a. Bronze colored, metal, cross pattée medal with a raised shield outline over the center with an embossed Polish eagle within. There is raised Polish text on each arm. The reverse has a raised wreath outline over the center; an embossed sword extends down one arm and crosses into the wreath. There is raised Polish text on each arm. The attached ribbon is striped as follows: thin brown stripe, cream stripe, wide, brown stripe, cream stripe, thin brown stripe. It folds through a suspension ring attached to the top of the medal. There is a broken metal pin through the top. b. Rectangular cardboard hinged box covered with red imitation leather with a dark gold Polish eagle stamped on the top. The lid is secured by a metal push clasp and lined with white satin. The interior base is lined with brown velvet, with visible cardboard backing; the exterior base is covered in dark red paper made to look like leather. a. front, top of the cross : NA a. front, across cross : POLU CHWAŁY [ON THE FIELD OF GLORY] a. front, bottom of the cross : 1944 a. reverse, across cross : W (?accretion) CZNYM
Kalman Barakan was born in Bialystok, Poland, on November 2, 1913. He obtained a law degree from University Jozef Pilsudski in Warsaw on October 11, 1937. Kalman was living in Bialystok when the Germans occupied it in June 1941. His home was destroyed. By late summer, he, and all the Jews of Bialystok, were forced to wear the yellow star and were imprisoned in the ghetto, working for the Gestapo doing hard manual labor. Conditions were inhumane with ten family members sharing one room of about 30 square feet. In July 1943, he managed to escape. The ghetto was liquidated in August 1943. Kalman’s entire family was transported to a death camp. He lived in hiding in the area, constantly changing places and on the run, feeling like a hunted animal. He went for long periods of time without any food, close to starvation. He was liberated at the end of July 1944 when the German Army retreated as the Soviets advanced. From July 1944, until the end of the war in May 1945, Kalman served in the Red Army. He was mobilized, despite his Polish citizenship, when the Soviet occupied the eastern part of Poland where he had been living. Kalman married Pauline Pajes in 1949. She had survived the war in hiding in Grodno. Her family was killled in Treblinka. Kalman worked for the Polish National Enterprise for Foreign Trade in Łódź, Poland. However, he never accepted the ideology of the Communist regime. In 1968, at the age of 55, Kalman was fired for lack of Party activity. He and his wife were forced to leave their apartment and deprived of citizenship. On September 25, 1968, Kalman and Paulina left Poland, and arrived in Italy on October 10, and lived, stateless, in Rome. They were admitted as refugees to the United States on January 21, 1969. They settled in Chicago, Illinois, where Kalman died, age 79, in 1992.
The Krzyz Walecznych medal and presentation box were donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in 2009 by Linda Anselmo on behalf of the Estate of Kalman and Pauline Barakan.
No restrictions on access
Krzyz Walecznych (Cross of Valor) medal and presentation box awarded to a Jewish conscript in the Soviet Army
a: Height: 3.875 inches (9.843 cm) | Width: 1.750 inches (4.445 cm) b: Height: 5.250 inches (13.335 cm) | Width: 3.125 inches (7.938 cm) | Depth: 1.000 inches (2.54 cm)
No restrictions on use
Krzyz Walecznych (Cross of Valor) medal with striped ribbon awarded to Kalman Barakan by Poland for his service in the Soviet Army in 1944. When Germany invaded Poland in June 1941, Kalman Barakan was a 30 year old lawyer in Bialystok. His home was destroyed and he had to move into a Jewish ghetto and do rough manual labor. He escaped in 1943 and lived in hiding, constantly on the move. In August 1943, the ghetto was destroyed; Kalman’s entire family was murdered in a death camp. In July 1944, the Soviet Army liberated the area and Kalman was forced into army service until the end of the war. He repatriated to Łódź, Poland.