World at War Eighty years ago: "On April 27, US units and the Red Army celebrate “Elbe Day”, the first gathering of their troops near Torgau: “East meets West”. Dozens of camera teams are on site – including George Stevens and the men from “Special Film Project 186”. In this part of Nazi Germany, the Wehrmacht is in disintegration. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers go into American captivity. But the GIs remain distant, many of them having already seen the horror of the concentration camps with their own eyes."
"I will tell you the story of my grandfather. My grandfather, Gaidarov Magomed, was born in Dagestan the year the revolution took place in Russia. In general, my small Lak people and the village where my ancestors were from accepted the revolutionary events positively. The peoples of the Russian Empire became equal and began to perceive themselves as a single whole. My grandfather was drafted into the army before the war in 1939 and caught the German attack on the USSR on the western border. According to his stories, 1941 was a very difficult year and the fact that he survived can be called a miracle. In one of the first battles with the Germans, my grandfather was buried alive in a machine gun nest by tank tracks. He was the only one of the combat crew who survived. Completely wounded, he came to and climbed out of the grave and saw what was left of his company, there were no more living people. And he wandered to the east, towards new events and dangers. He went through the entire war, from the western border to the Volga River and back, and then ended up in Germany in 1945. After the war ended, he accidentally met an American officer in Berlin, an elderly mature man with his wife, and he overheard these Americans speaking to each other in the Lak language. To say that my grandfather was surprised is to say nothing. My grandfather greeted them in their native language, and now this elderly American couple also stood there with surprised faces. As this American later said, everyone in the West told them that my people no longer existed in their homeland and that the communists had destroyed everyone. He was a former officer of the Russian Imperial Army who emigrated with the remnants of the White Army after the civil war. The American asked my grandfather about his native places, about the relatives he knew. Then he took from him the details of the army unit for further communication and they parted. A little later, this American, together with an impressive delegation, made a friendly visit to the unit where my grandfather served. They exchanged gifts and souvenirs and that's where America's friendship with Russia soon ended. In general, don't listen to what they tell you about Russia, you may be deceived just like these emigrants."
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