Lev Ozerov as a literary witness to the Shoah in the occupied Soviet territories

Analysis of the poem 'Babi Yar' by Lev Ozerov. Ozerov visited his native Kiev after its liberation in November 1943. Based on eyewitness testimonies about the massacre in Babi Yar, Ozervov wrote an article 'Kiev, Babi Yar' for Illi Ehrenburg's and Vasily Grossman's 'Black Book'. Ozerov also described the horror of the Jewish massacre in Kiev in his poem 'Babi Yar'. The poem was published in 1946 and became one of the first Soviet literary works about the Shoah. Given the dearth of information about the Shoah, Ozerov's poem was much more that a literary text. However the poem should not be over-read as a historical document at the expense of it's literary value.