Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel; New, Complete, Uncensored Version [Paperback]

Anatoli Kuznetsov (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Russian (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 478 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; New Edition edition (January 1, 1970)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374528179
• ISBN-13: 978-0374528171
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (20 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #338,191 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must for everyone's library, November 10, 1999

By 

Jody Palm "bookgoddess" (Greeneville, TN United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel (Hardcover)

This is an important book which I hope will be put back in print soon. The story of the Ukrainian occupation during WWII, as well as Babi Yar death camp are fascinating, if also horrifying. The book covers a theatre of the war that is seldom covered in such detail.

The honesty is the most interesting part. The author, a 12-year-old boy at the time, (and NOT Jewish), had no reason to fabricate, and with an innocence that makes it clear he isn't trying to propogandize, just reports the horrors he sees. The book also includes some later gathered (when the author was grown up) interviews with survivors of Babi Yar death camp which are even more harrowing.

The most fascinating part of the copy that I have is that it BOLDs the portions of the book that were edited out by the Russian censors, before the book was published in the Soviet Union. It is interesting to notice what the censors chose to cut out, as much as what they chose to leave in!

Well worth finding in a used book store, if you can.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Tragic, May 8, 2005

By 

Snorri Wolfersson (INDY,IN) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel; New, Complete, Uncensored Version (Paperback)

I first read this book in high school as a shelf clearing library rat. It was not recommended, it was not widely known, it just sat on a shelf gathering dust. As far as I could tell, I was the first person to check this book out of my high school's library....books used to have cards glued to the back page where you signed your name...this one had no signatures. I read "Babi Yar" 3 times in the next 2 weeks and was stunned at the inhumanity of people towards people. I actually had trouble sleeping for a while. I didn't run across this book again for another 25 years. It kind of jumped at me from the shelf at my local library. It offered the same brutal emotional clubbing at 41 that I had experienced at 16. No different. How horrible can we actually be as humans? Pretty damn horrible it appears. The progessive rape of Kiev (et al) by Stalin, the Nazis, and Stalin AGAIN is a mostly overlooked story. This one tells it quite well. Music lovers should listen to Al Stewart's "Roads to Moscow" for a somewhat hurried reference.

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A truthful, harrowing story, September 5, 2005

By 

S. Lubman - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Babi Yar: A Document in the Form of a Novel; New, Complete, Uncensored Version (Paperback)

I read this book in the original Russian. I could not put it down until I read the whole thing. As far as truthfulness I have absolutely no doubt, since his accounts are the same that I have heard from my own grandparents who fought in and survived in the war. To the reviewer below - Jeannette DuPree (South Carolina), what do the modern historians doubt? The thousands of victims (including the immediate members of my family) of German brutality? It's revisionist lying.