Tag #154460 - Interview #97841 (Hertz Rogovoy )

We moved forward with the battles. These were the times of my hardest recollections. We came to one village, occupied by Germans and started squeezing them out of there. I saw a German running ahead of me, and I understood that I could chase him down. I was shooting and running, and because of my running I missed all the time. The German came to the destroyed house. I could see the basement. I approached him, when he was walking down to the basement. He might have wanted to hide there. I spent all cartridges left in my disk. The German fell down. His back was torn to pieces. When he was dying he turned to me, and I saw his face with a bristle. I think he was an elderly man of 40-45. Before that, I never shot from a close distance. I shot figures from remote distance without seeing the faces. And here I saw the face of a dying man, killed by me… and this face is in front of me even now… Is he an enemy? He is the same poor, emaciated soldier. Yes, I shot the German, and killed a man. It was the first time in my life. I was sick. Of course later on I had to kill Germans from close distance, too. But such an acute reaction never occurred to me again. I would never forget that first time.