This brave soldier saw first-hand the savagery of Nazi tyranny.
May his memory be for a blessing – and may he inspire us all to fight the evil of tyranny at every turn.
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‘As a 21-year-old soldier for the Soviet Union, Dushman drove his tank through the electric barbed-wire fence surrounding the Nazi death camp on Jan. 27, 1945, to make a pathway for ground troops in the 322nd Rifle Division. What he saw would haunt him for 77 years. The sight of skeletal survivors pierced his heart. “They staggered out of the barracks, sat and lay among the dead.”
“When we arrived we saw the fence and these unfortunate people, we broke through the fence with our tanks. We gave food to the prisoners and continued,” he told Reuters. They were standing there, all of them in (prisoner) uniforms, only eyes, only eyes, very narrow – that was very terrible, very terrible.”
“We had not known that Auschwitz existed,” he added.”