Vernigerode Ivan Mikhailovich_x000D_ _x000D_ Rank: Sergeant. Type of troops: Armored and mechanized troops. Ivan Mikhailovich is from p. Tomarovka. Before the war, he graduated from 9 classes. "Baptism of fire" took at Belenikhino, there was a fierce battle. I remember well the first German I saw shooting from behind a destroyed building. I fired first and hit him right in the shoulder. Then I gained experience and fought famously. Until the end of the war Sergeant Wernigerode served in the tank troops with submachine. He was wounded eight times, four times seriously, but survived. When once again after the hospital I got to the transfer point, I said that I did not want to join the infantry! And he was sent to a tank unit. I could have been commissioned after being wounded - I was sent to study at a military school – I refused. After the battle of Kursk, he fought in Ukraine and Belarus. Participated in the Korsun-Shevchenko operation, Yassa – Kishinev operation. Liberated Poland and Romania. As part of the tank corps of the 1st Belorussian front, he approached the very lair of the Nazis-Berlin, but three kilometers from the city he was seriously wounded. I heard the news of the capitulation of Hitler's Germany in the hospital. Ivan Mikhailovich ended the war as a squad leader in the security company of the military commandant's office in Magdeburg. In the village of Tomarovka, there are not so many veterans left, but Ivan Mikhailovich does not meet with them for health reasons. Victory day is celebrated only with the family. In October 1945, the guard Sergeant returned to his native land with the order of the red star. He got a job at the Belgorod railway depot, and worked there as a locksmith, car inspector until his retirement. His work experience is 45 years. He was married, his wife Vera Stepanovna, a respected woman in the village, worked for several years at the school as a pioneer guide, and then as a medical Registrar in the Tomarovka polyclinic. They raised two sons, Vladimir and Pavel.