Material about children of the war 1941 1945. Children - heroes of the Great Patriotic War

According to well-known statistics, the Great Patriotic War claimed about 27 million lives of citizens Soviet Union. Of these, about 10 million are soldiers, the rest are old people, women, and children. But statistics are silent about how many children died during the Great Patriotic War. There simply is no such data. The war crippled thousands of children's destinies and took away a bright and joyful childhood. The children of war, as best they could, brought Victory closer to the best of their, albeit small, albeit weak, strength. They drank a full cup of grief, perhaps too big for a small person, because the beginning of the war coincided with the beginning of life for them... How many of them were driven to a foreign land... How many were killed by the unborn...

During the Great Patriotic War, hundreds of thousands of boys and girls went to military registration and enlistment offices, gained a year or two more, and went off to defend their Motherland; many died for it. Children of war often suffered no less from it than the soldiers at the front. War-torn childhood, suffering, hunger, death made the children adults early, instilling in them childlike fortitude, courage, the ability to self-sacrifice, to feat in the name of the Motherland, in the name of Victory. Children fought along with adults both in the active army and in partisan detachments. And these were not isolated cases. According to Soviet sources, there were tens of thousands of such guys during the Great Patriotic War.

Here are the names of some of them: Volodya Kazmin, Yura Zhdanko, Lenya Golikov, Marat Kazei, Lara Mikheenko, Valya Kotik, Tanya Morozova, Vitya Korobkov, Zina Portnova. Many of them fought so hard that they earned military orders and medals, and four: Marat Kazei, Valya Kotik, Zina Portnova, Lenya Golikov, became Heroes of the Soviet Union. From the first days of the occupation, boys and girls began to act at their own risk, which was truly fatal.

The guys collected rifles, cartridges, machine guns, grenades left over from the battles, and then handed it all over to the partisans; of course, they took a serious risk. Many schoolchildren, again at their own peril and risk, conducted reconnaissance and served as messengers in partisan detachments. We rescued wounded Red Army soldiers and helped underground fighters to escape our prisoners of war from German concentration camps. They set fire to German warehouses with food, equipment, uniforms, and fodder, and blew up railway cars and locomotives. Both boys and girls fought on the “children's front.” It was especially widespread in Belarus.

In units and subunits at the front, teenagers aged 13-15 often fought alongside soldiers and commanders. These were mainly children who had lost their parents, in most cases killed or driven away by the Germans to Germany. Children left in destroyed cities and villages became homeless, doomed to starvation. It was scary and difficult to stay in enemy-occupied territory. Children could be sent to a concentration camp, taken to work in Germany, turned into slaves, made donors for German soldiers, etc.

In addition, the Germans in the rear were not at all shy, and dealt with the children with all cruelty. "...Often, because of entertainment, a group of Germans on vacation arranged a release for themselves: they threw a piece of bread, the children ran to it, followed by machine-gun fire. How many children died because of such amusements of the Germans throughout the country! Children swollen from hunger could "I take something, without understanding, something edible from a German, and then there’s a burst of fire from a machine gun. And the child is full of food forever!" (Solokhina N.Ya., Kaluga region, Lyudinovo, from the article “We do not come from childhood”, “World of News”, No. 27, 2010, p. 26).
Therefore, the Red Army units passing through these places were sensitive to such guys and often took them with them. The sons of the regiments - children of the war years - fought against the German occupiers on an equal basis with adults. Marshal Bagramyan recalled that the courage, bravery of the teenagers, and their ingenuity in carrying out tasks amazed even old and experienced soldiers.

"Fedya Samodurov. Fedya is 14 years old, he is a student of a motorized rifle unit, commanded by Guard Captain A. Chernavin. Fedya was picked up in his homeland, in a destroyed village in the Voronezh region. Together with the unit, he participated in the battles for Ternopil, with machine-gun crews he kicked the Germans out of the city When almost the entire crew was killed, the teenager, together with the surviving soldier, took up the machine gun, firing long and hard, and detained the enemy. Fedya was awarded the medal “For Courage.”
Vanya Kozlov. Vanya is 13 years old, he was left without family and has been in a motorized rifle unit for two years now. At the front, he delivers food, newspapers and letters to soldiers in the most difficult conditions.
Petya Zub. Petya Zub chose an equally difficult specialty. He decided long ago to become a scout. His parents were killed, and he knows how to settle accounts with the damned German. Together with experienced scouts, he reaches the enemy, reports his location by radio, and the artillery, at their direction, fires, crushing the fascists." ("Arguments and Facts", No. 25, 2010, p. 42).

A graduate of the 63rd Guards Tank Brigade, Anatoly Yakushin, received the Order of the Red Star for saving the life of the brigade commander. There are quite a lot of examples of heroic behavior of children and teenagers at the front...

A lot of these guys died and went missing during the war. In Vladimir Bogomolov’s story “Ivan” you can read about the fate of a young intelligence officer. Vanya was originally from Gomel. His father and sister died during the war. The boy had to go through a lot: he was in the partisans, and in Trostyanets - in the death camp. Mass executions and cruel treatment of the population also aroused in children a great desire for revenge. When they found themselves in the Gestapo, the teenagers showed amazing courage and resilience. This is how the author describes the death of the hero of the story: “...On December 21 of this year, at the location of the 23rd Army Corps, in a restricted area near the railway, auxiliary police officer Efim Titkov noticed and after two hours of observation detained a Russian student, 10-12 years old. , lying in the snow and watching the movement of trains on the Kalinkovichi - Klinsk section... During interrogations, he behaved defiantly: he did not hide his hostile attitude towards the German army and the German Empire. In accordance with the directive of the Supreme Command of the Armed Forces of November 11, 1942, he was shot on December 25. 43 at 6.55".

Girls also actively participated in the underground and partisan struggle in the occupied territory. Fifteen-year-old Zina Portnova came from Leningrad to visit her relatives in 1941. summer holidays to the village of Zuy, Vitebsk region. During the war it became active participant Obol anti-fascist underground youth organization “Young Avengers”. While working in the canteen of a retraining course for German officers, at the direction of the underground, she poisoned the food. She took part in other acts of sabotage, distributed leaflets among the population, and conducted reconnaissance on instructions from a partisan detachment. In December 1943, returning from a mission, she was arrested in the village of Mostishche and identified as a traitor. During one of the interrogations, she grabbed the investigator’s pistol from the table, shot him and two other Nazis, tried to escape, but was captured, brutally tortured and on January 13, 1944, shot in the Polotsk prison.

And sixteen-year-old schoolgirl Olya Demesh with her younger sister Lida at the Orsha station in Belarus, on instructions from the commander of the partisan brigade S. Zhulin, used magnetic mines to blow up fuel tanks. Of course, girls attracted much less attention from German guards and policemen than teenage boys or adult men. But the girls were just right to play with dolls, and they fought with Wehrmacht soldiers!

Thirteen-year-old Lida often took a basket or bag and went to the railway tracks to collect coal, obtaining intelligence about German military trains. If the guards stopped her, she explained that she was collecting coal to heat the room in which the Germans lived. Olya’s mother and little sister Lida were captured and shot by the Nazis, and Olya continued to fearlessly carry out the partisans’ tasks. The Nazis promised a generous reward for the head of the young partisan Olya Demesh - land, a cow and 10 thousand marks. Copies of her photograph were distributed and sent to all patrol services, policemen, elders and secret agents. Capture and deliver her alive - that was the order! But they failed to catch the girl. Olga destroyed 20 German soldiers and officers, derailed 7 enemy trains, conducted reconnaissance, participated in the “rail war”, and in the destruction of German punitive units.

From the first days of the war, the children had a great desire to help the front in some way. In the rear, children did their best to help adults in all matters: they participated in air defense - they were on duty on the roofs of houses during enemy raids, built defensive fortifications, collected ferrous and non-ferrous scrap metal, medicinal plants, participated in collecting things for the Red Army, worked on Sundays .

