Babi Yar: The Ukrainian Epic: Love and Conflict, #4

By Benak

Discover the fourth masterpiece by Benak, the talented and prolific writer, with "Babi Yar," the latest addition to the epic series "Ukrainian Saga." Featuring the author's fluid, cohesive, and captivating style, this novel promises an immersive literary experience where words harmoniously blend with realism, sentimentality, romance, romanticism, and poetry.

 

Set in the evocative backdrop of Kiev, Ukraine, this family saga introduces endearing characters such as Ivan, Maria, and their daughter Hanna, navigating the vicissitudes of daily life. The snowstorms and winter climate of Kiev add a poetic and nostalgic dimension to the atmosphere, amplifying the emotional impact of the narrative.

 

"Babi Yar" explores profound themes, from the struggles of daily life to concerns about an uncertain future. The narrative comes to life with Ivan's disturbing nightmare, a catalyst for events that reveal family dynamics and the intimate thoughts of the protagonists. It is within this whirlwind of emotions that Hanna's first kiss unfolds, offering a glimmer of hope amid Ukraine's dark preoccupations, shaken by the rumors of war.

 

As the fourth installment of the prominent "Ukrainian Saga" series, "Babi Yar" follows in the footsteps of its predecessors, delving into the heart-wrenching events of the war devastating Ukraine. Benak masters the art of educating while captivating the reader, incorporating historical elements such as Babi Yar, a tragic site linked to major moments in world history. This subtle reference adds intellectual and emotional depth, expanding the novel's scope beyond familial intimacy.

 

The narration, skillfully constructed around realistic dialogues with proper French punctuation and parentheses, provides total immersion into the scenes and emotions of the book. Each word is carefully chosen to recreate a vibrant atmosphere, doing justice to the key moments of this poetic adventure.

 

In summary, "Babi Yar" is more than just a novel. It stands as the fourth installment of a captivating literary series, propelling readers into the heart of the human condition, between historical reality and profound emotions. Dive into this unique exploration, where the beauty of words and the richness of emotions converge in a work that will appeal to history, poetry, and family novel enthusiasts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Benak
• Release date: Mar 5, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224436385

Benak

Écrivain, poète et chroniqueur, Benak est surtout un grand rêveur qui croit en la magie des mots et en leur splendeur. Porteur d’un projet d’écriture tant ambitieux que prometteur, il met sa plume au service de l’humanité pour instruire et plaire. C’est au sang de son esprit et à l’encre de son cœur qu’il nous tisse des écrits de lumière. De la fiction à la non-fiction en passant par le roman, le récit, le conte pour enfant et la poésie, il traduit son imaginaire en nous proposant une écriture de belle facture, un agréable moment de littérature. S’escrimant toujours avec les mots pour le plaisir du dire et de l’écrire, il mène une vie simple, mais pas tout à fait tranquille. En citoyen du Monde très sensible, certains événements déteignent sur sa vie en y laissant des empreintes indélébiles. Philosophe, écrivain et poète engagé, il porte en lui les stigmates de l’injustice et de l’iniquité.

Book preview

1.

In the heart of Kiev beneath a sky weighed down by dread and uncertainty, Ivan found himself caught in a whirlwind of wandering souls. He was part of a diverse gathering of men, women, and children, bonded not by choice but by the cruel fate their persecutors had in store for them. Around him swirled a mosaic of faces, each bearing the mark of a personal story, a halted dream, an uncertain future. These individuals, though strangers, became his brothers and sisters in misfortune, united under the unseen banner of suffering and faltering hope.

The previous day, the occupying authorities had issued a grim edict, a decree that tolled like a death knell for the city's Jewish community. The order was clear, imperative, and terrifying: all Jews were to present themselves, under threat of paying with their lives for their absence. It was a sentence that turned every street, every square into a prelude to an announced tragedy.

In this crowd, Ivan, with his heart pounding, felt overwhelmed by a whirlwind of conflicting emotions. Visceral fear gripped his soul like a vice; the slender, almost illusory hope struggled to exist. Perhaps, by some unfathomable miracle, this gathering would only be the prelude to an exodus to a less grim elsewhere. Voices around him blended into a confused murmur; the forced optimism of some clashed with the silent resignation of others. Yet, they were all equal in their vulnerability.

Rumors circulated, borne by breaths of hope: some already envisioned lands of refuge, havens of peace where war would be but a distant nightmare; others indulged in the illusion of a laborious mobilization, where their toil would finally be rewarded with worthy wages. But these speculations were but chimeras, will-o'-the-wisps in the night of their distress.

Ivan, however, carried a heavier burden, a dark intuition that set him apart from the multitude. A chilling premonition whispered to him that this assembly was not the prelude to an evacuation but the antechamber to a far more tragic fate. He already saw, in the misty veil of the future, the shadow of death hovering over them, not as a liberator, but as a merciless reaper.

Amid this cacophony of hopes and fears, the faces of Hanna, his ethereal princess, and Maria, his faithful companion, overlapped in his troubled mind. He had left them behind, beams of light in his life darkened by turmoil; he harbored the slender hope of returning to them, of reunions marked by tears but also relief.

But at that moment, as the day died and the shadows lengthened, Ivan felt sucked into an abyss of uncertainty. Each heartbeat sounded like a dire countdown, each breath was a whispered goodbye to the illusions of a peaceful life. The weight of the unknown, of what awaited them beyond this forced gathering, pressed on him with the heaviness of a sky ready to collapse.

And in this suspended wait, where each second stretched into an eternity, Ivan, surrounded yet profoundly alone, stood at the threshold of reality his soul refused to fully accept. The future, once a canvas on which to paint his dreams, had turned into a dark labyrinth with no way out, where each path seemed to lead inexorably to loss and despair.

