- Auschwitz was released in the midst of the battles of the Wisla-Oder operation. Tell us, please, how did this happen?

- We advanced with battles, the Germans defended fiercely. We thought there was a military base behind the wire. They asked for artillery - they refused us. They said that behind the barbed wire the prisoner camp. They ordered to do without shootings. During the promotion, we saw people - in groups, in heaps outside the fence.

We approached, we saw people exhausted, exhausted. They wrapped themselves in the cold. Who was in the robe, who just threw on rags. They looked terrible. But it was felt that they all understood that the hell in which they had been all this time was over for them.

They looked into the hut. It was dark, the smell is very unpleasant. We felt that there were people on the bunks. But these were prisoners who, as they were, could not come out to meet us and see what was happening outside the barracks.

- What struck you especially?

- Even when we did not know that we were going to the camp, we felt a cinder. And although during the battles in our territory we got used to this smell, because somewhere the villages were burnt down, houses were burnt down somewhere, all the time this burnt accompanied us. But there was some special, caustic, heavy burnt.

My comrades from another regiment later told me that they had seen stacks ... The week before our arrival, the Germans blew up the crematorium ... Apparently, this situation developed that they blew up the crematorium, and the corpses were not yet removed in the camp. And these corpses were collected, laid logs, firewood. Then they poured gasoline on it and set it on fire. And apparently, when we approached the camp, we felt this smell of burning all the time.

- Have you seen the depots described in books and films, bales with hair?

- In the morning my soldier runs in: “Comrade Senior Lieutenant, there are huge warehouses here. And there are some things, some junk. ” Let's go look there. Then we did not understand what it is. And now, when all this is shown, we already understood what was happening.

We saw the bales. Then we learned that it was bales with female hair. Then we somehow did not attach importance. Well, bales with something. Maybe it was tow, maybe something else. There were shelves with not new children's shoes. Some other things.

When film documents began to show about it, then we understood everything. So the Germans all so neatly, meticulously folded, collected. Then I realized that it was female hair, that it was the shoes of dead children.

  • Hairbags of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp Destroyed Prisoners
  • RIA News
  • © Vladimir Yudin

- Who took care of the prisoners remaining in the camp?

- Our sanitary battalion approached the camp. He began to provide first aid to prisoners. Our kitchens came up. We undertook the catering of these prisoners.

- You probably have not encountered this before? How did comrades describe their emotions?

“We were always in such a situation, in such a combat situation, that death hung over us all the time.” Therefore, we could not indulge in any emotions or feelings, due to the situation itself. It was already our way of life, we lived in this: from one horror to another. But, of course, we had experiences.

It felt like each of us could be in the same situation these people were in. Of course, this was kind of terrifying.

- Today, Polish and Ukrainian politicians say that only Ukrainians freed Auschwitz ...

- When we knocked out the Germans from the village, behind which we saw the camp, my commander of a machine-gun platoon died there - Armenian, Grigoryan, Grisha, we called him. So nothing like that. My company was international. I had a foreman Kazakh. Such, in age. He already suited me as a father. He walked with a mustache. There were Ukrainians, Russians. And there were Georgians. So this, of course, is not a mistake, but some kind of intent, politicking.

About 60 heads of state came to the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. We flew there with Putny. The anniversary was celebrated very solemnly. They paid tribute to the liberators, the soldiers of the Red Army. They emphasized that the Red Army really made a decisive contribution. Putin recalled that the soviet crematoriums of Auschwitz, Treblinka, Majdanek and other camps were extinguished forever by Soviet soldiers. There were four of us in the group. The Polish president awarded us orders for services to Poland. For the liberation of Auschwitz. Very warm, very kindly it was all.

And the next anniversaries were already held in a completely different way. On the 65th anniversary, mainly the head of the European Parliament, Jerzy Buzek, already spoke. He set the tone there, so to speak. He said that for the European Parliament, Auschwitz is a symbol of the struggle for human rights. Then I thought, if we talk about the symbol, then this is, above all, a symbol of the shame of European culture, Europe, which allowed such a phenomenon. And on the other hand, it is a symbol of the triumph of the Soviet army. The triumph of the liberation army, which carried out the liberation mission in both Poland and Europe. Here we heard reproaches addressed to us. We have not been called liberators. Already such notes sounded that we are aggressors. That we did not bring freedom to Poland. That liberation did not give the Poles freedom. Then we felt a very sharp change in our attitude towards us.

  • Prisoners of Auschwitz in the first minutes after the liberation of the camp by the Soviet Army
  • RIA News
  • © B. Fishman

- Are you offended?

- No, you see, there is already no such resentment. Well, take offense at people? Well, here they are. They have already been brought up like that. Such information was put into their heads.

- In your opinion, are Western media worried about such a distortion of history?

“A journalist from Euronews approached our group on the 65th anniversary, and he once said so ardently:“ But you know, Mr. Martynushkin, that the students in Krakow, they say that the Americans released them. And not the Red Army, not the Russians. ” We were surprised. During the events, the fathers of the city of Krakow were asked how it happened. They tried to somehow make excuses.

In fact, such propaganda has been and is being carried on so far that liberation did not give freedom. That is, we had to give them some freedom of the American, English type. We gave them the freedom that was in our country. What is the most important thing? We saved their state, language, culture. Poland remained Poland, and did not become some kind of colony there, a space for German settlement. Hitler, attacking Poland, said that the Nazis needed living space, Poland should disappear, and the Polish people should be exterminated.

- And what was the attitude of the Soviet soldiers towards the Poles?

- When we entered Poland, we received just such parting words from our authorities, from our political leadership: to behave towards Poland as an ally, as a friendly people. With this attitude, we entered Poland.

- Why, in Poland itself, has the attitude to these events changed?

- I asked this question to the fathers of the city of Krakow, asked the vice marshal of the Polish Sejm: how could this happen in this period of time? We were connected for many years by friendship and suddenly we learn that such changes have occurred. I say: “Are you educating your youth like that now? Do you conduct such propaganda? Where do they get such knowledge from? Why did they begin to say that the Americans were releasing them? Who inspired them? ”

Schoolchildren are one thing, and adults are another. And they also have such information, such information. And with that they live now: that the Americans liberated them, and the Red Army are aggressors, these are invaders. Such, apparently, was the policy pursued in Poland and such propaganda, powerful propaganda.