Colonel General Leon Kotlyar, a Jewish Red Army officer who has seen 26 years of service, has been awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union by the presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR in token of his participation in the freeing of Vienna, Budapest and Belgrade, it was announced here today.
Gen. Kotlyar was born in Siberia into the family of a Jewish tinsmith. He worked as a railroad hand and as a lumberjack during his youth, but in 1919 joined the Red Army which routed the interventionist army under Admiral Kolchak. Gen. Kotlyar has been in the engineering corps all during his army career and saw service on many fronts in the present war. He was a major general at the outset of the war.
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