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Article about: I'm trying to identify Moshe Gildenman's awards. He was a Polish(/Ukrainian) partisan conscripted into the Red Army. He was an engineer by training. From what I know of his biography it is u

  1. #1
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    I'm trying to identify Moshe Gildenman's awards. He was a Polish(/Ukrainian) partisan conscripted into the Red Army. He was an engineer by training. From what I know of his biography it is unlikely that his awards would be anything other than Soviet and Polish.

    So far this is what I've got:
    Order of the Patriotic War II degree
    Order of the Red Star
    Medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-1945."
    Medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" [first class?]
    The Order of the Grünwald Cross (Poland) [3rd class likey given the brightness compared to the other medals?]
    The Partisan's Cross (Poland)
    The Victory and Freedom Medal (Poland)

    Small – lapel pin : ?? Sapper badge? Soviet? Polish military eagle - This appears between the 2 Soviet stars in the right picture.
    Unknown ribbon

    I'm mostly interested if anybody has any ideas about the small pin and the ribbon bar.

    I'll also be inquiring elswhere about the uniform, but if anybody wants to chime in about it too that would be great. - It doesn't seem typical for a Red Army officer. I'd be interested to see more detailed photos of such uniforms in wear.
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  3. #2

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    Biber,

    Quick question. Are you familiar with Gildenman's post WW2 service? Did he remain in the red army or see service in some form with the Polish army? Might provide another avenue to research badge and uniform if you know his full service.

    The existing photo of small badge over his left pocket isn't clear enough for me to make anything out of it. My opinion on the uniform. It has more of an eastern block look as opposed to Red Army.

    See what others have to say.

    Gerry C.

    From the still HOT High Plains of the Midwest U.S.A.

  4. #3
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    Re - post war service.

    I don't know much of anything about his post war service. He was from Korets which was just inside the Volhynian Polish pre-war border with Soviet Ukraine, so he has Polish ethnic roots, though I've seen nothing mentioning it in his writings. (of which I only have a modest knowledge - Yiddish is a very tough and slow slog for me, being self taught and approaching it from fair college German), Hence the Polish awards. He made it to Berlin with the Red Army (when is not clear to me) as a captain, and I've seen a reference to him advising a reconstruction project in Poland after the war. After the war he was in Lodz then in Paris before emigrating to Palestine/Israel in about '51. He died in '57.

    About the Uniform [moderator: if you insist I'll open a thread in the appropriate uniform] - I haven't seen any eastern block jackets like it - open pique-lapel four pockets. Polish open collar tunics I've seen have notched lapels. Below is another post war picture (ca. '45/6 of him with his son, both in uniform.
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  5. #4
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    Might the small pin be a "military excellence" pin? Not sure about the size. Is anyone familiar with them and can tell if the small pin in the pictures vaguely resembles one? I could imagine it wouldn't be beyond the realm of possibility that Gildenman was awarded one for excellence in combat engineering.

  6. #5

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    Too small for an excellence badge.

  7. #6
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    Thanks, I suspected as much about the excellence badge. Good to confirm though. I seems to look more and more like it might be a polish pin. I'll take it over to the polish forum and see what they can come up with over there.

    Could the ribbon bar in the image of him wearing the tunic be a wound bar? (if only there was a clearer image) Though in the image it looks like it may have devices (stars?) on it. I know absolutely nothing about them, are devices even applied to them?

    EDIT:
    I think I answered my own question - Polish wound decorations were bars with horizontal stripes and star devices denoting number of wounds.

    Thank you all to offered insight and inspiration. I appreciate your patience with my inquiries. I am very much out of my element here.

  8. #7
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    Following up after the fact -

    It has been a while and I'm still trying to identify the small pin that Gildenman is wearing. I have since found another version of him wearing his medals on a civilian shirt. It offers a bit more detail. From what can be made out does it look familiar to anybody?

    Help identifying

    While I'm at it, referring back to the original images posted above, any guesses what class Soviet partisan medal he is wearing? My thought is that while he did command his own partisan detachment and distinguish himself, which would qualify him for the first class medal, he was likely to have been awarded the second class as a Polish Jew.

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    Thank you, however none of this is new to me. I do note that the Soviet records do not indicate Moshe receiving the partisan medal, and there are contemporary pictures of him, pre-Red Star (and of course post war), wearing it. I’m just not certain which class it was. The LKogan1 article you cite is actually one of the better biographical writeups about him. Though it too, in my opinion, is flawed. It seems that partisan stories just get more and more fantastic with repetition. And it's easy to see how it can happen, but one must remember that most of them emerged after the war written up for the popular press, so, to a degree they started that way. Popular audiences really don’t want to hear stories about those fighting for the cause winning some but losing more. It really makes the job of the historian very difficult because one simply does not mess with Holocaust related stories. If you must, you tread very carefully and lightly, lest you risk the pejoratively misappropriated label of “revisionist,” or worse: “denyer.” It can be a difficult line to tread. I worked very hard at it when writing my own book, Finding Motele.

    On another note. As I indicated in my thread in the Polish awards section, I’ve identified the blurry pin between the two Soviet stars as likely being a Polish Officer’s school badge. Now I just need to find out how and why he got that.

  11. #10
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    Update and bump:

    At this point I'm pretty certain the small pin worn on the civilian shirt among the military awards is not an officer's school pin but a civilian pin associated with Tel Aviv, that was likely related to the event/occasion for which he donned his medals:

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    As for the small pin worn on the tunic lapel, I'm still trying to narrow it down further and would like some confirmation from someone who would know. I'd think it's likely a Polish eagle of some sort. Note what appears to be an X like shape on the upper part of the pin. The rounded lower portion, to me, suggests a military eagle which is probably the case. What would a former partisan-turned-Red Army officer awarded Polish medals post war, wear?

    Help identifying

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