David Dushman, the last soldier who participated in the liberation of Auschwitz who remained alive, has died aged 98

David Dushman, the last living liberator from the Nazi Auschwitz extermination camp, died at dawn in Munich on Saturday at the age of 98“Abendzeitung” (AZ) daily reported today citing information from circles in the Jewish community.

On January 27, 1945, Dushman, only 21, a Soviet soldier of Jewish descent, demolished the electrified fence around the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp with his T-34 tank.

“When we got there, we saw the fence and these unfortunate people, we broke the fence with our tanks. We gave food to the prisoners and continued, ”Dushman recalled in his last interview. “They were standing there, all in prison uniform, only eyes, only eyes, very narrow, it was very terrible, very terrible. We didn’t know Auschwitz existed, ”he told Reuters.

“Every witness he leaves us is a loss, but David Dushman’s farewell is particularly painful” and “with him we lose a courageous, honest and sincere man”Charlotte Knobloch, president of the Israeli Religious Community of Munich and Upper Bavaria (IKG), told AZ, expressing her sadness.

He recalled that Dushman “was on the front lines when the National Socialist killing machine was crushed in 1945”. As the “hero of Auschwitz” he was one of the liberators of the concentration camps, “saved countless lives” and currently “he was one of the last who could speak about this event from his own experience. “, he added.

He celebrated his last birthday a few weeks ago and was named honorary member of the IKG on this occasion.

Members of the IKG board, who have agreed to give Dushman the rare honor as an honorary member, also see him as such. IKG Vice President Ariel Kligman he had suggested the price and called Dushman a role model for everyone. This sentence was approved in its entirety by the members of the board of directors. Knobloch spoke of a “Extraordinary personality” who is held in high esteem by the Jewish community.

David Dushman was a friend of Thomas Bach, President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC). The two met and enjoyed each other through the sport of fencing, Bach was an Olympic champion and David Dushman was the successful coach of the Russian national team. On a greeting card for his 95th birthday, the IOC president described Dushman as a “man of honor”.

Dushman and his family also experienced marginalization, defamation and exclusion in the former Soviet Union because they were Jews.

His father, a doctor, was a victim of the Stalinist purges and died in a labor camp north of the Arctic Circle.

Dushman, distinguished for her bravery with dozens of medals and decorations of honor, began a new life after the world competition and formed for nearly forty years, between 1952 and 1988, the women’s national fencing team of the USSR, formed elite athletes, as well as producing the best female athletes who won world titles and were inundated with medals in half a dozen Olympic Games.

In his role as a coach lived closely in 1972 during the Olympic Games in Munich, the kidnapping of eleven Israeli athletes by a Palestinian terrorist commando which left 17 dead.

After the eastern bloc borders opened, Dushman moved to Austria for a short time before arriving in Munich where he lived for the past 25 years and frequently attended schools as a witness to the war. , a very personal task that was close to his heart.

(with information from the EFE)

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