Syrets
In northwestern Kiev in a part called Syrets just next former ravine Babi Yar, the Nazis set up in spring 1942 a camp for Soviet prisoners of war and Jews who escaped the massacres the previous autumn. Initially, the prisoners were forced to live outdoors and only during the summer 1942 poorly built barracks were built. In August 1943, more than 300 prisoners from Syrets were forced to cremate the bodies of the Jews murdered at Babi Yar in autumn 1941. The work was part of an action called Sonderkommando 1005 whose task was to dig up mass graves and cremate the bodies of murdered Jews. The cremation lasted six weeks from August to September. At the end of September 1943, about 25 prisoners revolted because they would be executed next day, 15 actually managed to escape. When the Soviet Red Army liberated Kiev on November 6, 1943, they took over the camp and used it to imprison German prisoners of war. The camp was finally demolished in 1946.
Current status: Demolished with monument (2011).
Location: 50°28'11.6"N 30°26'35.1"E
Get there: Metro to Dorogozhychi Station.
Follow up in books: Arad, Yitzhak: Holocaust in the Soviet union (2009).
In the summer of 1942, a number of football players from Dynamo Kiev were forced to play show matches against German, Romanian and Hungarian teams in Kiev. The team was called Start and they won all the games they played. Later during the war, several of the Starts players were executed or ended up in Syrets, but not because they won the games. The former camp area is now an integrated part of the city with residential buildings and parks.