The passengers on the subway did not look anything like my family - angular jaws, sharp noses, round heads, light eyes, thin and tall.  These were the descendents of the lucky - or what I fear, descendents of the ones who allowed and watched it all happen.

There are no mourners here - only ourselves and a circle of gypsy women begging for money. People walk across the lawns - the probable pathways to death - without a thought as to what occurred here 6 decades ago.

And for some reason, I don't think anyone cares.

-  Heidi   

From the Soviet monument, a bronze-like mess filled with Soviet masculinity, you take a cement path - past the Metro to the first monument dedicated to the "children who were shot at Babi Yar, 1941". The only acknowledgement that the victims were Jewish is a subtly sculpted yamakah on one of the figures - so slight, so obviously obscured.

The path is long and one becomes anxious as to whether the menorah monument has been missed.  Mothers and grandmothers are taking walks with prams. We stop to ask where the Menorah Monument is and the people do not know.  I take a deep breath - it suddenly dawns on me that for the current inhabitants of the park, the space is just that, a park, with a soccer field.  The very reason this location was put on the map for me, is merely incidental to them.

A very old man in his 80's, 90's walks past.  Where I would normally avert my eyes at the appropriate distance, I look straight into his gray eyes for some sign of remorse.  He was 20 or 30 when at all happened.  What would have been his role? I shudder.

- Heidi