The guys worked for days in factories, factories and factories, standing at the machines instead of brothers and fathers who had gone to the front. Children also worked at defense enterprises: they made fuses for mines, fuses for hand grenades, smoke bombs, colored flares, and assembled gas masks. They worked in agriculture, growing vegetables for hospitals. In school sewing workshops, pioneers sewed underwear and tunics for the army. The girls knitted warm clothes for the front: mittens, socks, scarves, and sewed tobacco pouches. The guys helped the wounded in hospitals, wrote letters to their relatives under their dictation, staged performances for the wounded, organized concerts, bringing a smile to war-weary adult men. E. Yevtushenko has a touching poem about one such concert:

"The radio was turned off in the room...
And someone stroked my cowlick.
In the Ziminsky hospital for the wounded
Our children's choir gave a concert..."

Meanwhile, hunger, cold, and disease quickly dealt with fragile little lives.
A number of objective reasons: the departure of teachers to the army, the evacuation of the population from the western regions to the eastern, the inclusion of students in labor activity due to the departure of family breadwinners for the war, the transfer of many schools to hospitals, etc., prevented the deployment of a universal seven-year compulsory school in the USSR during the war. training started in the 30s. In the remaining educational institutions, training was conducted in two, three, and sometimes four shifts. At the same time, the children were forced to store firewood for the boiler houses themselves. There were no textbooks, and due to a shortage of paper, they wrote on old newspapers between the lines. Nevertheless, new schools were opened and additional classes were created. Boarding schools were created for evacuated children. For those youth who left school at the beginning of the war and were employed in industry or agriculture, schools for working and rural youth were organized in 1943.

There are still many little-known pages in the chronicles of the Great Patriotic War, for example, the fate of kindergartens. “It turns out that in December 1941, kindergartens were operating in bomb shelters in besieged Moscow. When the enemy was repulsed, they resumed their work faster than many universities. By the fall of 1942, 258 kindergartens had opened in Moscow!

More than five hundred teachers and nannies dug trenches on the outskirts of the capital in the fall of 1941. Hundreds worked in logging operations. The teachers, who just yesterday were dancing with the children in a round dance, fought in the Moscow militia. Natasha Yanovskaya, a kindergarten teacher in the Baumansky district, died heroically near Mozhaisk. The teachers who remained with the children did not perform any feats. They simply saved children whose fathers were fighting and whose mothers were at work. Most kindergartens became boarding schools during the war; children were there day and night. And in order to feed children in half-starvation, protect them from the cold, give them at least a modicum of comfort, occupy them with benefit for the mind and soul - such work required great love for children, deep decency and boundless patience." (D. Shevarov " World of News", No. 27, 2010, p. 27).

"Play now, children.
Grow in freedom!
That's why you need red
Childhood is given", wrote N.A. Nekrasov, but the war also deprived kindergarteners of their “red childhood.” These little children also grew up early, quickly forgetting how to be naughty and capricious. Recovering soldiers from hospitals came to children's matinees in kindergartens. The wounded soldiers applauded the little artists for a long time, smiling through their tears... The warmth of the children's holiday warmed the wounded souls of the front-line soldiers, reminded them of home, and helped them return from the war unharmed. Children from kindergartens and their teachers also wrote letters to soldiers at the front, sent drawings and gifts.

Children's games have changed, "... a new game- to the hospital. Hospital has been played before, but not like this. Now the wounded are real people for them. But they play war less often, because no one wants to be a fascist. Trees perform this role for them. They shoot snowballs at them. We learned to provide assistance to the injured - the fallen, the bruised." From a boy's letter to a front-line soldier: "We used to often play war, but now much less often - we're tired of the war, it would sooner end so that we could live well again..." (Ibid.).

Due to the death of their parents, many homeless children appeared in the country. The Soviet state, despite the difficult wartime, still fulfilled its obligations to children left without parents. To combat neglect, a network of children's reception centers and orphanages was organized and opened, and employment of teenagers was organized. Many families of Soviet citizens began to take in orphans, where they found new parents. Unfortunately, not all teachers and heads of children's institutions were distinguished by honesty and decency. Here are some examples.

"In the autumn of 1942, in the Pochinkovsky district of the Gorky region, children dressed in rags were caught stealing potatoes and grain from collective farm fields. It turned out that the pupils of the district orphanage. And they did this not at all out of a good life. Upon further investigation, local police discovered a criminal group, or, in fact, a gang, consisting of employees of this institution. In total, seven people were arrested in the case, including the director of the orphanage Novoseltsev, accountant Sdobnov, storekeeper Mukhina and other persons. During the searches, 14 children's coats, seven suits, 30 meters of cloth, 350 meters of textiles and other illegally appropriated property, allocated with great difficulty by the state during this harsh wartime, were confiscated from them.

The investigation established that by not delivering the required quota of bread and food, these criminals stole seven tons of bread, half a ton of meat, 380 kg of sugar, 180 kg of cookies, 106 kg of fish, 121 kg of honey, etc. during 1942 alone. The orphanage workers sold all these scarce products on the market or simply ate them themselves. Only one comrade Novoseltsev received fifteen portions of breakfast and lunch every day for himself and his family members. Thanks to the pupils, the rest of us ate well too. service staff. The children were fed “dishes” made from rotten vegetables, citing poor supplies. For the entire 1942, they were only given one candy once for the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution... And what is most surprising, the director of the orphanage Novoseltsev in the same 1942 received from the People's Commissariat of Education certificate of honor for excellent educational work. All these fascists were deservedly sentenced to long terms of imprisonment." (Zefirov M.V., Dektyarev D.M. “Everything for the front? How victory was actually forged,” pp. 388-391).

“Similar cases of crimes and failure of teaching staff to fulfill their duties were identified in other regions. Thus, in November 1942, a special message was sent to the Saratov City Defense Committee about the difficult financial and living situation of children in orphanages... Boarding schools are poorly heated or have no fuel at all , children are not provided with warm clothes and shoes, and as a result of non-compliance with basic social and hygienic rules, infectious diseases are observed. Educational work has been neglected... In a boarding school in the village of Nesterovo, on some days the children did not receive bread at all, as if they lived not in the rear Saratov region, but in the besieged Leningrad. Education, due to the lack of teachers and lack of premises, was abandoned long ago. In boarding schools in the Rivne region, in the village of Volkovo and others, children also did not receive bread at all for several days." (Ibid. pp. 391-392).

“Oh, war, what have you done, vile....” Over the long four years that the Great Patriotic War lasted, children, from toddlers to high school students, fully experienced all its horrors. War every day, every second, every dream, and so on for almost four years. But war is hundreds of times more terrible if you see it through a child’s eyes... And no amount of time can heal the wounds of war, especially children’s. “These years that once were, the bitterness of childhood does not allow one to forget...”

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During the Great Patriotic War, a whole army of boys and girls acted against the Nazi occupiers.

In occupied Belarus alone, no less than 74,500 boys and girls, young men and women fought in partisan detachments.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia says that during the Great Patriotic War more than 35 thousand pioneers - young defenders of the Motherland - were awarded military orders and medals.

It was an amazing “movement”! The boys and girls did not wait until adults “called” them, they began to act from the first days of the occupation. They took a mortal risk!

Likewise, many others began to act at their own peril and risk. Someone found leaflets scattered from airplanes and distributed them in their regional center or village. Polotsk boy Lenya Kosach collected 45 rifles, 2 light machine guns, several baskets of cartridges and grenades from the battlefields and hid it all securely; an opportunity presented itself - he handed it over to the partisans.

Hundreds of other guys created arsenals for the partisans in the same way. Twelve-year-old excellent student Lyuba Morozova, knowing a little German, engaged in “special propaganda” among the enemies, telling them how well she lived before the war without the “new order” of the invaders.

Soldiers often told her that she was “red to the bone” and advised her to hold her tongue until it ended badly for her. Later Lyuba became a partisan. Eleven-year-old Tolya Korneev stole a pistol with ammunition from a German officer and began looking for people who would help him reach the partisans.

