Ukraine: Holocaust Ground Zero

1 x 47’ - Channel 4 (2023)

The Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 resulted in some of the most horrific massacres and acts of genocide perpetrated during the Second World War – not least in Ukraine.

At one site alone – Babyn Yar, on the outskirts of Kyiv – almost 34,000 Jews were shot by the Nazis over one weekend in September 1941. One month earlier 23,600 Jews were massacred at the Ukrainian town of Kamianets-Podilskyi.

These atrocities in Ukraine were among the Nazis’ first acts of mass murder in pursuit of the Final Solution. Acts that led to little-known war crimes trials in the Soviet Union, including the Ukrainian cities of Kharkiv and Kyiv, all captured on extraordinary Soviet archive film.

With contributions from survivors of the Holocaust, along with leading historians including Wendy Lower, Omer Bartov, Dieter Pohl and Alex J Kay, this is the story of Ukraine during the Second World War. Of the beginning of the Holocaust - on one of Europe’s bloodiest battlegrounds.

★★★★ - “Vital Viewing” - THE GUARDIAN

★★★★ - “…succinct but detailed” - THE TELEGRAPH

★★★★ - “…devastating” - THE TIMES