On Sunday, September 28, 1941, Ukrainian police posted a notice around Kyiv addressing the Jewish people of the city, written in Ukrainian, Russian, and German. In “Babi Yar,” Anatoly Kuznetsov reproduces the notice, which stated that all Jewish people in Kyiv are to report to an intersection near the cemetery the following day, September 29, bringing all their “documents, money, valuables, as well as warm clothes, underwear, etc.” The notice also stated that any Jewish person “not carrying out this instruction and who is found elsewhere will be shot.”
According to Berkhoff’s Babi Yar, the order wasn’t signed, and “no one involved in composing its text knew much about Kyiv, for the order claimed that the intersection was ‘near the cemeteries,’ which was incorrect.”
Based on this notice, the majority of Jewish people believed that they were to be resettled, especially because the Lukianivka railway station was near the intersection where they were supposed to congregate, writes the Brandeis Graduate Journal. This belief was also based on the rumors of resettlement that were spread by non-Jewish Ukrainian residents.