In the summer of 1942, the boy succeeded in this, meeting his classmate Olya Demesh, who by that time was already a member of one of the units. And when the older guys brought 9-year-old Zhora Yuzov to the detachment, and the commander jokingly asked: “Who will babysit this little guy?”, the boy, in addition to the pistol, laid out four grenades in front of him: “That’s who will babysit me!”

For 13 years, Seryozha Roslenko, in addition to collecting weapons, conducted reconnaissance at his own risk: there will be someone to pass on information to! And I found it.

From somewhere the children got the idea of ​​conspiracy. In the fall of 1941, sixth-grader Vitya Pashkevich organized a semblance of the Krasnodon “Young Guard” in Borisov, occupied by the Nazis. He and his team carried weapons and ammunition from enemy warehouses, helped underground fighters to escape prisoners of war from concentration camps, and burned an enemy warehouse with uniforms with thermite incendiary grenades...

Experienced Scout

In January 1942, one of the partisan detachments operating in the Ponizovsky district of the Smolensk region was surrounded by the Nazis. The Germans, pretty battered during the counter-offensive of Soviet troops near Moscow, did not risk immediately liquidating the detachment. They did not have accurate intelligence information about its strength, so they waited for reinforcements.

However, the ring was held tightly. The partisans were racking their brains about how to get out of the encirclement. Food was running out. And the detachment commander requested help from the Red Army command. In response, an encrypted message came over the radio, in which it was reported that the troops would not be able to help with active actions, but an experienced intelligence officer would be sent to the detachment.

And indeed, at the appointed time, the noise of the engines of an air transport was heard above the forest, and a few minutes later a paratrooper landed in the location of the surrounded people. The partisans who received the heavenly messenger were quite surprised when they saw in front of them... a boy.

Are you an experienced intelligence officer? - asked the commander.

Me: What, it doesn’t look like it? - The boy was wearing a uniform army pea coat, cotton pants and a hat with earflaps with an asterisk. Red Army soldier!

How old are you? - The commander still could not come to his senses from surprise.

It's going to be eleven soon! - the “experienced intelligence officer” answered importantly.

The boy's name was Yura Zhdanko. He was originally from Vitebsk. In July 1941, the ubiquitous shooter and expert on local territories showed the retreating Soviet unit a ford across the Western Dvina. He was no longer able to return home - while he was acting as a guide, Hitler’s armored vehicles entered his hometown. And the scouts, who were tasked with escorting the boy back, took him with them.

So he was enrolled as a graduate of the motor reconnaissance company of the 332nd Ivanovo Rifle Division named after. M.F. Frunze.

At first he was not involved in business, but, naturally observant, sharp-eyed and memorative, he quickly learned the basics of front-line raid science and even dared to give advice to adults. And his abilities were appreciated. They began to send him behind the front line.

In the villages, he, dressed in disguise, with a bag over his shoulders, begged for alms, collecting information about the location and number of enemy garrisons. I also managed to take part in the mining of a strategically important bridge. During the explosion, a Red Army miner was wounded, and Yura, after providing first aid, led him to the unit’s location. For which he received his first medal “For Courage”.

...It seems that a better intelligence officer could not have been found to help the partisans.

But you, boy, didn’t jump with a parachute... - the intelligence chief said sadly.

Jumped twice! - Yura objected loudly. - I begged the sergeant... he quietly taught me...

Everyone knew that this sergeant and Yura were inseparable, and he could, of course, follow the lead of the regimental favorite. The Li-2 engines were already roaring, the plane was ready to take off, when the guy admitted that, of course, he had never jumped with a parachute:

The sergeant didn’t allow me, I only helped lay the dome. Show me how and what to pull!

Why did he lie?! - the instructor shouted at him. - He was lying against the sergeant in vain.

I thought you would check... But they wouldn’t: the sergeant was killed...

Having arrived safely at the detachment, ten-year-old Vitebsk resident Yura Zhdanko did what adults could not... He was dressed in all the village clothes, and soon the boy made his way to the hut where the German officer in charge of the encirclement lodged. The Nazi lived in the house of a certain grandfather Vlas. It was to him, under the guise of a grandson, that a young intelligence officer came to him from the regional center, who was given a rather difficult task- obtain from the enemy officer documents with plans for the destruction of the encircled detachment.

An opportunity arose only a few days later. The Nazi left the house lightly, leaving the key to the safe in his overcoat... So the documents ended up in the detachment. And at the same time, Yuri brought grandfather Vlas, convincing him that it was impossible to stay in the house in such a situation.

In 1943, Yura led a regular Red Army battalion out of encirclement. All the scouts sent to find the “corridor” for their comrades died. The task was entrusted to Yura. Alone. And he found a weak spot in the enemy ring... He became the Order Bearer of the Red Star.

Yuri Ivanovich Zhdanko, recalling his military childhood, said that he “played in a real war, did what adults couldn’t, and there were a lot of situations when they couldn’t do something, but I could.”

Fourteen-year-old savior of prisoners of war

14-year-old Minsk underground fighter Volodya Shcherbatsevich was one of the first teenagers whom the Germans executed for participating in the underground. They captured his execution on film and then distributed these frames throughout the city - as an edification to others...

From the first days of the occupation of the Belarusian capital, mother and son Shcherbatsevichs hid Soviet commanders in their apartment, for whom underground fighters from time to time arranged escapes from a prisoner of war camp. Olga Fedorovna was a doctor and provided assistance to those released medical care, changed into civilian clothes, which she and her son Volodya collected from relatives and friends.

Several groups of rescued people have already been brought out of the city. But one day on the way, already outside the city blocks, one of the groups fell into the clutches of the Gestapo. Handed over by a traitor, the son and mother ended up in fascist dungeons. They withstood all the torture.

And on October 26, 1941, the first gallows appeared in Minsk. On this day, for the last time, surrounded by a pack of machine gunners, Volodya Shcherbatsevich walked through the streets of his native city... The pedantic punishers captured the report of his execution on photographic film. And perhaps we see on it the first young hero who gave his life for his Motherland during the Great Patriotic War.

Die, but take revenge

Here is another amazing example of young heroism from 1941...

Osintorf village. One August day, the Nazis, together with their henchmen from local residents - the burgomaster, the clerk and the chief policeman - raped and brutally killed the young teacher Anya Lyutova. By that time, a youth underground was already operating in the village under the leadership of Slava Shmuglevsky.

The guys gathered and decided: “Death to traitors!” Slava himself volunteered to carry out the sentence, as did teenage brothers Misha and Zhenya Telenchenko, aged thirteen and fifteen.

By that time, they already had hidden a machine gun found in the battlefields. They acted simply and directly, like a boy. The brothers took advantage of the fact that their mother had gone to relatives that day and was supposed to return only in the morning. They installed a machine gun on the balcony of the apartment and began to wait for traitors who often passed by.

We didn't miscalculate. When they approached, Slava began shooting at them almost point-blank. But one of the criminals - the burgomaster - managed to escape. He reported by telephone to Orsha that the village was attacked by a large partisan detachment (a machine gun is a serious thing). Cars with punitive forces rushed in. With the help of bloodhounds, the weapon was quickly found: Misha and Zhenya, not having time to find a more reliable hiding place, hid the machine gun in the attic of their own house. Both were arrested. The boys were tortured most cruelly and for a long time, but not one of them betrayed Slava Shmuglevsky and other underground fighters to the enemy. The Telenchenko brothers were executed in October.

The Great Conspirator

Pavlik Titov, for his eleven years, was a great conspirator. He fought as a partisan for more than two years without even his parents knowing about it. Many episodes of his combat biography remained unknown. This is what is known.

First, Pavlik and his comrades rescued a wounded Soviet commander who was burned in a burnt tank - they found a reliable shelter for him, and at night they brought him food, water, and made some jew's harp according to his grandmother's recipes. medicinal decoctions. Thanks to the boys, the tanker quickly recovered.

