As the Red Army approached, the Germans decided to attempt to efface their genocidal actions. A special unit, Sonderkommando 1005, was established for this purpose. On August 18, the members of this unit began to exhume and cremate the corpses at Babi Yar. For this purpose, the Germans brought in 327 prisoners, including 100 Jews. They were housed in a bunker dug into the side of the ravine; it had an iron latticework gate that was locked at night and was guarded by a sentry armed with a machine gun. The prisoners were bound in metal chains at night and were treated brutally; those who slackened were shot at once. A bulldozer exposed the mass graves, and the prisoners dragged the bodies to a cremation pyre composed of wooden logs, doused in gasoline, on a base of railroad ties. The bones that could not be incinerated were crushed, for which purpose the Nazis brought in tombstones from a Jewish cemetery nearby. The ashes were sifted to retrieve any gold or silver they might have contained.
As they completed their work on September 29, the prisoners discovered that they were about to be put to death. In a hasty consultation, some of them decided to attempt to escape that night. After midnight, 25 prisoners broke out, 15 escaped, and the remainder were shot immediately or murdered the next day. After the NazisΓÇÖ covering-up action, almost no trace remained of the site where, according to research of a Soviet commission, it is estimated that 100,000 people had been murdered.
