Umer Adamanov

While in the Red Army he served in the 97th Rifle Regiment of the 18th Rifle Division. During the fighting in Orsha in winter 1941 he was wounded in battle and taken captive by the Germans, after which he was sent to a POW camp in Czestochowa, Poland.^[2]

When he escaped the camp in 1942 he helped organize a partisan detachment with the support of Major-General Sergey Ogurtsov and Vasily "the Georgian" Mandzhavidze. Starting in the middle of summer 1942, the detachment took on the name Grigory Kotovsky in honor of the Soviet General and began operations in Puszcza Solska under the commander of Ogurtsov. After Ogurstov was killed in action during fighting in the village of Zielone, Adamonov took command of the detachment, which soon became part of the Tadeusz Kościuszko Task force of the Gwardia Ludowa. His role as a partisan earned him the nickname "Miszka Tatar", which later became legend in the Polish Workers Party. In the spring of 1943, the Nazis forces in Poland offered a reward of 100,000 zlotys for the capture or death of Adamanov.^[2][3][4]

From March to June 1943, the detachment led by Adamanov conducted a multiple successful sabotage missions, resulting in the destruction of 12 tanks and 2 aircraft, in addition to trains transporting military supplies.^[5] On 24 April, several members of the detachment managed to escape from enemy encirclement and went towards the rear of enemy lines, after which they killed 7 German soldiers and seized German weapons and ammunition. Just a few days later on 1 May, the guerrillas attacked a sawmill in Tereszpol; after killing the building comandant they stole ammunition being stored in the building before burning it. The partisans pursued the remaining guards of the sawmill who fled, and on 16 May the rest of the German sawmill guards were killed by the partisans in Długi Kąt and Krasnobród. Three days later they mined the railway tracks near Zwierzyniec in the section between Rejowiec and Rava-Ruska, resulting in the derailment of an enemy train.^[6]

The command of the detachment learned of the arrival of an armored train of SS men in the village of Jozefów on 1 June 1943. The SS men began raiding a local church and massacring local villagers as part of the genocide of Polish people. A group of 50 partisans under the command of Adamanov attacked the enemy garrison, despite the numerical superiority of the enemy's forces, and began pushing the Germans back towards the railway. Adamanov fought advanced in the battle with the use of a light machine gun, but was killed by a German sniper after he stood up and went into attack after injuring his left hand. After his death he was posthumously awarded the Order of the Cross of Grunwald 3rd class and promoted to the rank of captain.^[2] Despite fighting to the death against the Nazis, Adamanov's entire family in Crimea was deported to Central Asia because of their Crimean Tatar ethnicity, where many of them died of malaria and starvation.^[7][8]

After the end of World War II, numerous articles in the Polish and Russian press speculated about the identity of the partisan with the pseudonym "Miszka-Tatar". Wojciech Sulevsky, a Polish writer, and Mikhail Sergeyev, a journalist from Kazan, were tasked with identifying the partisan. People speculated to the unidentified partisan included Mikhail Atamanov from Yelabuga. Later, historian and retired colonel Nikolai Prokopyuk concluded in an article published in Krasnaya Zvezda that "Miszka-Tatar" was Umer Akmolla Adamanov, based on examination by the Central Research Institute of Forensic Examination of pre-war photographs and photos of the partisan. In 1990, after five rounds of analysis, Mikhail Sergeyev stated Polish and Soviet historians agreed that "Miszka-Tatar" was Umer Adamanov. Streets in both Poland and Crimea are named in his honor, and Adamanov remains commemorated as a war hero in both Poland and Crimea.^[2]