In July 1942, Pavlik and his friends handed over to the partisans several rifles and machine guns with cartridges they had found. Missions followed. The young intelligence officer penetrated the Nazis' location and kept count of manpower and equipment.

He was generally a cunning guy. One day he brought a bundle of fascist uniforms to the partisans:

I think you will find it useful... Not to carry it yourself, of course...

Where did you get it?

Yes, the Krauts were swimming...

More than once, dressed in the uniform obtained by the boy, the partisans carried out daring raids and operations. The boy died in the fall of 1943. Not in battle. The Germans carried out another punitive operation. Pavlik and his parents were hiding in the dugout. The punishers shot the entire family - father, mother, Pavlik himself and even his little sister. He was buried in mass grave in Surazh, not far from Vitebsk.

Zina Portnova

In June 1941, Leningrad schoolgirl Zina Portnova came with her younger sister Galya to visit her grandmother in the village of Zui (Shumilinsky district of the Vitebsk region) for the summer holidays. She was fifteen... First, she got a job as an auxiliary worker in a canteen for German officers.

And soon, together with her friend, she carried out a daring operation - she poisoned more than a hundred Nazis. She could have been captured right away, but they began to follow her. By that time, she was already connected with the Obol underground organization “Young Avengers”. In order to avoid failure, Zina was transferred to a partisan detachment.

Once she was instructed to scout out the number and type of troops in the Oboli area. Another time - to clarify the reasons for the failure in the Obol underground and establish new connections... After completing the next task, she was captured by punitive forces. They tortured me for a long time. During one of the interrogations, the girl, as soon as the investigator turned away, grabbed the pistol from the table with which he had just threatened her and shot him. She jumped out the window, shot a sentry and rushed to the Dvina. Another sentry rushed after her. Zina, hiding behind a bush, wanted to destroy him too, but the weapon misfired...

Then they no longer interrogated her, but methodically tortured and mocked her. They gouged out their eyes and cut off their ears. They drove needles under her nails, twisted her arms and legs... On January 13, 1944, Zina Portnova was shot.

"Kid" and his sisters

From a report of the Vitebsk underground city party committee in 1942: “Baby” (he is 12 years old), having learned that the partisans needed gun oil, without an assignment, on his own initiative, brought 2 liters of gun oil from the city. Then he was tasked with delivering sulfuric acid for sabotage purposes. He also brought it. And he carried it in a bag behind his back. The acid spilled, his shirt was burned, his back was burned, but he did not throw the acid.

The “baby” was Alyosha Vyalov, who enjoyed special sympathy among the local partisans. And he acted as part of a family group. When the war began, he was 11, his older sisters Vasilisa and Anya were 16 and 14, the rest of the children were a little younger. Alyosha and his sisters were very inventive.

They set fire to Vitebsk three times Train Station, they prepared an explosion at the labor exchange in order to confuse the population records and save young people and other residents from being taken to the “German paradise”, they blew up the passport office in the police premises... They have dozens of acts of sabotage. And this is in addition to the fact that they were messengers and distributed leaflets...

“Baby” and Vasilisa died soon after the war from tuberculosis... A rare case: a memorial plaque was installed on the Vyalovs’ house in Vitebsk. These children should have a monument made of gold!..

Meanwhile, another Vitebsk family is also known - Lynchenko. 11-year-old Kolya, 9-year-old Dina and 7-year-old Emma were the messengers of their mother, Natalya Fedorovna, whose apartment served as a reporting area. In 1943, as a result of a failure, the Gestapo broke into the house.

The mother was beaten in front of her children, they shot above her head, demanding to name the members of the group. They also mocked the children, asking them who came to their mother and where she herself went. They tried to bribe little Emma with chocolate. The children didn't say anything. Moreover, during the search in the apartment, seizing the moment, Dina took out encryption codes from under the board of the table, where one of the hiding places was, and hid them under her dress, and when the punishers left, taking her mother away, she burned them. The children were left in the house as bait, but they, knowing that the house was being watched, managed to warn the messengers with signs who were going to the failed appearance...

Prize for the head of a young saboteur

The Nazis promised a round sum for the head of Orsha schoolgirl Olya Demesh. Hero of the Soviet Union, former commander of the 8th Partisan Brigade, Colonel Sergei Zhunin, spoke about this in his memoirs “From the Dnieper to the Bug”. A 13-year-old girl at the Orsha-Tsentralnaya station blew up fuel tanks.

Sometimes she acted with her twelve-year-old sister Lida. Zhunin recalled how Olya was instructed before the mission: “It is necessary to place a mine under the gasoline tank. Remember, only for a gasoline tank!” - “I know what kerosene smells like, I cooked with kerosene gas myself, but gasoline... let me at least smell it.” There were a lot of trains and dozens of tanks at the junction, and you had to find “the one.”

Olya and Lida crawled under the trains, sniffing: is this one or not this one? Gasoline or not gasoline? Then they threw stones and determined by the sound: empty or full? And only then they hooked the magnetic mine. The fire destroyed a huge number of carriages with equipment, food, uniforms, fodder, and steam locomotives were also burned...

The Germans managed to capture Olya’s mother and sister and shot them; but Olya remained elusive. During the ten months of her participation in the Chekist brigade (from June 7, 1942 to April 10, 1943), she showed herself not only to be a fearless intelligence officer, but also derailed seven enemy echelons, participated in the defeat of several military-police garrisons, and had to his personal account 20 destroyed enemy soldiers and officers. And then she was also a participant in the “rail war”.

Eleven-year-old saboteur

Vitya Sitnitsa. How he wanted to be a partisan! But for two years from the beginning of the war he remained “only” a conductor of partisan sabotage groups passing through his village of Kuritichi. However, he learned something from the partisan guides during their short rests. In August 1943, he and his older brother were accepted into the partisan detachment. They were assigned to the economic platoon.

Then he said that peeling potatoes and taking out slops with his ability to lay mines was unfair. Moreover, the “rail war” is in full swing. And they began to take him on combat missions. The boy personally derailed 9 echelons of enemy manpower and military equipment.

In the spring of 1944, Vitya fell ill with rheumatism and was sent to his relatives for medicine. In the village, he was captured by Nazis dressed as Red Army soldiers. The boy was brutally tortured.

Little Susanin

He began his war against the Nazi invaders at the age of 9. Already in the summer of 1941, in the house of his parents in the village of Bayki in the Brest region, the regional anti-fascist committee equipped a secret printing house. They issued leaflets with reports from the Sovinformburo. Tikhon Baran helped distribute them. For two years the young underground worker was engaged in this activity.

The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the printers. The printing house was destroyed. Tikhon’s mother and sisters hid with relatives, and he himself went to the partisans. One day, when he was visiting his relatives, the Germans came to the village. The mother was taken to Germany, and the boy was beaten. He became very ill and remained in the village.

Local historians dated his feat to January 22, 1944. On this day, punitive forces appeared in the village again. All residents were shot for contacting the partisans. The village was burned. “And you,” they told Tikhon, “will show us the way to the partisans.”

It is difficult to say whether the village boy heard anything about the Kostroma peasant Ivan Susanin, who more than three centuries earlier led the Polish interventionists into a swampy swamp, only Tikhon Baran showed the fascists the same road. They killed him, but not all of them got out of that quagmire.

Covering detachment

Vanya Kazachenko from the village of Zapolye, Orsha district, Vitebsk region, became a machine gunner in a partisan detachment in April 1943. He was thirteen. Anyone who served in the army and carried at least a Kalashnikov assault rifle (not a machine gun!) on their shoulders can imagine what it cost the boy. Guerrilla raids most often lasted many hours. And the machine guns of that time were heavier than the current ones...

After one of the successful operations to defeat the enemy garrison, in which Vanya once again distinguished himself, the partisans, returning to the base, stopped to rest in a village not far from Bogushevsk. Vanya, assigned to guard duty, chose a place, disguised himself and covered the road leading to the settlement. Here the young machine gunner fought his last battle.

