Off-Topic /
Russian Views On Poland and Vice Versa [414]
Very well, so be it. I will continue my post on Jaruzelski.
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In his own words, he buried his father - Wladislaw, by wrapping his body into Pravda newspapers instead of linen cloth.
Wojciech himself when still in Siberia, had to walk 180 km on foot, to the location of his logging camp. This was the first time he injured his eyes, through snow blindness. It was at this logging camp, likely, where Jaruzelski also learned to speak his famously unaccented Russian.
Everything changed for Jaruzelski, in the summer of 1943. The Soviet government was starting to assemble the 1st Tadeusz Kościuszko Infantry Division, the first division of the First Army (Berling Army). Military age Poles in the camps were being recruited, and Jaruzelski was one of them - enlisting into this division. And so, his debt to the Soviet Motherland was paid. Shortly afterwards, noticing his talents, the Soviet military sent him to attend lectures at the K. Voroshilov Ryazan Infantry School (now the Ryazan Guards Higher Airborne Command School).
After his time in Ryazan, Jaruzelski served in the 2nd Warsaw Infantry Division of Henryk Dąbrowski, in the rank of porucznik - being sent immediately to the Front. From the Fall of 1943, he served as a submachine gun squad commander. From the Spring of 1944, commander of a cavalry reconnaissance squad. From January of 1945, as intelligence aide-de-camp to the chief of staff of the 5th Regiment.
Took part in military operations on the Wisla, the Magnuszew Bridgehead, the Liberation of Warsaw, the storming of Eastern Pomerania, battles on the Baltic coastline, the Oder, and the Elbe.
For valor in combat, was awarded multiple Polish combat medals and orders, including the highest Polish military honor - the War Order of Virtuti Militari.
As is evident from his biography, Jaruzelski did not sit in the rear as a staff clerk. He was either at the front as an infantryman, a reconnaissance team, or as an intelligence officer - during the most hardcore years of the war.
In 1946, Jaruzelski was sent to fight UPA insurgents in Western Ukraine, and to extinguish remnants of the AK. This is material for another post at some later time.
