Hall of Testimonies

Jerzy Hoffman

Everyone believed that there, in the eastern territories, the German army would be stopped. On the 17th, the Soviets invaded Tarnopol. The Soviet Worker’s Army. And I remember two things from that time: the smell of _______. The whole army heavily smelled of _________; their boots were smeared in this, and all leather articles that they carried were also smeared. And it looked like the army had already gone through a long list of battles, because the soldiers were covered in a great many medals. It later became evident that these were not medals, but stamps – the kind issued by a number of clubs or training courses (eg. Red Cross, anti-aircraft, etc). The kind of patches that our boy scouts and girl guides wear on their sleeves when then attain a certain level of aptitude, the soldiers wore as rows of jingling medals on their chests.

Polish