The air was laden with a suffocating heaviness, the sky seemed to weep over the tragic theater unfolding beneath it, silent and powerless. The list, that grim inventory of doomed souls, was drawn up with an administrative coldness that chilled the blood. Ivan stood there, vulnerable and helpless, before an SS soldier whose face was devoid of all humanity, an impenetrable facade, a marble mask behind which no heartbeat.

This soldier, like an automaton of horror, recorded the data without emotion, without the slightest spark of compassion in his vacant gaze. Ivan, his throat tight with terror and anguish, struggled to gather his thoughts, to articulate his identity, that sequence of words that still tied him to a semblance of life. But a brutal blow, a rifle butt striking his shoulders with the violence of a storm, made him stagger, tearing a cry of pain from his lips. The fire of suffering spread across his back, a merciless blaze consuming his resistance.

Forced to recite his identity like a funeral chant, Ivan was then dragged, a disjointed puppet, toward a long queue, a macabre procession advancing toward enveloping darkness. The march seemed endless, each step drawing them closer to the abyss.

Before him, the spectacle of horror unfolded in all its atrocity. Men were hanged in front of a wall, like carcasses in a slaughterhouse, suspended by butcher hooks; it was a tableau of inhuman barbarity that defied comprehension. Ivan, his mind clouded by fear and incomprehension, desperately tried to make sense of this waking nightmare, to find a glimmer of humanity in this ocean of darkness.

Then his gaze fell on a heart-wrenching silhouette, a vision that chilled his blood and shattered his heart into a thousand pieces. His beloved Maria, his companion, the love of his life, was hung there before him, like a rag doll, suspended by a mere wire. Her eyes, once sparkling with life and tenderness, now stared at him, vacant and filled with unspeakable pain.

That gaze, that mirror of Maria's broken soul, was a silent call, a mute farewell that pierced through the chaos to reach Ivan, enveloping him in a veil of despair. In this moment stretched beyond time, the pulsations of his heart aligned with the painful throbs of the universe, each beat resonating like the tolling of his shattered hopes.

Faced with this vision of horror, Ivan felt the foundations of his world collapsing. Reality unraveled around him, giving way to a chasm of suffering and loss. The image of Maria hung in this macabre staging, was etched into his soul, an indelible stigma that would forever mark the tortured labyrinth of his mind.

In that eternal instant, he understood with terrifying clarity the magnitude of the tragedy unfolding, a human drama where each extinguished life was a star fading in the firmament of existence. And as tears refused to flow, trapped in the arid desert of his despair, Ivan stood there, shaken to the core of his being, a witness and victim of the destructive madness that had engulfed his world.

Sharp and commanding orders snapped through the air in a foreign tongue, sounding like a funeral hymn for this procession of lost souls. The human chain, like a procession of specters, began to move, a slow and inexorable march towards the abyss that awaited them. From the heart of Kiev, they moved towards the desolate outskirts of the city, each step taking them further from what they had known, leading them towards a fate whose horror was beyond comprehension.

Ivan moved forward, a ghost among shadows, his mind numbed by grief and revolt. He no longer felt the bite of cold on his skin nor the weight of the desperate glances that surrounded him. His heart, if it still beat, did so alongside his beloved Maria, suspended in that macabre tableau that now haunted his darkest memories. The bond that united them had become his sole reality, a slender thread tethering him to a world where love, even in its most tragic form, offered a semblance of solace.

The silence enveloping this march towards nothingness was heavy, an oppressive veil that seemed to crush any flicker of resistance. In this realm, human dignity was trampled underfoot, and the nobility and grandeur of man were scorned. Ivan saw himself reduced to a mere pawn in a macabre play orchestrated by beings who had forsaken all humanity.

Around him, the faces were those of zombies, beings drained of their essence, walking towards their graves in a dreadful resignation. Human decay was revealed in all its ugliness, a world where men, transformed into agents of destruction, seemed to have made a pact with the darkest forces, hating the life they sought to extinguish with chilling efficiency.

Ivan now felt neither fear nor a desire to pray. Faith, like hope, seemed to have deserted this cursed place, leaving only a dull acceptance of the inevitable. His beloved Maria, hanged in the shadow of his mind, already awaited him on the other side of life, a beyond where perhaps their love would find refuge far from the madness of men.

In this context where death became a familiar companion, he let himself be carried by the movement, step by step, towards the end of his earthly existence. Each heartbeat seemed a distant echo, a reminiscence of a life where beauty, love, and joy had their place. But here, in this funeral march, only the memory of Maria remained a light in the darkness, the beacon guiding Ivan through the shadows of this final passage.

As he dragged his feet, exhausted and resigned, in this column of despair that seemed to stretch to infinity, an SS officer approached him with a steely determination. This man, the embodiment of cruelty, wore on his face the expression of utter contempt, a sneering smile that foreshadowed increased suffering. He stood there, before Ivan, as the harbinger of an even darker fate, ready to pour salt on the gaping wounds of his tormented soul.

As you were accomplices, he began with venomous sarcasm, to the Russians who had mined the official buildings and facilities. They knew we would use them as command posts and the like. These traps killed thousands of us. So, you will pay dearly with your life.

Each word was a stab, each accusation a reminder of the blatant injustice weighing on Ivan and his peers, scapegoats of a war that surpassed human understanding. But the worst was yet to come, a threat that would shake the last ramparts of Ivan's spirit.

And as of today, the officer continued with deadly coldness, "no Jew or communist will be spared. Even your daughter Hanna, who had fled, we've just caught her. She will kill you with her own hands before we shoot her down like a rabid