The Red Army liberated this city on just the second day of the Great Patriotic War
"The invaders had entrenched themselves most firmly at Five Corners Square. Machine guns fired from the windows of the four-story building as if from embrasures."
Przemyśl was among the first cities to come under attack by the Wehrmacht in the early morning of June 22, 1941; the state border ran right through the city along the San River. Nevertheless, it took the Germans about ten hours to break the resistance of the border guards and the garrison and bring the city fully under their control.
But they shouldn’t have let their guard down: the retreating border guards joined forces with arriving Red Army units and launched a counteroffensive. Following an artillery barrage, troops stormed the city from several directions and engaged in fierce street fighting. Here is how ‘Pravda’ newspaper war correspondent David Novopolyansky described the battle:
"The invaders had entrenched themselves most firmly at Five Corners Square. Machine guns fired from the windows of the four-story building as if from embrasures. Yet, the border guards managed to make their way into the building. Komsomol member Shcherbitsky threw an enemy machine gunner out of a second-floor window. Sergeant Major Malkov hurled grenades at the fascists holed up in the basement. Handler Andreev and two border guards followed a dog that unerringly tracked down camouflaged submachine gunners."
By 5:00 pm on June 23, the troops had managed to drive the enemy back across the San River and completely liberate the Soviet-held section of Przemyśl. The soldiers dug in and successfully repelled German attacks for several more days. However, due to Wehrmacht breakthroughs in neighboring sectors of the front, the command ordered the city to be abandoned on the morning of June 27.
The Red Army finally liberated Przemyśl on July 27, 1944.
