Born in Warsaw, Moshe Domb enlisted in the Lithuanian division of the Red Army, where one third of the soldiers were Jewish. Domb later recalled how, despite the antisemitic sentiment of the other soldiers and officers, "when the fighting commenced, the Jews proved their mettle." During the war, Domb was wounded and hospitalized. On return to his unit, he passed through many Lithuanian villages. "In bunkers we found the burnt bodies of Jews," he later wrote. "We found remnants of photographs, kitchen utensils, broken furniture… [here and there] we found a Jewish child or woman who had miraculously survived."

