Two place service distinction ribbon bar awarded to a Jewish medical officer, 2nd Polish Corps

Salomon (Shalom) Wlodzimierz Slowes was born November 20, 1909, in Grajewo, Poland, to Mosze Dow and Malka Jezierska Slowes, who married in 1907. Mosze was born in 1872 in Shmerinka, Belarus, Russia, and had a brother Israel, married to Riwa Guterman and two sisters. Salomon’s mother Malka was born in 1886 in Suwalki, Russia, later Poland, to Abraham Yehuda and Mera Kijanowska Jezierski. She had several siblings: Jose, married to Dora, Michal, married to Rachel Slowetycka, Fania, married name Serok, Gitl, married name Oblaska, with two daughters, Lipka-Luba, who married Moszes Kremer and had a son Abram, and Zeidke. Both of Salomon’s parents were dentists; his father, a surgeon, was educated in Odessa and his mother in Warsaw. Salomon had an older sister Dina Beila, born 1908, and a younger brother Abraham, born 1913. The family was Jewish, kept a kosher home, spoke primarily Yiddish, and it was a closeknit, extended family. The Slowes family moved to Vilna in 1914, where his father Mosze became head of the dentistry school at Vilna University. Salomon’s youngest sister Roza was born in 1917 in Vilna. In 1920, Vilna was annexed by Poland. Salomon graduated from a Tarbut school, a secular Hebrew language school in 1923, then attended a Jewish high school to prepare for state exams. In 1928, he enrolled at Stefan Batory University in Vilna where he studied dentistry and medicine. He joined the Jordania Club, Union of Zionist Revisionists. His brother Abraham had joined Tiferet Bachurim, a religious Zionist movement, in reaction to the growing antisemitism in Poland. In 1930, Abraham left for Palestine where he studied engineering at the Technion in Haifa. Also in 1930, Salomon’s sister Dina married Miron Rubinowicz; they were both teachers and later had a son Elchanan. Salomon’s maternal uncle Josef and his wife Dora left for the United States sometime prior to 1939. Salomon graduated with a specialty in surgery in 1934. He went to Vienna for advanced training and was appointed assistant in the Face and Jaw Surgery unit, University Hospital, Vilna. Second Lieutenant Slowes also completed mandatory military service, serving at a clinic from February 1936-February 1938. On July 12, 1938, Salomon’s sister Roza, a teacher, married Szymon Braitbard. The Polish Army began mobilizing in March 1939, shortly after Germany annexed a province of Czechoslovakia. Salomon was called up in August and went on duty as a military physician. On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland. Salomon’s unit defended Wyszkow, south of Bialystok, and then retreated eastward. The Soviet Union invaded from the east and, on September 22, captured Salomon’s unit near Wlodimierz Wolunski. Thousands of Polish prisoners of war were loaded on a train which arrived in Gryazovets on October 3. Salomon exchanged his leather boots for large, warm, felt lined boots in which he could hide papers. After two weeks, they were sent to Vologda for two weeks, October 18-November 1. They arrived on November 2 in Koziel'sk camp, where they were interrogated by the NKVD, the secret police. Salomon and another POW, Boleslaw Szarecki, worked in the camp clinic under the supervision of a female Soviet doctor. On April 26, 1940, Salomon and 400 other POWs were taken to Pavlischev Bor and two other camps. On June 16, they were transferred back to Gryazovets. In June 1941, Germany invaded the USSR. The Soviets issued an amnesty to Polish POWs and forced laborers. Some were needed to work in factories and agriculture to replace the Russians mobilized into the Red Army. Others were released to join the fight against the Germans. An agreement was signed between the Polish Government in Exile and the Soviet government to form a Polish army under the command of General Wladyslaw Anders, who had been a POW in Lublianka. The commandant at Gryazovets distributed compensatory payments to the Polish Army officers. On August 25, Anders came to Grazoviets to recruit for the new Army, which Salomon joined. On September 2, Salomon left the camp, and with other recruits, travelled to Totskoye, Kazakhstan. From October 12-November 1941, Salomon worked at a dental clinic in Totskoye, then relocated to the Army’s headquarters in Buzuluk. In August 1942, the Army travelled to Krasnovodsk in Turkmenistan. Salomon also worked in a clinic in Yangi-Jul. On August 17, they left Soviet territory, crossing the Caspian Sea to Pahlevi, Iran. At this point, the Army was placed under the control of the British government and became the Polish Second Corps, a unit of the British Army, affiliated with the Polish Armed Forces in the West. The troops travelled through Iraq and Iran as they received training from British forces. Salomon directed surgical departments for victim of face and jaw injuries at the Red Cross hospital in Teheran and the other countries through which the Army moved. In September 1943, they reached Palestine. In February 1944, the unit moved to Egypt and North Africa. The Polish soldiers were now fully trained and, on February 18, joined the Italian Campaign, commanded by the Eighth British Army. The Corps fought their way north through Italy. They experienced high casualties, especially in the May 1944 final Battle of Monte Cassino, the fourth assault on those German defenses since January. In July, Salomon was surgeon and head of the Maxillo-Facial Surgical Unit no. 2 at a military hospital in Palagia, Italy. Salomon was awarded several medals for his service from both the British and Polish governments, including the Monte Cassino Cross, number 42770. The war ended in May 1945. Most of Salomon’s family had not survived. His mother Malka and sisters Dina and Roza, and their families, were murdered in the massacres in Ponary near Vilna, probably in the fall of 1941. His father Mosze was deported to Klooga concentration camp in Estonia, where he perished. His maternal aunt Gitka, and her husband Israel Obloska, were deported to Wlodzimierz Wolynski, where they perished. Salomon was discharged on June 26, 1945, and given permission to go to Palestine. He was employed by the Red Cross by August 12, 1946, in Tel Aviv. He received his demobilization papers in 1947. During the War of Independence and later conflicts, he consulted with the Israeli Defense Force. In 1952, he married Dr. Mira Czarny, an ophthalmologist. Mira was born around 1926 in Włocławek, Poland, to Aron and Tauba Czarny. After the German invasion, her family was forced into the Warsaw ghetto. Mira escaped in 1943 and survived the war in the Aryan side of Warsaw using a false Catholic identity, Halina Przbylska. The couple settled in Tel Aviv and, in 1956, had a son Alex (1956-1985). Salomon became head of the maxillo-facial surgery department in Tel Aviv-Jaffa Medical Center. He published extensively in his medical field. In 1992, Salomon’s memoir, The Road to Katyn: A Soldier’s Story, was published, in which he describes the squalid conditions in the POW camps, as well as his wartime military service. Katyn refers to the massacre in the Katyn forest near Smolensk where 15,000 Polish Army POWs, including 8300 officers, were executed by the Soviets. This event occurred around April-June 1940, when Salomon had been transferred out of Koziel'sk to Bor. He had discovered many years later that he had a cousin who was a prominent official in the NKVD, and he believes that this is why he was not executed at that time.

The ribbon bar was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2002 by Salomon Slowes.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Salomon Slowes

Funding Note: The cataloging of this artifact has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.