By Becca Dierschow, Preservation and Research Coordinator, Historic Denver
In 1961, Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko stunned the world with a haunting poem, Babi Yar. His unflinching narrative reflects on Yevtushenko’s visit to Babi Yar, the site of a massacre of over 37,000 Ukrainian Jews outside of Kiev in 1941. By 1943, Babi Yar was the final resting place of between 100,000 and 150,000 victims of Nazi atrocities. In his poem, Yevtushenko mourns the overwhelming loss of life, but also criticizes the deafening silence of the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the war.
The name of Babi Yar, once spoken only by Ukrainians, suddenly became emblematic of Soviet obfuscation and outright dismissal of the events of the Holocaust. Yevtushenko’s poem was controversial in Russia because it broke with official Soviet policy by acknowledging the specific and targeted plight faced by Jews during the war. Around the world, however, his poem became a call to action, remembrance and memorial.
In Denver, this call was heard by the Colorado Committee of Concern for Soviet Jewry (CCCSJ)—a group formed to advocate for the rights of Soviet Jews. In 1970, members of the group formed the Babi Yar Park Foundation to coordinate the foundation and construction of a memorial park in southeast Denver. Local Denver citizens Ruth Ginsberg and Alan Gass headed up the Park Foundation and successfully petitioned City Council in 1970 to set aside land at South Havana Street and Yale Avenue for the memorial. Noted author and activist Elie Wiesel dedicated the land, while Yevtushenko wrote a letter to the foundation to thank them for their initiative. Between 1970 and 1983, the Foundation raised donations and commissioned the well-known landscape architecture firm of Lawrence Halprin & Associates to design the project.
Lawrence Halprin was one of the foremost landscape architects at the time. His designs, found across the country, are noteworthy for their large water features, terraced landscapes and use of poured concrete. Some of his notable projects include the United Nations Plaza, the Nicollet Mall in Minneapolis, the Ira Keller Fountain and Lovejoy Fountain Park in Portland, and, later in his career, the Roosevelt Memorial in Washington, D.C., and the Haas Promenade in Jerusalem. Denver was already home to a second Halprin project—Skyline Park. Skyline was built in 1972 when cities struggled to bring residents back downtown.
At Babi Yar Park, Halprin’s colleague Satoru Nishita was principal designer. A California native, Nishita spent his high school years in the Poston, Arizona internment camp. For Nishita, while his family’s internment was a grave injustice, it also put him in proximity to Japanese-Americans of all walks of life, including doctors, lawyers and architects. For the son of a garlic farmer, this exposure to different professions encouraged him to seek a different path for himself. After graduating from Poston High School, he spent two years in the U.S. Army and then enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley. He graduated in 1951 with a degree in Landscape Architecture. After his graduation, he joined Lawrence Halprin’s firm, where he was elevated to a principal in 1964. Contemporaries of Nishita noted his remarkable ability to “create meaningful places for people.” His ability to create landscapes that evoke feelings and memories is evident at the Babi Yar Park.
The Babi Yar Park location was chosen in part because the topography and ecology bear close resemblance to the ravine outside of Kiev where so many perished. At the park, a natural ravine is punctuated by trees, while open spaces of rolling hills and prairie grass encourage visitors to pause and contemplate the tragedy.
Nishita’s vision leads visitors through a pair of entrance stones which funnel them down a path to a wooden bridge and into the Grove of Remembrance. The wooden bridge, with its narrow width and tall sides, evokes the cattle cars that transported thousands of Nazi victims to their untimely end. The grove of crabapple trees represents the lives lost at Babi Yar. Returning to the entrance, visitors find a marble tree stump—a symbol of a community felled by violence. The path taken by visitors is gradually revealed to be a Star of David.
In the decade after the park’s official dedication in 1983, the memorial fell back into obscurity. Denver’s Parks and Recreation department maintained the park and the Babi Yar Park Foundation continued some remembrance programming. Eventually, however, pathways became overgrown, interactive interpretation broke down and was never repaired. In 2005, the Park Foundation disbanded. Park programming and long-term stewardship was turned over to the Mizel Museum. The Mizel Museum, dedicated to telling the story of Denver’s Jewish community, embarked upon a project to revitalize the park in partnership with Denver Parks and Recreation.
This revitalization began in 2009 when local landscape architecture firm Mundus Bishop created a Master Plan for the park. In 2011, Mundus Bishop then led the renovation project, rehabilitating the original memorials and constructing new spaces for contemplation and refuge. The results won a Merit award from the American Society of Landscape Architects (ASLA). In the award brief, ASLA notes that Mundus Bishop “finished the thought” started by Satoru Nishita in the 1970s.
By walking the park and visiting the memorials in sequence, visitors re-enact Yevtushenko’s 1961 protest against silence and obfuscation. As Mayor William McNichols wrote in his proclamation establishing the park, Babi Yar Park is a place to “demonstrate a unified protest” against Nazi atrocities. The park allows the community to bear witness to the atrocities perpetrated outside of Kiev and ensure they are never forgotten.
Historic Denver is committed to enhancing the city’s unique identity through education, activism and stewardship on behalf of local heritage and historic places. By exploring the dynamic between past and present, we shape a stronger community for the future and inspire engaged citizens. To learn more about Historic Denver and to become a member, please visit historicdenver.org. For more on Denver’s City Beautiful Movement, pick up Tom Noel and Barbara Norgren’s Denver, the City Beautiful (Historic Denver: Denver CO, 1987).
