Živý/mŕtvy Alexej Dmitrijevič Ponomarjov
Dead – alive Alexei Dmitrievich Ponomaryov

Summary/Abstract: A. D. Ponomaryov, member of 40th cavalry guards regiment (10th guards cavalry division) volunteered for a reconaissance mission on 28th March 1945 on the outskirts of village Úľany nad Žitavou in southwestern Slovakia. He failed to complete his task since German defenders of the 357th infantry division captured him. They had probably tried to interrogate him, but after a short time they poured petrol on him and burnt him. On the next day, when Soviet division occupied the village, Cossacks found his body presuming he was dead. But soon after that, when burial platoon started to collect bodies, they had found out, he was still alive. Ponomaryov thus got to the hospital and in spite of his burns, he survived. His regimental commander, not knowing about that, made a proposal to award Ponomaryov a Hero of the Soviet union in memoriam, which was accepted and executed on 15th May 1946! Even the supreme commander of cavalry-mechanized group, general Pliev, did know nothing about Ponomaryov’s survival and wrote about his presumed deathe in his memoirs in 1971.

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