If you're hearing this, it is because you are not yet a patron of the podcast. Patrons get ad free access and from time to time extended episodes or bonus bits that never made into the main show. You can find out more at patreon.com slash WW2 podcasts. It is just me putting the whole thing together and a pound or two from each of you really does make a difference.

So head to patreon.com slash WW2 podcast.

This country is at war with Germany.

We shall go on to the end.

I remember the sheets of flame which came up and almost blinded us from our guns.

How does a Canadian end up fighting in the Red Army during the Second World War?

My guest today is Scott Berry and we're going to be telling the remarkable story of his relative, Morris,

a Canadian citizen who found himself caught in Eastern Europe when war broke out. Drafted

into the Red Army in 1941, he fought against the German invasion. He survived a brutal prisoner of war camp,

escaped, joined the resistance in Nazi-occupied Ukraine and was later forced back into the Soviet

army for the final push into Germany. It's a story that takes us through some of the most

complex and brutal parts of the Eastern Front.

Scott has explored Morris's experience in three books, Army of Worn Souls,

under the Nazi Hill and Walking Out of War.

Scott is also the host of the podcast Beyond Barbarossa,

which looks at the history of the Eastern Front in the Second World War.

Scott, welcome to the podcast. I should really say welcome back. So who is Morris Burry? How does a man born in Montreal end up in rural Poland in 1939 before the war? This is it. It's a very

complicated story. So getting into it, it requires some

backgrounds. So Morrisbury's parents, Mikhail and Tecla, came from what they would consider

Ukraine. They were Ukrainian, but the part of Ukraine they were living in, the western Ukraine near

Telnapple was part of Poland before the Second World War.

They emigrated to Canada, moved to Montreal.

...