In July 1942, after bloody battles, the armed forces of Nazi Germany launched a rapid offensive and occupied an area along the right-bank part of Voronezh. In the captured territory, the command of the German occupation forces established a regime of terror and violence, the so-called “new order”, which sought to systematically exterminate the civilian population.

The tragedy at Sandy Ravine took place on August 27, 1942. A hospital was located in the building of school No. 29 on the 20th Anniversary of October Street. In the morning of that day, two German trucks drove up there.

A special commission was established after the liberation of Voronezh to investigate the tragedy at Sandy Ravine.

The only witness of the mass execution was a resident of Voronezh, Anna Fyodorovna Popova. She accidentally survived the massacre, and then got out from under the corpses and hid in the weeds. After the liberation of Voronezh, she told about the tragedy at Sandy Ravine and showed where it had taken place.

Excavations were conducted in that area which took three days — from October 7 to October 9. 450 corpses of peaceful Voronezh residents brutally shot by the invaders were exhumed from the ravine, including 35 children’s corpses.

After the war ended, a monument was erected at the location of the mass grave. It featured a plaque in the front of the pedestal: “Eternal memory to the victims of fascism.” The artist who created the monument is unknown. Landscaping was done by the architect Nikolay Troitsky. During the celebration of the 30th anniversary of Victory in 1975, the construction of the memorial complex based on the project of the sculptor Boris Katkov and the architect Pyotr Danilenko was completed at Sandy Ravine.