On this day in 1942, the Nazis liquidated the Kharkiv Ghetto located in Kharkiv, Ukraine. Over the course of the next three days, the Ghetto’s remaining 15,000 Jews were murdered in a ravine nearby called Drobitsky Yar. On October 24, 1941, the Nazis began their occupation of Kharkiv. A little less than a month later, buildings that housed German military operations along with other organizations were obliterated. The Germans blamed these acts on the Jews and this resulted in the killing of 1,000 hostages.On December 14, the remaining Jewish hostages were given orders to file into barracks. The barracks were mangled, lacking windows and doors, and provided no heat. Food was forbidden and water was only distributed on a restricted basis. Many Jews succumbed to disease and starvation, and at the end of the year, 100 more were killed. Kharkiv’s liquidation took place over a six-day period. The Jews were taken to Drobitsky Yar where, based on figures provided by the Soviet Commission to Investigate Nazi Crimes, some 15,000 were murdered. It wasn’t until August 23, 1943, that Kharkiv was liberated. The liquidation of the ghetto preceded the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, during Operation Barbarossa, beginning on June 22 of the same year and upending the Hitler-Stalin Pact signed two years prior. It served as the first Axis invasion of the Eastern front during the Second World War. The latter half of Operation Barbarossa included the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, beginning in September 1941, and unleashed the full force of the Einsatzkommando units that began systematically murdering Jews by gunshots, gas vans, and death pits.