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I came in the lines in 1941 holding the rank of military doctor of the 3rd grade. It was the grade given to those who had finished the courses of surgeons. In the army I became a captain, which corresponded to my rank of military doctor of the 3rd grade. In 1944 I was conferred another military rank. I became major of the medical corps. I finished the war in that rank.
I was promoted after my rank was changed. I was transferred to the surgical mobile front-rank hospital of the 1st line Number 5218. The hospital was moving from one place to another with the army. Hospital of the 1st line meant that when we came to a new location, apart from operating rooms there were also wards for the wounded so they could go through post-operation treatment. Experienced army surgeons came to help other front-line surgeons improve their qualification. They performed show-operations and taught us. The operations in that hospital were mostly to remove the fragment, process the wound, conduct appendectomy, remove a gall bladder, operate on the stomach ulcer etc.
We had stayed in Romania for some time, when our hospital was transferred to Poland. We stopped in some sort of a village, the name of which I don't remember. We stayed on premises where there was hardly any room to put the stretchers. There was only the most necessary medicine. When I was doing the round I noticed that one of the wounded had lockjaw - a trismus. I remembered from my school textbooks, that trismus was the first symptom of tetanus. It was necessary to immediately inject anti-tetanus serum, but we had run out of it. I was supposed to go to another village to the medicine storage facility, but we didn't have any means of transport. What was I to do? There was no way I could linger. I had to make a decision very swiftly. Though I was an atheist, I went to the Catholic cathedral and found a priest there. I introduced myself and explained the situation in Ukrainian. Polish and Ukrainian were very similar languages, so he understood what I was saying. I told him that we were in the same boat no matter that he was religious and I was an atheist, and we had one common enemy: fascism. I told him about our severely wounded soldier who required an injection of anti-tetanus serum. I also mentioned that I didn't have any transport to go to the storage facility to get the medicine and asked him, whether he could send somebody with a horse.
The priest listened to me very closely and said that he would help. He kept his word. Hardly had I come back to the hospital when I saw the cart with the horse, sent by the priest. I told the coachman the way to the storage facility and he brought me the anti-tetanus serum very quickly. I gave the wounded the intravenous injection for it to be working quicker and soon the tetanus symptoms were fading. We managed just in time. We evacuated that soldier to the rear hospital. After a while the cart came back and the coachman told me that the peasants sent him to bring food for the wounded. He brought fresh dairy products: milk, curds and butter. We fed the wounded and had a meal as well. The next day the same man came again and from then on he brought us food every day while we were staying in that village.
We moved to Hungary from Poland. Hungarian doctors helped us a lot both with advice and medicine supply. They treated us very well. In the evenings they invited us over to have a cup of tea, treated us to grapes. In general, the population of all countries we went through, gave us a warm welcome. Poles, Czechs, Romanians and Hungarians had really suffered under fascism. However, we were cautious of direct contact with the local population. The matter is that in every squad there were SMERSH [34] representatives. We were supposed to tell them in advance which populated places we were supposed to visit. I didn't pay a lot of visits, as I was afraid that I might be blamed of espionage. SMERSH didn't prohibit communicating with the locals openly, but I think that they were following us and had their stooges everywhere.
I was promoted after my rank was changed. I was transferred to the surgical mobile front-rank hospital of the 1st line Number 5218. The hospital was moving from one place to another with the army. Hospital of the 1st line meant that when we came to a new location, apart from operating rooms there were also wards for the wounded so they could go through post-operation treatment. Experienced army surgeons came to help other front-line surgeons improve their qualification. They performed show-operations and taught us. The operations in that hospital were mostly to remove the fragment, process the wound, conduct appendectomy, remove a gall bladder, operate on the stomach ulcer etc.
We had stayed in Romania for some time, when our hospital was transferred to Poland. We stopped in some sort of a village, the name of which I don't remember. We stayed on premises where there was hardly any room to put the stretchers. There was only the most necessary medicine. When I was doing the round I noticed that one of the wounded had lockjaw - a trismus. I remembered from my school textbooks, that trismus was the first symptom of tetanus. It was necessary to immediately inject anti-tetanus serum, but we had run out of it. I was supposed to go to another village to the medicine storage facility, but we didn't have any means of transport. What was I to do? There was no way I could linger. I had to make a decision very swiftly. Though I was an atheist, I went to the Catholic cathedral and found a priest there. I introduced myself and explained the situation in Ukrainian. Polish and Ukrainian were very similar languages, so he understood what I was saying. I told him that we were in the same boat no matter that he was religious and I was an atheist, and we had one common enemy: fascism. I told him about our severely wounded soldier who required an injection of anti-tetanus serum. I also mentioned that I didn't have any transport to go to the storage facility to get the medicine and asked him, whether he could send somebody with a horse.
The priest listened to me very closely and said that he would help. He kept his word. Hardly had I come back to the hospital when I saw the cart with the horse, sent by the priest. I told the coachman the way to the storage facility and he brought me the anti-tetanus serum very quickly. I gave the wounded the intravenous injection for it to be working quicker and soon the tetanus symptoms were fading. We managed just in time. We evacuated that soldier to the rear hospital. After a while the cart came back and the coachman told me that the peasants sent him to bring food for the wounded. He brought fresh dairy products: milk, curds and butter. We fed the wounded and had a meal as well. The next day the same man came again and from then on he brought us food every day while we were staying in that village.
We moved to Hungary from Poland. Hungarian doctors helped us a lot both with advice and medicine supply. They treated us very well. In the evenings they invited us over to have a cup of tea, treated us to grapes. In general, the population of all countries we went through, gave us a warm welcome. Poles, Czechs, Romanians and Hungarians had really suffered under fascism. However, we were cautious of direct contact with the local population. The matter is that in every squad there were SMERSH [34] representatives. We were supposed to tell them in advance which populated places we were supposed to visit. I didn't pay a lot of visits, as I was afraid that I might be blamed of espionage. SMERSH didn't prohibit communicating with the locals openly, but I think that they were following us and had their stooges everywhere.
Period
Year
1941
Interview
Eva Ryzhevskaya
Tag(s)