"Undeliverable" WW2 Polish Communist Awards to Soviets

[Rick Research]

This document for the Oder, Neisse, Baltic Campaign Medal, to Soviet Lieutenant General Pyotr Iliich Rumyantsev issued in Warsaw in 1947, remained filed away in the Soviet bureaucracy with boxes of other "fraternal Socialist" awards as part of a huge cache of "undeliverable" awards and documents, still languishing almost half a century later when Everything Fell Apart, according to the dealer I got these from.

As a lieutenant General, Rumyantsev was either a Corps Commander or an Army level staff officer.

Whups! Where'd he go???? I think we can pretty much guess, can't we?

[Rick Research]

Here's the inside. The Cyrillic transcription of name and award designation are typical of these.

[Rick Research]

Soviet General-major ("General of Brigade" in Polish) Feodor Oleinik earned the Polish Medal for Victory and Freedom (sic) per bestowal of 25 June 1946, but he was "lost" too.

Note the Cyrillic clerical doodles to match recipient and award with issue of this document and medal: bestowal that never occurred. Franz Kafka would have appreciated the bitter irony of vital file space being occupied for half a century for thousands of servicemen who had just survived the war-- but did NOT survive their own regime's bloodily won "peace."

Whups! Another "lost" General! Very casual with their Senior Command Staff, weren't they?

[Stijn David]

nice ones

Hello,


Thanks Rick for showing these award documents + sharing the interesting stories , i must say the Russians seems to be masters in letting people dissapear => sad but true history .


Greetings,