The only Congressional Medal of Honor to a Ukrainian soldier is set to be auctioned in London to raise funds for Ukrainian humanitarian efforts.

Baldwin’s Auctions will hold the single-lot auction Aug. 8 at its offices at 399 Strand, London.

The Congressional Medal of Honor is a military service award that is awarded by the U.S. president in the name of congress. Different versions of the medal are awarded for service in the Army, Navy or Air Force.

The medal to be offered was posthumously awarded to Nicholas Minue following a brave attack against Germans in Tunisia, Africa, during which he died on April 28, 1943.

The charitable project is being led by Mark Smith, a medals and militaria specialist often seen on the Antiques Roadshow, as well as at Baldwins.co.

The auction house is working with charity United 24 to help fund Ukrainian humanitarian relief efforts. The item is expected to sell for £250,000 to £300,000 ($325,800 to $391,050 U.S.)

Congressional Medals of Honor are the United States armed forces’ highest military decoration and are awarded to recognize soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, guardians, and coast guardsmen who have distinguished themselves by acts of valor.

Often awarded in extraordinary circumstances or posthumously, they are incredibly rare, and are illegal to be bought or sold among Americans, unless to be gifted to an American institution.

So high is their prestige — and so many the social and financial rewards of owning one — that they must be returned, on the death of their recipient, to Congress for safekeeping.

The auction house said that the current owner is a private collector outside of the United States, and any private buyer in this case would also have to be outside of the country. A U.S.-based institution, however, would be allowed to buy the medal.

“We’re sensitive to the cultural and emotional debate surrounding the sale of this iconic item, being as it is a recognition of the ultimate sacrifice an individual can make in service of their country,” the firm said, via email. “On numerous occasions when a Medal of Honor has been publicly taken to market, it has resulted in discussion regarding the morality of the transaction, and so it should. We felt that in this case the exceptional cause the sale will support and the fact it can raise greater awareness of the dire human cost of the war in Ukraine justify the sale. Having fought the Russians in WWI and the Nazi regime in WWII, it seemed fitting Pvt. Minue would once again support Ukraine, decades after his citation.”

A heroes’ life

Minue was born in 1905 in what was then Austria-Hungary, in a place known as Zaluzbe or Yezupil in the western area of modern Ukraine. He and his family emigrated to the United States of America, settling in Carteret, New Jersey.

Minue enlisted into the United States Army in 1927, and by the outbreak of World War II was a sergeant. To serve overseas in a combat unit, he accepted a demotion to private.

In December 1942, he was assigned to a rifle platoon of Company A, 1st Battalion, 6th Armored Infantry Regiment, a unit of the 1st Armored Division, and shortly afterwards joined it in North Africa.

Minue was posthumously awarded the United States’ highest award, the Congressional Medal of Honor for a brave attack against the Germans of Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s Afrika Korps in Tunisia at Hill 299, during the advance to Bizerte on April 28, 1943.

When his unit had come under machine gun fire, Minue affixed his bayonet and assaulted the enemy, killing 10 machine gunners and riflemen. He continued to attack until he was mortally wounded.

For more of his story, and information about the sale, visit www.baldwins.co. 

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