This Holocaust survivor donates $1 million to support American soldiers who saved him

Bernard Darty is in his eighties, but he's never forgotten the gift of freedom and who gave it to him.

A native of Paris, Darty was just seven during the Nazi occupation of France. When French police led a roundup of Jews in 1942, his parents fled their apartment for a relative's house on the outskirts of Paris. With the police on their heels, his father hid in a grocery store. After Bernard was safe at the home, his mother and brother set out to find his father and get him to safety, but his mother was detained. She perished in Auschwitz. 

So Bernard and his brother spent the next two years in hiding, shuffled from house to house on the outskirts of Paris. Food and safe shelter were scarce commodities, scarcer by the day. 

Then came the Normandy invasion in June 1944. Darty remembers the American soldiers giving out sweets, smiling, kindly saviors for him and the other war-weary children of France. He knew these men had saved them. He has never forgotten that. 

Now a retired European businessman, he and his wife leave their home in France each year to winter in South Florida. He has decided to give back to the people who gave him the chance to enjoy his life - the American soldier. He told Fox News, "And so this year I’m saying “thank you” to the American soldiers of the 1940s by donating $1 million to organizations serving wounded American veterans today. My donation to the Wounded Warrior Project and the Services for Armed Forces program of the American Red Cross is my way of giving back, thanking previous generations of warriors for helping me. I hope this inspires others to give back as well."

A wonderful thank you, indeed.