00:00He said he had a story to tell, a story he had to tell.
00:13I was in Moscow last June for the Reagan-Gorbachev summit meeting.
00:17He was a stocky little bulldog of a man, a Russian who barged into our hotel demanding to see an American reporter.
00:27I agreed to meet him in a park.
00:30He arrived wearing old medals and clutching an old shopping bag.
00:39My name, he said, is Dr. Nikita Zakharovych-Oseyev.
00:45I was a dentist in the army in World War II.
00:51The medal on his right lapel is for being wounded in combat.
00:55The scar over his right eye, he said, was a little memory from the Gestapo.
01:00We were all prisoners of the Germans, he said, at a big concentration camp on the Oder River.
01:08There were 8,000 American soldiers there, captured at Tobruk in North Africa.
01:12The camp was laid out this way.
01:19The Gestapo barracks was here.
01:23The Americans were here.
01:26The Russians were here.
01:27Each of the Americans received every Friday five kilos of food from the Red Cross, but the Germans gave us only one liter of turnip soup per day and one liter of water.
01:39We were dying by the tens and then by the hundreds.
01:46The Americans could see this.
01:47I was the only dentist in the camp, so I could sometimes talk to the Americans.
01:54Two American brothers, Volchik, Michael Volchik, a sergeant, and his brother Peter, came to me and suggested a plot by which the Americans would smuggle food to us.
02:03By what method did the Americans deliver these parcels to the Russians?
02:10At night, after the century passed, they would throw them over the wire.
02:15It was only 8 meters.
02:17Those American boys were strong.
02:18They could throw them 100 meters.
02:20Was it dangerous for the Americans to do what they did?
02:23Of course, they would have killed us.
02:26They executed people for less.
02:32When the plot was discovered, they called all 8,000 Americans out in the hot sun, and four Gestapo men went down the line, demanding to know the name of the Russian who organized the plot.
02:44For three hours, they stood there.
02:47They stood in absolute silence.
02:49Now, if they're alive, they'll know.
02:51Not one American betrayed me.
02:55Now, because of you guys, if they're alive, they'll know I remember.
02:59This dentist whom they loved and whom they did not betray.
03:06He took an oath, Dr. Asaev said, that after the war, he would find a way to thank those Americans.
03:14What good men they were, he said.
03:17He gave us a list of the names he remembered.
03:23When we returned to the United States, we found some of the people on that list.
03:29Dr. Sidney Brockman is retired from his job at the health department in San Antonio, Texas.
03:35We asked him about his relationship with Dr. Asaev in the prison camp.
03:39It was a very close relationship.
03:43We all had a tremendous respect for the man because we knew that the Russian prisoners were having things mighty rough.
03:52Yerima is a New Yorker.
03:54William Yerima is a retired New York City police detective living now in Ontario.
04:00He helped smuggle the food.
04:02It was a terrific operation.
04:04Terrific.
04:04They threw a few cigarettes to the guard.
04:08The guard walked one way while you were bribing the other way.
04:12Angelo Spinelli was in that camp.
04:15Incredibly, he smuggled in a camera and took pictures there.
04:18Put on a German uniform.
04:19This picture is of the Russian prisoners turned out for roll call.
04:23They were all starving.
04:24All of them were starving.
04:25When the Russian prisoners would die in their barracks, their comrades would not report their death to the Germans.
04:35They would bring them out and stand them up for roll call so that their bodies would be counted in the count for rations.
04:45One of the pictures Spinelli made was of a Russian prisoner who tried to pick up a cigarette Americans had thrown to him and was shot to death by a guard.
04:56In such a deadly place as Stalag 3B, why did the Americans take dangerous chances night after night to smuggle food to Dr. Asayef?
05:06The question asked all these years later released a flow of memory and emotion.
05:14He was an ally, so naturally we wanted to help him and the other Russians.
05:20We actually were repaid many times by having that feeling of self-satisfaction, knowing that you helped someone who was in need.
05:41It's too bad we don't have more of that in the world today.
05:46On that park bench in Moscow, an old soldier opened a package of memoirs.
05:52Oh, these are my darlings, he said.
05:56These are my treasures.
05:58Among his treasures was a metal cigarette case inscribed from the American Dr. Brockman to the Russian Dr. Asayef.
06:09He didn't have anything else to give me.
06:12A prisoner is a prisoner.
06:13In faraway San Antonio, Texas, Dr. Sidney Brockman found something he too has kept all these years.
06:23It was given to me by Dr. Asayef.
06:27It is a cigarette box.
06:32And inside...
06:33This little plaque, which says...
06:42Signe Brockman from NSSAF.
06:48I have not believed in being a professional prisoner.
06:52It's over.
06:53It's done with.
06:55I want to forget it if I can.
07:00But I can't.
07:01Can you please ring for me a number in Moscow?
07:06After 43 years, two old comrades-in-arms were united by telephone.
07:13I had written to him shortly after the war in 45 when I got home, and my letter came back.
07:23So I had assumed that he had perished.
07:26William!
07:27Yeah.
07:28Ah, William!
07:29Yeah, huh?
07:30William, William, William, Dr. Asayef said.
07:33William, write to me.
07:35Write to me, he said, and I will respond to you with all my heart.
07:41Yeah.
07:41That's what I'm saying.
07:42It's a different type of, uh, of, uh, weeping.
07:48It's, uh, uh, actually, it's one of joy and happiness.
07:58I thought he had been dead.
08:00Last month, William Jorema went to the Soviet Union to find an old friend and found him.
08:11There he is.
08:12And Dr. Asayef's vow that someday he would find a way to say thank you to those Americans,
08:18his promise to himself of 43 years ago, was finally kept.
08:23I saw him last in 1945 in Luckenwald.
08:40Oh, it's so, it's so nice to see you.
08:44I should say.
08:45According to him, we, my group say that several hundreds of Russians.
09:07There were only actually about eight of us that did the operation.
09:11We were supplying food to them.
09:14And they didn't come.
09:16And, uh, the less that knew about it, the better off we were.
09:20It all happened a long time ago.
09:22They were young men thrown together by circumstance, a Russian army dentist,
09:27and a handful of American GIs who risked their lives to save his.
09:32He wanted them to know he remembers.
09:34Souvenir.
09:35Souvenir.
09:36Souvenir.
09:37They remember, too.
09:40Brachman.
09:41Fromm.
09:42I appreciate his remembering me.
09:44I have never forgotten him.
09:48I will never forget him.
09:51Uh, what more can I say?
09:55I will never forget him.
09:55Uh, what more can I say?
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