As German troops entered in the Soviet territory in 1941, Jews were massacred in mass shootings hence the name. For instance, in a place called Babi Yar in Ukraine, about 30 000 Jews were mass murdered by shooting in three days in September 1941. The acts of murder were witnessed by locals, who sometimes watched the murder, as a sporting event and for instance by German army soldiers thus widening the circle of bystanders, and witnesses.