Soviet infantry crossing a river in Poland, 1944: WASHINGTON (VR)-- Andrew Hiller resumes his conversation with Bernard Storch, picking up the story when Storch goes into action on the Eastern Front in WWII. Bernard's first combat mission was a qualifed success, 2,000 soldiers were wounded, but the hill was taken. Shortly thereafter, the Germans forced a retreat. Storch says it is the only time his unit ever retreated.
Bad water, did however, remove him from the field. Dysentery nearly cost him his life. When he recovered, he re-enlisted and was assigned to an infantry unit where he served for the rest of the war. In 1944, he began the push into Poland before reaching Germany. He helped liberate a number of termination camps, wading through ash that he didn't realize was human remains. He says duty kept him going, but what he saw prevented sleep in those days. "They kept a people overnight in a church believe it or not. They got undressed in that church and we found out later after the fact that they had buses there from the christians that they had German buses, they put the people in the bus naked. I was told seventy people... they put seventy people in the bus and would transport them into an area, I don't know how far, but fifteen minutes away they said and by the time they reached that place everybody in the bus was killed." Source: http://sputniknews.com/