Noticing the carts with the Nazis suddenly appearing, he opened fire on them. By the time his comrades arrived, the Germans managed to surround the boy, seriously wound him, take him prisoner and retreat. The partisans did not have the opportunity to pursue the carts to recapture it. Vanya, tied to a cart, was dragged along an icy road for about twenty kilometers by the Nazis. In the village of Mezhevo, Orsha region, where there was an enemy garrison, he was tortured and shot.

The hero was 14 years old

Marat Kazei was born on October 10, 1929 in the village of Stankovo, Minsk region of Belarus. In November 1942 he joined the partisan detachment named after. 25th anniversary of October, then became a scout at the headquarters of the partisan brigade named after. K.K. Rokossovsky.

Marat's father Ivan Kazei was arrested in 1934 as a “saboteur”, and he was rehabilitated only in 1959. Later, his wife was also arrested, but later, however, she was released. So it turned out to be a family of an “enemy of the people” who were shunned by their neighbors. Kazei’s sister, Ariadne, was not accepted into the Komsomol because of this.

It would seem that all this should have made the Kazei angry with the authorities - but no. In 1941, Anna Kazei, the wife of an “enemy of the people,” hid wounded partisans in her home - for which she was executed by the Germans.

Ariadne and Marat went to the partisans. Ariadne remained alive, but became disabled - when the detachment left the encirclement, her legs froze, which had to be amputated. When she was taken to the hospital by plane, the detachment commander offered to fly with her and Marat so that he could continue his studies interrupted by the war. But Marat refused and remained in the partisan detachment.

Marat went on reconnaissance missions, both alone and with a group. Participated in raids. He blew up the echelons. For the battle in January 1943, when, wounded, he roused his comrades to attack and made his way through the enemy ring, Marat received the medal “For Courage”.

And in May 1944, Marat died. Returning from a mission together with the reconnaissance commander, they came across the Germans. The commander was killed immediately, Marat, firing back, lay down in a hollow. There was nowhere to leave in the open field, and there was no opportunity - Marat was seriously wounded. While there were cartridges, he held the defense, and when the magazine was empty, he picked up his last weapon - two grenades, which he did not remove from his belt. He threw one at the Germans, and left the second. When the Germans came very close, he blew himself up along with the enemies.

In Minsk, a monument to Kazei was erected using funds raised by Belarusian pioneers. In 1958, an obelisk was erected at the grave of the young Hero in the village of Stankovo, Dzerzhinsky district, Minsk region. The monument to Marat Kazei was erected in Moscow (on the territory of VDNH). The state farm, streets, schools, pioneer squads and detachments of many schools of the Soviet Union, the ship of the Caspian Shipping Company were named after the pioneer hero Marat Kazei.

The boy from the legend

Golikov Leonid Aleksandrovich, scout of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad Partisan Brigade, born in 1926, native of the village of Lukino, Parfinsky district. This is what is written on the award sheet. A boy from a legend—that’s what fame called Lenya Golikova.

When the war began, a schoolboy from the village of Lukino, which Staraya Russa, got a rifle and joined the partisans. Thin and short, at 14 he looked even younger. Under the guise of a beggar, he walked around the villages, collecting the necessary data on the location of fascist troops and the amount of enemy military equipment.

Together with his peers, he once picked up several rifles at a battle site and stole two boxes of grenades from the Nazis. They then handed all this over to the partisans. “Comrade Golikov joined the partisan detachment in March 1942, the award sheet says. - Participated in 27 combat operations...

He exterminated 78 German soldiers and officers, blew up 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, blew up 9 vehicles with ammunition... On August 15, in the new combat area of ​​the brigade, Golikov crashed a passenger car in which Major General of the Engineering Troops Richard Wirtz was on his way from Pskov to Luga . A brave partisan killed the general with a machine gun and delivered his jacket and captured documents to the brigade headquarters.

The documents included: a description of new types of German mines, inspection reports to higher command and other valuable intelligence data.”

Lake Radilovskoye was a gathering point during the brigade’s transition to a new area of ​​operations. On the way there, the partisans had to engage in battles with the enemy. The punishers monitored the progress of the partisans, and as soon as the forces of the brigade united, they forced a battle on it.

After the battle at Lake Radilovskoe, the main forces of the brigade continued their journey to the Lyadskie forests. The detachments of I. Grozny and B. Eren-Price remained in the lake area to distract the fascists. They never managed to connect with the brigade. In mid-November, the occupiers attacked the headquarters. Many soldiers died defending him. The rest managed to retreat to the Terp-Kamen swamp. On December 25, the swamp was surrounded by several hundred fascists.

With considerable losses, the partisans broke out of the ring and entered the Strugokrasnensky region. Only 50 people remained in the ranks, the radio did not work. And the punishers scoured all the villages in search of partisans. We had to follow untrodden paths. The path was paved by scouts, and among them Lenya Golikov. Attempts to establish contact with other units and stock up on food ended tragically. There was only one way out - to make our way to the mainland.

After crossing the Dno-Novosokolniki railway late at night on January 24, 1943, 27 hungry, exhausted partisans came to the village of Ostray Luka. Ahead, the Partizansky region, burned by punitive forces, stretched 90 kilometers. The scouts did not find anything suspicious. The enemy garrison was located several kilometers away.

The partisans' companion, a nurse, was dying from a serious wound and asked for at least a little warmth. They occupied the three outer huts. Brigade commander Glebov decided not to post patrols so as not to attract attention. They were on duty alternately at the windows and in the barn, from where both the village and the road to the forest were clearly visible.

About two hours later, my sleep was interrupted by the roar of an exploding grenade. And immediately the heavy machine gun began to rattle. Following the traitor's denunciation, punitive forces arrived. The partisans jumped out into the courtyard and through the vegetable gardens, firing back, and began to rush towards the forest. Glebov with a military escort covered the retreating forces with light machine gun and machine gun fire. Halfway there, the seriously wounded chief of staff fell.

Lenya rushed to him. But Petrov ordered to return to the brigade commander, and he himself, covering the wound under his padded jacket with an individual bag, again stitched with a machine gun. In that unequal battle, the entire headquarters of the 4th partisan brigade was killed. Among the fallen was the young partisan Lenya Golikov. Six managed to reach the forest, two of them were seriously injured and could not move without assistance...

Only on January 31, near the village of Zhemchugovo, exhausted and frostbitten, they met with the scouts of the 8th Guards Panfilov Division.

For a long time, his mother Ekaterina Alekseevna knew nothing about Leni’s fate. The war had already moved far to the west when one Sunday afternoon a horseman in military uniform stopped near their hut. Mother went out onto the porch. The officer handed her a large package. The old woman accepted him with trembling hands and called her daughter Valya. The package contained a certificate bound in crimson leather. There was also an envelope, which Valya opened quietly and said: “This is for you, mom, from Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin himself.”

With excitement, the mother took a bluish sheet of paper and read: “Dear Ekaterina Alekseevna! According to the command, your son Leonid Aleksandrovich Golikov died a brave death for his homeland. For the heroic feat performed by your son in the fight against German invaders behind enemy lines, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by Decree of April 2, 1944, awarded him highest degree distinction - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. I am sending you a letter from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR conferring on your son the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to be kept as a memory of a heroic son whose feat will never be forgotten by our people. M. Kalinin." - “That’s what he turned out to be, my Lenyushka!” - the mother said quietly. And in these words there was grief, pain, and pride for his son...

Lenya was buried in the village of Ostraya Luka. His name is inscribed on the obelisk installed on the mass grave. The monument in Novgorod was opened on January 20, 1964. The figure of a boy in a hat with earflaps and a machine gun in his hands is carved from light granite. The hero’s name is given to streets in St. Petersburg, Pskov, Staraya Russa, Okulovka, the village of Pola, the village of Parfino, a motor ship of the Riga Shipping Company, in Novgorod - a street, the House of Pioneers, a training ship for young sailors in Staraya Russa. In Moscow, at the Exhibition of Economic Achievements of the USSR, a monument to the hero was also erected.

