Utica Observer-Dispatch: Local WWII veteran visits SUNY Poly to
recall horrors of war
Published:
Friday, April 3, 2015 - 12:13
I wanted to share the following article with you...
Local WWII veteran visits SUNY Poly to recall horrors of war
[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="650"]
World War II veteran Alan Moskin speaks about his experience
serving in the United States Army during the World War II
Remembrance Day event at SUNY Polytechnic Institute in Marcy
Thursday, April 2, 2015. "It (the war) left a mark on my soul,
my heart," he said. "How did this happen? Why did this happen?
How did the civilized world let something like this happen?"
(Tina Russell / Observer-Dispatch )[/caption]
For 50 years, Alan Moskin remained silent about his combat
service in World War II in fear of bringing back the nightmares
of what he saw.
Perhaps the nightmares would have been the day he lost his best
friend who was just trying to help out the new soldiers, or the
time he was forced to kill a teenage boy who was part of the
Hitler Youth that he said could have been no older than 15 years
old with blonde hair and blue eyes.
“Being in combat is like being in hell and back,” Moskin said
as he addressed a crowd Thursday afternoon during the World War
II Remembrance Day event at the Field House at SUNY Polytechnic
Institute.
Moskin, a member of the 66th infantry, 71st division of the
General George Patton’s 3rd Army, described his silence as if he
took a key and locked up part of his brain.
“I didn’t want to find the key,” he said.
In the past, when a friend asked him to speak to students about
his war experience, he was reluctant.
Prior to speaking Thursday, Moskin had the opportunity to meet
Holocaust survivor Helen Sperling. After being introduced to
each other at
Thursday’s
event, Sperling hugged Moskin and thanked him for his service.
One of the most horrific events he encountered during his
service was the liberation of the Gunskirchen Concentration Camp
in Austria.
“We heard about a camp for Jews. Camp for Jews? We didn’t know
anything about a camp for Jews,” Moskin said.
As they approached the camp, he recalled the “offensive,
nauseating stench … (the camp) was the most horrific thing.
Piles of skeletons … cheeks hollowed out,” he said. “I remember
they were chanting prayers”
As the holocaust survivors approached him, Moskin found himself
blurting out a German phrase – “I am also a Jew.”
Moskin said the Holocaust “was a crime against everything that
was just and moral. To me these were human beings
not just Jews.”
He also recalled something his friend said that best described
the concentration camp — “It was like the devil himself took a
vacation and came to Gunskirchen.”
