Author: USC Shoah Foundation via YouTube
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Today marks the anniversary of D-Day, the day Allied troops landed on the Normandy coast in France. This historic invasion marked a turning point in World War II. In this clip, Bernie Melnick recalls witnessing the ships and planes moving across and over the English Channel.

USC Shoah Foundation’s Visual History Archive, which houses 56,000+ recorded interviews with genocide survivors and witnesses, categorizes interviewees by experience, such as “Jewish Survivor,” “Political Prisoner,” and “Liberator (World War II).” Most interviewees fit neatly into one category, but Bernie Melnick, a Jewish American soldier-turned-prisoner-of-war, proved more difficult to place (Bernie’s interview is now archived in the “Jewish Survivor” category).

""Everybody felt strong. Everybody had [this] adrenaline going through them.”

Bernie Melnick was born to Orthodox Jewish parents in New York City in 1924. During the Second World War, Bernie was drafted to serve in the United States military, where he joined the 28th Infantry Division in 1943. During the Battle of the Bulge, on December 16, 1944 in Munshausen, Luxembourg, he was captured as a prisoner and sent to the Stalag IX-B prisoners of war camp. Because he was Jewish, Bernie was later sent to the Berga/Elster concentration camp, where he and hundreds of other prisoners were forced to dig tunnels in inhumane conditions. He was liberated by United States armed forces in April 1945 after surviving a two week death march.

Bernie recorded his testimony in 1997. He passed away in 2006.

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About USC Shoah Foundation:
USC Shoah Foundation – The Institute for Visual History and Education develops
empathy, understanding and respect through testimony, using its Visual History Archive of more than 55,000 video testimonies, academic programs and partnerships across USC and 170 universities, and award-winning IWitness education program. USC Shoah Foundation’s interactive programming, research and materials are accessed in museums and universities, cited by government leaders and NGOs, and taught in classrooms around the world. Now in its third decade, USC Shoah Foundation reaches millions of people on six continents from its home at the University of Southern California.

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