The youngest hero of the Soviet Union

Valya Kotik. A young partisan reconnaissance officer of the Great Patriotic War in the Karmelyuk detachment, which operated in temporarily occupied territory; the youngest Hero of the Soviet Union. He was born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Kamenets-Podolsk region of Ukraine, according to one information in the family of an employee, according to another - a peasant. Of education, there are only 5 classes of secondary school in the regional center.

During the Great Patriotic War, being in territory temporarily occupied by Nazi troops, Valya Kotik worked to collect weapons and ammunition, drew and pasted up caricatures of the Nazis.

Valentin and his peers received their first combat mission in the fall of 1941. The guys lay down in the bushes near the Shepetovka-Slavuta highway. Hearing the noise of the engine, they froze. It was scary. But when the car with the fascist gendarmes caught up with them, Valya Kotik stood up and threw a grenade. The head of the field gendarmerie was killed.

In October 1943, a young partisan scouted the location of the underground telephone cable of Hitler's headquarters, which was soon blown up. He also participated in the bombing of six railway trains and a warehouse. On October 29, 1943, while at his post, Valya noticed that the punitive forces had staged a raid on the detachment. Having killed a fascist officer with a pistol, he raised the alarm, and thanks to his actions, the partisans managed to prepare for battle.

On February 16, 1944, in a battle for the city of Izyaslav, Khmelnitsky region, a 14-year-old partisan scout was mortally wounded and died the next day. He was buried in the center of a park in the Ukrainian city of Shepetivka.

For his heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 27, 58, Kotik Valentin Aleksandrovich was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Great Patriotic War,” 2nd degree.

A motor ship and a number of secondary schools are named after him; there used to be pioneer squads and detachments named after Vali Kotik. In Moscow and in his hometown in 60, monuments were erected to him. There is a street named after the young hero in Yekaterinburg, Kyiv and Kaliningrad.

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State budget educational institution secondary vocational education

"Technical College of Management and Commerce"

Report

on the topic “Children of War”

Completed the work:

student of group 9T-12

Pavlova Anastasia

Checked:

Volochaeva T.V.

St. Petersburg 2015

Young fallen heroes

You remained young for us.

We are a living reminder

That the Fatherland has not forgotten you.

Life or death - and there is no middle.

Eternal gratitude to you all,

Little Stalwart Men

Girls worthy of poems...

War is a terrible and frightening word. This is the most difficult test for the entire people. Children are the most defenseless and vulnerable at this time. Their childhood is irretrievably gone, replaced by pain, suffering, loss of family and friends, and deprivation. The war squeezes fragile children's souls with a steel vice, wounding and crippling them.

“Children and war—there is no more terrible convergence of opposite things in the world,” Tvardovsky wrote in one of his essays.

Children and war - two incompatible concepts. War breaks and cripples the destinies of children. But the children lived and worked next to the adults, and with their hard work tried to bring victory closer...

Children of war had to become adults early. There was no one to look after them, no one to fulfill their whims. After all, their parents either fought or worked from morning to evening so that the country could win the war. Or their parents were no longer there... Often at the age of 14-15, children of war themselves began to work like adults: in factories, in the fields, on a farm or in a hospital.

Their fathers went to the front and died, and their mothers often did not know where to get food to survive the next day. In this regard, it was a little easier for the villagers. They had land that, although it produced a meager harvest, could still feed them a little. The children dug up the remains of potatoes and ran into the forest in search of mushrooms, berries and healthy roots. They had to work equally with adults, because there were not enough workers.

In cities, the situation was more complicated for children. Food was given out in rations, the portions were tiny. Factory workers could receive an increased portion of bread. Many industrial enterprises were evacuated inland, and the families of workers went with them. And the children went to work. And sometimes they worked faster and better, exceeding all established standards.

The children dreamed of repeating the exploits of their fathers and brothers. Many deliberately increased their age so that they would be taken to the front or to a military school, to a cabin school.

There have been many recorded cases of children joining the partisans, especially often in the occupied territories. They took revenge for their murdered loved ones, they took revenge cruelly and mercilessly. There were cases when children led fighting in the regular army against the Nazis. Many children tried to flee their homes for the war, but most of them were captured by the military police and returned to their homes. Soldiers often found children in ravaged and burned villages of the Soviet Union. Orphaned children were placed in orphanages specially created during the war, but sometimes boys were included in active combat units, where they received weapons and special uniforms. Some of the guys entered the army at the age of 9 - 11, and remained with their regiment on all fronts, from Russia to Germany, until the end of the war. By their 14th or 16th birthday, most of them returned home with medals of honor.

Children in the rear

In 1941-1942, the number of young people in defense enterprises increased. If in 1940 the share of teenagers in them was 6%, then in 1942 it was 18%, and in the People's Commissariat of Heavy Industry it was 24-49.4%. Many of them became the founders of the patriotic movement in the very first days of the war. To work for yourself and a comrade who has gone to the front, to fulfill two norms during the war.

In December 1941, schoolchildren in the city of Gorky committed themselves, without interrupting their studies, to helping light industry enterprises in quickly fulfilling orders from the front. After classes, they worked in clothing factories, shoe workshops, took home orders and made spoons, mittens, socks, scarves, balaclavas, and participated in sewing uniforms.

In 1942, more than 3 thousand inexperienced, young workers joined the workshop of the Hammer and Sickle plant. Among them, about 100 people were former schoolchildren. They quickly mastered the profession of steelmaker, exceeded planned targets, and soon the whole country learned about the youth workshop.

In the first years of the war, several thousand graduates of vocational schools came to the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works. Their age did not exceed 15-17 years, but from the first days they began to service the largest units, worked at blast furnaces and open-hearth furnaces, at 7 rolling mills, they worked on an equal basis with regular workers, participated in social competition, and showed examples of labor heroism. During the three years of the war, they smelted 1 million tons of steel, 570 thousand tons of cast iron, and produced 580 thousand tons of rolled products. Only at the Kuznetsk Metallurgical Plant, where a lot of young people worked, during the war years such an amount of shell steel was produced, which would be enough to make 100 million shells and tank steel for 50 thousand heavy tanks.

In those days, many young men and women who came from Moscow schools could be seen at the plant. Wearing padded jackets and quilted trousers, and large, oversized boots with thick wooden soles, they stood at their work stations, some on special stands.

Nand on the collective farm front

Paying great tribute to the working class in ensuring victory over the Nazi invaders, one cannot help but talk about the enormous contribution to the overall victory of the Soviet peasantry. Despite the enormous difficulties that rural workers had to overcome, throughout the years of the war the front and rear were provided with agricultural products and necessary raw materials. A significant part of the male population of the village went into active service in the army, and basically all the work had to be done by women.

Therefore, the youngest citizens of our country - pioneers and schoolchildren of villages and villages - worked alongside their grandfathers, mothers, older brothers and sisters. They could be seen in the field and on the livestock farm, in the grain train and in the preparation of feed.

More than 20 million children helped adults and during the war years worked over 585 million workdays. Many of them were actively involved in work in the fields and farms in the very first days of the war.

Rural schoolchildren did not participate in any kind of work! They created posts to protect grain, carried out raids to check the readiness of collective farms for field work, collected ears of corn, fertilizers, cut off the tops of potato tubers for planting, looked after young animals on livestock farms, worked horses, treated grain, checked it for germination, made shields for snow retention. For example, in 1942, 8 million were threshed from collected spikelets in 26 regions.

683 thousand pounds of grain. During the war years, the country's working peasantry showed their unity and sought to give the front and rear everything they could to help defend the Motherland and the great gains of the collective farm system.

