Oksana Bashuk Hepburn: Ukrainians forgotten heroes of Auschwitz
Holocaust survivors greet each others as they arrive to pay tribute to fallen comrades in the former Auschwitz concentration camp in Oswiecim, Poland, on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camp on Jan. 27, 2015.
Jan. 27 marked the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. Tanks of the First Ukrainian Front broke through the enclosures 70 years ago. Twenty-year-old Ihor Pobirchenko was the first to confront the unimaginable horror perpetrated by the Nazis. Atop a tank, he saw people hanging from the barbed-wire enclosure. They were alive, but barely; the fence was not electrified. The tanks rolled in.