Ievgeniia (Zhenni) Edelson
Ievgeniia Edelson was born in Vitebsk, Belorussia in 1897 (according to other sources, in 1898) as Zhenni (Jenny) Beinfest, one of eight children in her family. Upon graduating from the gymnasium, she married Hirsh Edelson, a Jewish revolutionary and member of the SR (Socialist-Revolutionary) party. After World War I and the Russian Revolution, she found herself in Samara, central Russia, where she graduated from a school of dentistry. In 1921, the Edelsons settled in Petrograd (later renamed Leningrad, present-day St. Petersburg, Russia). Zhenni entered the Faculty of Law at Petrograd University, having always dreamed of becoming a lawyer. However, by the 1930s this profession was proving to be dangerous. Furthermore, her husband, as a former member of the non-Marxist SR party, was repeatedly arrested throughout that decade. The arrests and recurrent prison terms undermined his health, and Hirsh Edelson died in 1939. Zhenni, recalling her first diploma, resumed her work as a dentist.
In June 1941, the Soviet-German war began, and Zhenni, now Ievgeniia Edelson, was drafted into the People's Militia as a physician. Her 270th Separate Rifle- and Artillery Battalion fought near Gatchina, south of Leningrad. In mid-September 1941, Ievgeniia was seriously wounded and captured by the advancing enemy. While in German captivity, she decided to pass herself off as an Armenian, and gave her last name (somewhat light-heartedly) as Edelsyan. The Germans accepted her story, and Ievgeniia survived several POW camps in Russia and Poland. She would remain grateful to the POW doctors, who alone were responsible for healing her injured leg and saving it from amputation.
In July 1944, Edelson was liberated in Lublin, Poland, by the advancing Soviet Army. Luckily for her, the interrogator of the Soviet anti-spy SMERSH organization believed her story and gave her a piece of advice: she should ask to be sent to active duty in the Red Army in order to take revenge on the enemy Ievgeniia Edelson was assigned as a dentist to a medical-sanitary battalion attached to the 41st Division operating on the 2nd Ukrainian Front. Despite her frontline specialty as a dentist, she occasionally had to render medical assistance of various kinds to wounded soldiers. After the crossing of the Oder River in March 1945, she was awarded the Order of the Red Star. She met V-E Day in Erfurt, Germany.
Captain of the Medical Service Ievgeniia Edelson was discharged from the military in 1946. She settled in Leningrad. In 1964, Ievgeniia Edelson died from a heart attack.
