Boris Zamanskii
Boris Zamanskii was born in 1918 in Kherson, Ukraine. His father was an employee. After completing 10 years of school, Zamanskii entered the Kiev Polytechnic Institute. He was still a student when the Soviet-German war broke out. He refused to be exempted and volunteered for the Narodnoe opolchenie (a kind of national guard). He participated in the defense of Kiev and then had a long and hard time making his way through the enemy lines to Soviet controlled territory. During the battle of Moscow he became a communications officer in the regular Red Army. After suffering frostbite, he could have been demobilized but he refused and, in September 1942, returned to the front lines. He took part in the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk and, then, in the liberation of Ukraine. He was awarded the medal For Valor.
When, on August 1, 1944, units of the infantry corps in which Zamanskii was in charge of communications crossed the Vistula River, the communications line across the river was hit by enemy fire. Jumping into the river, Zamanskii fixed the line but was wounded in the process. For this act he was awarded the Order of Glory, 3rd class on August 11, 1944.
In February 1945, in crossing the River Oder, for two hours, up to his waist in water, Lance-Corporal Zamanskii held in his hands the communications line to the far bank so that it wouldn't fall into the water and lead to a break in communication. For this deed, on March 29, 1945, he was awarded the Order of Glory, 2nd class.
Finally, in late April of that year, during the street to street combat in Berlin Zamanskii succeeded, under enemy fire and through areas occupied by the enemy, in setting up a communications line to the observation point of the commander of one of the divisions of the Red Army. Then commander of the forces of the front Marshal Georgii Zhukov recommended that Zamanskii be awarded the highest honor given to soldiers, the Order of Glory, 1st class. Thus on May 15, 1946, a year after the end of the war, Zamanskii received his last Order of Glory.
After being demobilized from the army in the fall of 1945, Zamanskii completed studies at the Polytechnic Institute in Kiev and then worked as an engineer at a chemical factory at Gorlovka in Ukraine.
In September 1998, together with his family, Boris Zamanskii immigrated to Israel, where he lived in Rishon LeZion.
Boris Zamanskii died in 2012.
