https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-57379704 BBC Homepage * Skip to content * Accessibility Help * Your account * Home * News * Sport * Reel * Worklife * Travel * Future * Culture * MenuMore Search * Home * News * Sport * Reel * Worklife * Travel * Future * Culture * Music * TV * Weather * Sounds Close menu BBC News Menu * Home * Coronavirus * Video * World * US & Canada * UK * Business * Tech * Science * Stories * Entertainment & Arts More * Health * In Pictures * Reality Check * World News TV * Newsbeat * Long Reads * World * Africa * Asia * Australia * Europe * Latin America * Middle East David Dushman, last surviving Auschwitz liberator, dies aged 98 Published 23 hours ago Share close Share page Copy link About sharing Related Topics * The Holocaust David Dushman at a memorial service in Ukraine in 2015image copyright Getty Images image captionDavid Dushman went on to become a successful international fencer David Dushman, the last surviving soldier who took part in the liberation of the Nazi death camp at Auschwitz, has died at 98. Dushman, a Jewish Red Army veteran who later became an Olympic fencer, died in Germany on Saturday. As a 21-year-old soldier, he used his tank to mow down the camp's electric fence on 27 January 1945, helping to set its prisoners free. About 1.1 million people were murdered at Auschwitz, most of them Jews. "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," Dushman told Reuters last year. "They were standing there, all of them in [prisoner] uniforms, only eyes, only eyes, very narrow - that was very terrible, very terrible," he said. Dushman has said he was unaware Auschwitz existed during the war, only learning about the atrocities carried out there in the years after. * How Auschwitz became centre of Nazi Holocaust * 'I survived two concentration camps' One of just 69 men in his 12,000-strong division to survive the war, Mr Dushman suffered serious injuries during the conflict, But he went on to become the Soviet Union's top fencer, and later one of the world's greatest fencing coaches, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) said. media captionAuschwitz: Drone footage from Nazi concentration camp He trained the Soviet Union's women's fencing team for over 30 years, and witnessed the deadly terror attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics in 1972. "We heard the gunshots and the hum of the helicopters above us. We lived right across from the Israeli team. We and all the other athletes were horrified," he told Abendzeitung newspaper in 2018. His friend, IOC chief and fellow fencer Thomas Bach, paid tribute. "When we met in 1970, he immediately offered me friendship and counsel, despite Mr Dushman's personal experience with World War II and Auschwitz, and he being a man of Jewish origin," said Mr Bach, who is German. "This was such a deep human gesture that I will never ever forget it." Until the age of 94, he was still going almost daily to his fencing club there to give lessons, the IOC said. Related Topics * The Holocaust * World War Two More on this story * TripAdvisor sorry for Auschwitz review error Published 7 May * How Auschwitz became centre of Nazi Holocaust Published 23 January 2020 * 'I have to explain the Holocaust to young people' Published 19 April 2018 Top Stories * US approves first new Alzheimer's drug in 20 years There has been controversy around aducanumab, which targets the cause rather than the symptoms. 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