A good-looking young man wearing army medals is drawn in pencil on yellowing paper. His name is Simion Mamistvalov, and the artist was his comrade-in-arms. Simion sent the drawing to his family and inscribed a dedication on the back, “An everlasting memento for my parents from your loving son, Breslau, Poland, 23/01/1946.”
Simion Mamistvalov was born in 1924 in Guri, a small city in Georgia. He was the third son in a family of four boys. His eldest brother Yosef was conscripted in 1939 to fight in the war against Finland; in 1941 he was transferred to the front against Germany and vanished without a trace. The second son, Michael, was conscripted to the Red Army in 1941. After a year and a half of service, the family stopped hearing from him too. In 1942 Simion was conscripted to the Red Army. The youngest brother, Eldar, whose three elder brothers had been conscripted and of those, two had disappeared, received an exemption from military service.
Simion graduated a course in Soviet intelligence and began his service as an intelligence expert in artillery ranges. During his service in the Red Army, Simion fought in many battles. He received medals, decorations and certificates signed by “Comrade Stalin” in recognition of the great courage and professionalism that he displayed in battle.
In 1943, with the establishment of the renewed Polish army, Simion was dispatched as an expert in artillery ranges and served there until the end of the war. He took part in pivotal battles, as can be learned in part from the medals that mark his participation in the battles to liberate Warsaw and to conquer Berlin. In recognition of his service to the Polish people, in addition to the medals, he received a practical reward – a hundred dunams of Polish soil.
Simion was demobilized from the Polish army in 1946. He returned to his hometown of Guri and married Esther. The couple had a son and two daughters. Until his final days, Simion lived in a small, two-room house. He never received the land that had been promised to him by the Polish government because of opposition by the Soviet regime.
Simion’s son, Shalva Mamistvalov, immigrated to Israel and lives in Ashdod. Shalva donated all of his father’s photographs, documents and medals from the war period to Yad Vashem. The most important medal, the cross, was lost over the years, but it can be seen in the pencil-drawn portrait of Simion – a Jewish soldier who fought courageously against Nazi Germany.
