Lieutenant Walenty Marciniak

[Al-muell]

Recently Purchesed Group - A small, but realy nice one, as it's from my main area of interests: cavalery.
To Lt. Walenty Marciniak, Deputy commander (pollitical-educational affairs) of the 1st Sanitary Squadron of the First Independent Cavalry Division of the Polish Army, who later worked (probably) as a policeman. Born in 1900.
The group consists of:
1.Officer's ID dated 1944 - very similar to the Soviet one - it even has the legend "udostverene Lichnosti" below "Dowód Osobisty" and Eagle on the cover. Unsurprisingly - printed in Moscow.
2.Grunwald Badge with doc, dated 1946.
3."For participation in the capture of Berlin" (Polish) Medal with doc, dated 1968.
4."For participation in fights in defence of the people's rule" medal with doc, dated 1984.
5.Reserve officer booklet
And now, the funny thing about the group - mind that he was a "politruk":
In his reservist's booklet it says that he served in the Army before 1939 for total 10months, 1 month as an NCO. In the Officer's ID there's his photograph with a wound badge (could be from ww2) and two ribbon bars. One is for Cross of merit (unless it's poorly made GPW2), the other one is for ..."For the war of 1918-1920" medal. Yes, this means: Polish-Soviet War. He probably even got his cross of merit for that war, it would explain his promotion to the NCO rank (bofore the war, if a soldier got cross of merit, he was instantly awarded). This would indicate, that the cross of merit was of the third class (bronze), as at that time in the Army gold cross was only for ranks lt. colonel to Marshal, and silver for ranks leutenant to major. All the servicemen of the lower ranks could only get bronze. Unfortunately, the booklets for that awards are not present.