Contribution of pioneers and schoolchildren

The defense of the Soviet Motherland from the fascist invasion required every citizen of the USSR to find their place in the general system of struggle at the front and in the rear. In the Directive of June 29, 1941, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party called on all Soviet people to “organize comprehensive assistance to the army in the field... ensure the supply of the army with everything necessary...”.

Pioneers and schoolchildren showed exceptional patriotism in the movement to raise funds for the Red Army and Navy. With the money they collected, pennies at a time, they purchased tanks, planes, Katyushas and other weapons and handed them over to the active army. The patriotic movement of pioneers and schoolchildren to raise funds for the construction of tanks and tank columns covered all schools in the country. By the spring of 1943, youth and schoolchildren had collected about 542 million rubles for armament for the active army.

Thus, in numerous forms of donations, in selfless work for the active army, high Soviet patriotism, monolithic unity, cohesion and friendship of the peoples of our country were manifested.

Pioneers and schoolchildren - with warriors

Pioneers and schoolchildren were constantly associated with front-line soldiers. In their work, they tried to be like adults, they perfectly understood the tasks at hand, they understood that only through the joint efforts of the rear and the front can they defeat the Nazi invaders, who interrupted peaceful life, deprived not only adults, but also children of joy and happiness, they realized: in order to return the interrupted joy, it is necessary to defeat the enemy, and for this you need to give the active army everything it needs. And they found various ways and means of helping the army that were feasible for them.

When a movement began in the country to prepare gifts for front-line soldiers, pioneers and schoolchildren took an active part in it. For example, in July 1941, about 100 thousand various gifts were sent to front-line soldiers from Leningrad schoolchildren. In 1942, pioneers and schoolchildren of the Yegoryevsky district of the Moscow region made 18 thousand envelopes, 2 thousand handkerchiefs and 2 thousand lovingly embroidered tobacco pouches for front-line soldiers.

When the movement to collect warm clothes began, pioneers and schoolchildren also actively took part. Girls knitted mittens, sweaters, socks, and balaclavas, and boys organized shoe repair workshops in schools.

As a rule, each parcel with gifts from schoolchildren to front-line soldiers was accompanied by a letter that could not help but touch the soul and heart of the soldier or commander. Many of them contained letters entitled “Avenge Dad!” This meant that the boy or girl who, with their little hands, prepared this gift for the warrior, was already orphaned. Their fathers, defending their homeland and expelling the fascists from our land, died heroically and will never return to them.

Many pioneers and schoolchildren earned money on collective farms and enterprises, received for collecting medicinal plants, donated to the “wounded warrior fund.”

Only to the front

From the first days of the war, millions of people throughout the country were rushing to the front. Yesterday's schoolchildren, students, youth besieged the military registration and enlistment offices, they demanded - they did not ask! - they convinced, and when this did not help, then with sincere feeling they resorted to forgery - they overestimated their age by a year, or even two.

War is the work of men, but young citizens felt in their hearts their involvement in what was happening in their native land, and they, true patriots, could not stay away from the tragedy that was unfolding before their eyes.

They went to literally anything to join the ranks of defenders of the Motherland. Some people succeeded. And this happened not only in those areas to which the bloody tongues of war flames had crawled. Boys and girls from distant rear cities and villages fled to the front. Their desire was dictated (sincerely) by only one undisguised desire - to smash hated fascism together with the army. Young citizens wrote: “Guide us to where our hands and our knowledge are needed.”

The news of the atrocities and outrages of the Nazis on our land aroused great hatred and a sacred desire for revenge among the Soviet people. Already the first days of the war showed that the Nazi invaders were striving to implement the cannibalistic plans of the fascist command at any cost. By introducing a “new order,” they forcefully imposed a regime of terror and violence.

Many examples testify to the high patriotism of the Soviet people, devotion to their socialist Motherland, and self-sacrifice in the name of freedom and independence of their Fatherland.

child war front student

Children - heroes of the Great Patriotic War

Vasya Korobko

Chernihiv region. The front came close to the village of Pogoreltsy. On the outskirts, covering the withdrawal of our units, a company held the defense. A boy brought cartridges to the soldiers. His name was Vasya Korobko.

Night. Vasya creeps up to the school building occupied by the Nazis. He makes his way into the pioneer room, takes out the pioneer banner and hides it securely.

The outskirts of the village. Under the bridge - Vasya. He pulls out iron brackets, saws down the piles, and at dawn, from a hiding place, watches the bridge collapse under the weight of a fascist armored personnel carrier. The partisans were convinced that Vasya could be trusted, and entrusted him with a serious task: to become a scout in the enemy’s lair. At the fascist headquarters, he lights the stoves, chops wood, and he takes a closer look, remembers, and passes on information to the partisans. The punishers, who planned to exterminate the partisans, forced the boy to lead them into the forest. But Vasya led the Nazis to a police ambush. The Nazis, mistaking them for partisans in the dark, opened furious fire, killed all the policemen and themselves suffered heavy losses.

Together with the partisans, Vasya destroyed nine echelons and hundreds of Nazis. In one of the battles he was hit by an enemy bullet. The Motherland awarded its little hero, who lived a short but such a bright life, the Order of Lenin, the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 1st degree.

Nadya Bogdanova

She was executed twice by the Nazis, and battle friends long years Nadya was considered dead. They even erected a monument to her.

It’s hard to believe, but when she became a scout in the partisan detachment of “Uncle Vanya” Dyachkov, she was not yet ten years old. Small, thin, she, pretending to be a beggar, wandered among the Nazis, noticing everything, remembering everything, and brought the most valuable information to the detachment. And then, together with partisan fighters, she blew up the fascist headquarters, derailed a train with military equipment, and mined objects.

The first time she was captured was when, together with Vanya Zvontsov, she hung out a red flag in enemy-occupied Vitebsk on November 7, 1941. They beat her with ramrods, tortured her, and when they brought her to the ditch to shoot her, she no longer had any strength left - she fell into the ditch, momentarily outstripping the bullet. Vanya died, and the partisans found Nadya alive in a ditch...

The second time she was captured at the end of 1943. And again torture: they poured ice water on her in the cold, burned a five-pointed star on her back. Considering the scout dead, the Nazis abandoned her when the partisans attacked Karasevo. Local residents came out paralyzed and almost blind. After the war in Odessa, Academician V.P. Filatov restored Nadya’s sight.

15 years later, she heard on the radio how the intelligence chief of the 6th detachment, Slesarenko - her commander - said that the soldiers would never forget their dead comrades, and named among them Nadya Bogdanova, who saved his life, a wounded man...

Only then did she show up, only then did the people who worked with her learn about what an amazing destiny of a person she, Nadya Bogdanova, was awarded with the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and medals.

Zina Portnova

The war found the Leningrad pioneer Zina Portnova in the village of Zuya, where she came for vacation, not far from the Obol station in the Vitebsk region. An underground Komsomol-youth organization “Young Avengers” was created in Obol, and Zina was elected a member of its committee. She took part in daring operations against the enemy, in sabotage, distributed leaflets, and conducted reconnaissance on instructions from a partisan detachment.

It was December 1943. Zina was returning from a mission. In the village of Mostishche she was betrayed by a traitor. The Nazis captured the young partisan and tortured her. The answer to the enemy was Zina’s silence, her contempt and hatred, her determination to fight to the end. During one of the interrogations, choosing the moment, Zina grabbed a pistol from the table and fired at point-blank range at the Gestapo man.

The officer who ran in to hear the shot was also killed on the spot. Zina tried to escape, but the Nazis overtook her...

The brave young pioneer was brutally tortured, but before last minute remained persistent, courageous, unbending. And the Motherland posthumously celebrated her feat with its highest title - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Conclusion

There are many more sad examples of the plight of children in wartime. One cannot help but recall the children's concentration camps set up by the Nazis. In them, little captives were subjected to inhuman torture, “Nazi doctors” performed monstrous experiments on them, and children died a painful death. It is difficult to calculate how many unfortunate little prisoners were tortured in such concentration camps throughout Europe. Children who survived the war will never forget it. At night, they still hear thunderous bomb explosions, frightened screams, and machine-gun fire. They grew up early. They grew up from hunger, explosions, and bloodshed committed before their eyes. Their parents were killed before their eyes. But they didn't forget. They did not lose heart and became stronger; those around them supported them and helped them. They were able to survive misfortunes and, together with the whole country, build new life after the war.

