Polina Gelman - Biography

Polina Vladimirovna Gelman (Поли́на Влади́мировна Ге́льман, ; 24 October 1919, Berdychiv25 November 2005, Moscow) was a Soviet Air Force officer, decorated as a Hero of the Soviet Union for her service with the famed Night Witches unit during World War II.

Biography

Born to a working-class Jewish family from the Ukrainian city of Berdychiv in 1919, Gelman joined the Soviet military in October 1941 after repeated disqualifications of her attempt to volunteer as a result of her short stature. Following a course of training in aviation, she became a navigator in 1942 with the all-female 588th "Night Witches" Night Bomber Regiment, later known as the 46th Taman Division. Gelman had completed 860 missions by the time of Nazi Germany's capitulation to the Allies and was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union in 1946. Continuing her career as a professional military officer, she was sent for instruction as a military translator, graduating from the Military Institute of Foreign Languages in 1951.

Gelman settled in Moscow following her retirement from active service as a major in 1957, where she taught political economy as a college instructor until retiring in 1990. Gelman attained the rank of lieutenant colonel in the reserves. A member of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union since 1942, she was also sent as an advisor and translator to Cuba.

Gelman's memoirs of her years as a pilot were published in Moscow in 1982.

She died on 25 November 2005 in Moscow, where she was laid to rest at Novodevichy Cemetery.