The War Hero Who Gave Up His Soviet Gold Medal—and Got It Back 18 Years Later

There are plenty of stories about people who pulled off heroic feats just to reach the Land of Israel, but the story of Yerachmiel Plezenshtein is about someone who chose to give up the glory of heroism—for the sake of the Land of Israel.

Yerachmiel was born in Kharkov in 1923, to a family affiliated with Chabad. His official schooling was, of course, atheistic Soviet education, but in secret his parents taught him Jewish studies.

In 1941, with the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Yerachmiel was drafted into the Red Army. By spring 1943 he already held the rank of junior lieutenant, commanded a machine-gun platoon, and took part in several decisive battles.

A few months later, the Red Army launched a landing and conquest operation on the Eltigen peninsula in the Crimea region—an operation considered to have no chance of success. Yerachmiel was there with the platoon under his command. On a stormy night they crossed the Kerch Strait on rafts until they reached the landing beach.

Unfortunately, the rafts were detected very early by the Germans, and murderous fire poured down on them from every direction. The raging weather did not improve their chances of reaching the shore, and many of the rafts—and the soldiers aboard them—sank while still far from the target beach.

But neither fire nor water could break Yerachmiel Plezenshtein.

He managed to bring his platoon into the shallow waters before the beach, and with extraordinary courage they charged the fortified and fearsome shore, armed only with grenades and machine guns.

Amazingly, they captured a strip of beach a kilometer deep and defeated all the German forces stationed there. Not only that, the platoon survived on that beachhead for a full two weeks, while the Germans launched counterattacks again and again—twelve times—to try to retake it. During those two weeks, Plezenshtein received no support or resupply from the sea. Alone, they stood there against every German force that tried to push them back into the sea—and they prevailed.

Plezenshtein served as a living example to his soldiers. He alone killed dozens of German soldiers with his own hands, until he was struck by a bullet in his head and counted as dead.

But one of his friends refused to give up on him. He evacuated Plezenshtein to a casualty collection point, where it turned out that Plezenshtein was still alive and could be saved. He was transferred to a military hospital, where he remained for four months until he recovered.

During those months, Yerachmiel’s father received an official letter from the army informing him that his son had been killed in battle. The soldier responsible for these notifications assumed it was impossible for Plezenshtein to survive a bullet to the head.

After his recovery, Plezenshtein returned to his unit and discovered, to his horror, that only two of the original soldiers remained after the brutal battle.

Plezenshtein was promoted to lieutenant and appointed company commander. He took part in additional battles, was wounded again in his leg, and was discharged from the army due to his disability.

As a result of his heroic battle on the Eltigen peninsula, Plezenshtein received the gold medal of Hero of the Soviet Union.

After the war Plezenshtein returned to Kharkov and worked as a department manager in a textile factory. He was careful to observe all the mitzvot of Judaism in secret, even though publicly he was a member of the Communist Party.

In 1974 Plezenshtein submitted a request to receive an aliyah visa to the Land of Israel, to reunite with his father, who had immigrated two years earlier. This was the first case in which a Hero of the Soviet Union asked to leave the Soviet Union.

He was summoned for “clarification” talks, and heavy pressure was exerted on him to withdraw his request, which caused the Soviet Union no small embarrassment.

But Plezenshtein refused to back down, and following international pressure and demonstrations by his acquaintances and family members, his immigration to the Land of Israel was approved.

As a condition for receiving the visa, he was forced to return to the state the Hero of the Soviet Union medal that had been given to him.

Plezenshtein, a true hero, did not hesitate to give up the medal of valor and glory in order to merit ascending to the Holy Land. He gladly exchanged the gold medal for visa papers that opened the way for him to draw closer to Hashem, to his people, and to his land.

But Plezenshtein did not lose out because of his heroism. In 1992, with the renewal of diplomatic relations between the State of Israel and the Soviet Union, Plezenshtein’s medal of heroism was returned to him, in an official ceremony at the Soviet embassy in Tel Aviv.

Yerachmiel Plezenshtein passed away on Simchat Torah, 5767. May his soul be bound in the bond of life.