Ukraine on Saturday marked the 66th anniversary of the Nazi massacre of tens of thousands of Jews and others at a Kiev ravine called Babi Yar, with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko vowing to promote tolerance and stem xenophobia.

The Babi Yar massacre has come to epitomize the decimation of Ukraine's Jews and be seen as a precursor to the gas chambers of the Holocaust.

The Nazis began the killings on Sept. 29, 1941, and in the course of just two days they machine-gunned at least 33,771 people, according to their own records. Bodies of victims choked the ravine. In the ensuing months, the number of people killed at Babi Yar grew to more than 100,000, and included Roma, or Gypsies, as well as other Kiev residents and Red Army prisoners.