fluid leaves. It is by cut, tear or crush. with the dead, these They did not die naturally. They did not die of an ill, for a crime, in self-defense, by accident. They were willed to die by another. They were killed. Those who are killed present special problems. They must not be found. They are evidence. The removal of such evidence at Babi Yar was . an after-thought prompted by the turning tide of the · war. It was an operation tli:at took weeks. Day and night the teams of Russian prisoners dug out the earthen womb of the ''old wives." There were 200,000 . bits of evidence to be changed int0 ashes. A plan was devised and instruments hastily shaped. As the living cling to life, so the dead stubbornly resist removal from the grave. Groups of workers were divided into diggers, hookers, goldseekers, furnace builders, stokers, crushers, and gardners (disposers of ash). Thus, the task of the abortionist was mimicked by the teams at Babi Yar. We return to our question. What is it all about? Why is life taken . by ano.ther? By what right? As with the victims, the killers of Kiev are not available to answer either. The first 50,000 victims were Jews. The notices had been hastily printed and unsigned. They called for all Jews of ,Kiev to assemble by a cemetary in preparation for a trip. It was a short trip. It ended where the crisp bite of the machine guns was loudest. But why Jews? Were they all saboteurs? Were they a serio11;s threat to the power of the German army? Or were they just hated? The infants who were swung by the feet into the gully were hardly subversive, . nor were their mothers . and grandmothers who followed them. So hate designed the bottom layers of the tomb. But why such hate? At the time of"Babi Yar hatred of Jews was a virtue in Nazi Germany. 241 -... ·, ' • ~ I •' The · flame that was fanned by a madman had possessed the mind of a nation. But let it not be overlooked that their minds and hearts accepted the heat of that flame. This strange and insidious social climate was .to spread beyond the Fatherland. It spread to Kiev. Another social climate is with us today: It has to do with another group of lives, the unborn. This social climate has produced a new attitude toward human life. The essentials of this attitude ar~ ·very simple. Life is important, especially . my life. I have certain rights concerning my life. I have a right to expect as little pain, pressure, sickness, worry and work as is possible. I have a right to take as much food, sex and fun out of this world as I can. I have a right to eliminate whatever or whomever trespasses on my right. I have a right . to choose who shall be born into my world and · who shall not. I was here first. These ideas actually take a practical and very appealing form. They appear as human efforts to correct man's folly, as in cases of incest and rape, to combat the ravages of infections and to serve as an antidote to the crippling after-effects of some wonder drug. The justification for this attitude is concern for tpe mental and physical health of the parents. The reasoning: one person's health is more important than another's life. Hatred is something supple and elusive. It can change form and move in different directions. It did not spend .its~lf with the annihilation of the Kiev Jews. It was present as a final sporting gesture for the Dynamo Soccer Team that the combined German athletes could not defeat in several games. Their prize was to taste the dirt of Babi Yar. The undefeated 242 Roman gladiator fared bette · Hatred also rode the deadly "Gasen\ 1gen" to the gully from which the n3 !d, local harlotry were carried to th furnace, supposedly gassed. But th;- Jead do not snore and the prisone1 eported snorers. Even Titus did not beha\· like this. Titus was Kuznetsov's cat . ~ did not lose a pound in three year: He, too, was a killer, · but an und•· tandable one. He killed for food. H survived. He was an animal and kill for survival was natural for ·· im. The killing around him was r. natural. The human beings of his ti r. were not killed for food or in self·· t'ense. He mqst have wondered. lt is true that no monu, . nt stands over Babi Yar. What monL :nt would be proper? A stone? A flar 1.\.nd what inscription would we p< ;Jose? We could not say "Here lies -~ remains of - - - - - - - - - -- ", for nothing remains. The evid( ,_:e is gone. Perhaps no physical mor11· ,ent could be erected to bear witness the awful truth of Babi Y ar. But I believe we (, • have a monument. We have perpetual reminder. It is a simple ~-: .~tistic. One out of every four potentia babies will be destroyed by anothe1' :; wish this year. We will attempt t i• gitimize it. We march bravely to t L;· cadence of the modern beat. We are in step with the changing mores, the new social climate. We do not wan t t'; hear about Babi Yar. It is too thre;-;_J ening. It is too pertinent. lt was only a generation ago and we shrink from the thought of it. We live for now and the fun of now. We want comfort and life. We abhor the thought of death. We will kill our own kind of life at the rate of 20 million lives this year. Our monument to Babi Yar is murder. Linacre QuarterlY The Authority of the ·Church Cardinal John Heenan following article, published in Tablet, May 18, 1968, is here with the permission of Tablet Publishing Co., Ltd., 14 Place, London, S. W. 1.) TEXT-BOOK _ of Catholic widely used by students the Council describes the IIJte:rium, the teaching authority of , as a guarantee that "the bishops will provide the with the allthentic message of and tradition." It would be today to find a satisfactory . There is no more delicate in contemporary theology. The magisterium of the Pope is ed in his writings and . But today what the Pope is by no means accepted as ritative by all Catholic ans. An article in the Concilium is at least as t~ win their respect as a papal heal. The decline of the is one of the most cant · developments in the ~~nc1:1iar Church. Catholics publicly refuse to dge the authority of the The custom is to explain away on the grounds that they are authentic - living in a World, he is misinformed by the advisers who surround him. His frequent complaints against distortion of doctrine are attributed to failing health. The Pope was reported to have wept at a public audience when referring to the disloyalty of some who speak in the name of the Church. This was taken as proof that the Pope has not · yet recovered from his operation. The press hinted that his resignation was imminent. The Pope may be badly advised and physically weak but he contrives to make his voice clearly heard and more often than not he displays a deep anxiety. Constantly he returns to the theme of erroneous teaching ·of t h e ·o 1 o g y. U n fortunate 1 y, his condemnations are made in . general terms. Since nobody knows which theologians are being condemned it is impossible for bishops to take any action. The isolation of the Pope has become more evident during the last two years. This was mentioned at the Synod of Bishops last year when I spoke in the name of the hierarchy of England and Wales: The supreme authority of the Church must find methods of clarifying Catholic teaching. We bishops are fond of talking about collegiality and the principle of subsidiarity but we must bear our burden of responsibility. All too 243 ... ·, ~ . j ... ,, t 'I 

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\u27Babi Yar\u27 and Babies

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