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The beginning of the Great Patriotic War. The defeat of Nazi troops near Moscow and Stalingrad. Battle of Kursk. Battle of the Dnieper. Tehran Conference. The offensive of the Red Army in 1944 - 1945. The end of the Second World War. Results of the war.

abstract, added 06/08/2004


Description of the tragic beginning of the Great Patriotic War, border battles with the Nazi invaders. Determining the directions of advance of the German army deep into the territory of the USSR. Reasons for the defeat of the Red Army. Defeat of the Germans in the Battle of Moscow.

test, added 07/07/2014


Meeting the participants of the Great Patriotic War. General characteristics of the biography of A. Krasikova. A. Stillwasser as an artillery commander of guns: consideration of the reasons for hospitalization, analysis of awards. Features of the beginning of the Great Patriotic War.

abstract, added 04/11/2015


Children-heroes of the Great Patriotic War, their contribution to the Victory: participation in the fighting of the regular army against the Nazis, in sabotage and reconnaissance in occupied territories on the instructions of partisan detachments. Recognition of the courage and feat of young heroes.

1941 -1945 Children - heroes of the Great Patriotic War Nikita Kahanovich, Ivan Zhigadlo, 6 B grade MBOU "Dedovichi Secondary School No. 2"

Valentin Aleksandrovich Kotik or Valya Kotik, was born in Ukraine. When the Germans occupied the Shepetovsky district, where he lived, he was 11 years old. He immediately took part in collecting ammunition and weapons, which were then sent to the front. In 1942, he was accepted into the ranks of the Shepetivka underground organization as an intelligence officer. Vali Kotik has many feats to his name, including the successful bombing of six warehouses and railway trains, numerous ambushes, obtaining information about the Germans, and standing on duty. One day, while standing at his post, he was attacked by Nazi punitive forces. Valya shot an enemy officer and raised the alarm. For his heroism, courage and repeatedly accomplished feats, Valya Kotik was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the Order of Lenin, as well as the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” 2nd degree. On February 16, 1944, the 14-year-old hero was mortally wounded in the battle for the liberation of the city of Izyaslav Kamenets-Podolsky. He died the next day. In 1958, Valentin Aleksandrovich Kotik was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Medal to the Partisan of the Patriotic War, II degree, Hero of the Soviet Union (Posthumous). Order of Lenin Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree

Mikheenko Larisa Dorofeevna The beginning of the Great Patriotic War found Larisa in the village of Pechenevo, Pustoshkinsky district, Kalinin region (now the territory of the Pskov region), where she was on vacation with her uncle. The Wehrmacht's offensive was rapid, and by the end of summer the Pustoshkinsky district found itself under German occupation. Lara's uncle agreed to serve the occupation authorities and was appointed Pechenevsky headman. Larisa joined a partisan detachment, where she was a scout, participated in the “rail war,” and thanks to her participation it was possible to disable the bridge and the enemy train passing along it. Subsequently, after the war, for this feat Larisa Mikheenko will be awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (posthumously). In November 1943, on yet another combat mission, Larisa was captured by the Germans. During the interrogation, she threw a grenade at the Germans, but it did not explode, after which she was shot by the Germans.

Sasha Borodulin In 1941, Sasha’s native village in the Leningrad region was occupied by the Germans. One day a German soldier beat a woman on the street. After the German left, Sasha helped the woman get up and brought her home. Then he tracked down this fascist and unexpectedly hit him on the head with a stick. He lost consciousness and fell. Sasha took a rifle and two grenades from the German and ran into the forest. This is how he began his war with the Nazis. On a forest road, he killed a fascist riding a motorcycle and took his machine gun. There he met the partisans and joined their detachment. Day after day he conducted reconnaissance, carried out very dangerous missions, and destroyed many German vehicles and soldiers. For carrying out dangerous tasks, for demonstrating courage, resourcefulness and courage, Sasha Borodulin was awarded the Order of the Red Banner in the winter of 1941. While covering the retreat of a detachment of partisans, he ran out of ammunition and at the moment when he was surrounded by 10 fascists, Sasha blew them up along with himself.

Yuta Bondarovskaya In the village of Strugi Krasnye near Leningrad (now Pskov region), Yuta helped a radio operator escape from fascist captivity. After this, fourteen-year-old Utah was accepted into the partisan detachment. She became a scout. She was always the first to rush into battle and took part in the destruction of the fascist echelon. Utah died on February 28, 1944 in battle with the Germans.

Marat Ivanovich Kazei The Nazis burst into the Belarusian village where Marat lived with his mother and Anna. Marat was 12 years old. After the death of her mother, Marat and her older sister Ariadne joined the partisan detachment named after the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution in November 1942. Ariadne left the squad after some time due to injury. Marat became a scout and carried out dangerous missions, both alone and with groups, and was awarded the medal “For Courage” and “For Military Merit.” On May 11, 1944, Marat died in battle with the Germans. According to eyewitnesses, the Germans surrounded Marat in the bushes and wanted to take him alive. First, Marat fired from a machine gun, the first grenade exploded and then the second. After that everything became quiet. He blew himself up along with the Germans.

Order of Lenin Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree Medal “For Military Merit” Hero of the Soviet Union (Posthumous). Medal of Honor"

Golikov Leonid Aleksandrovich Lenya Golikov - partisan reconnaissance officer of the 67th partisan detachment of the 4th Leningrad Partisan Brigade, operating in the territory of the temporarily occupied Novgorod and Pskov regions. Lenya repeatedly penetrated fascist garrisons, collecting information about the enemy. With his direct participation, 2 railway and 12 highway bridges were blown up, 2 food and feed warehouses and 10 vehicles with ammunition were burned. He especially distinguished himself during the defeat of enemy garrisons in the villages of Aprosovo, Sosnitsy, and Sever. Accompanied a convoy with food in 250 carts to besieged Leningrad. On January 24, 1943, a 16-year-old partisan died a heroic death in battle near the village of Ostraya Luka, Dedovichi district, Pskov region.

Valery Volkov Valery Volkov was born in 1929. During the evacuation to the war, Valera's class came under fire. Teachers and classmates died before his eyes. After what he saw, the boy decided to get to the military unit to fight the enemy together with the adults. Since almost everything was destroyed, the Red Army soldiers keep the boy with them, and he becomes the “son of the regiment.” At the front, he brought ammunition to the guns and helped in urgent matters. In especially difficult moments, he fought off fascist attacks with weapons in his hands. Due to his small stature, he often found himself with scouts and obtained various important information. By the beginning of the summer of 1942, Valery Volkov was fighting in Sevastopol. During the German offensive, he rushed at a moving tank and destroyed it with a bunch of grenades, after which he died a brave death.

Vitya Korobkov During the German occupation of Crimea, he helped his father, a member of the city underground organization Mikhail Korobkov. Through Vitya Korobkov, communication was maintained between members of the partisan groups hiding in the Old Crimean forest. He collected information about the enemy, took part in the printing and distribution of leaflets. Later he became a scout for the 3rd Brigade of the Eastern Association of Crimean Partisans. On February 18, 1944, father and son Korobkov were arrested by the Gestapo in Feodosia. They were interrogated and tortured for more than two weeks, then they were shot - first by the father, and on March 9 - by his son. Five days before the execution, Vita Korobkov turned fifteen years old. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Vitya Korobkov was posthumously awarded the medal “For Courage”.

Zina Portnova Born in Leningrad in 1926. In June 1941, her parents sent the girl to the village of Zui (Vitebsk region) for the school holidays. Just at this time, the Nazis invaded the USSR, and Portnova found herself in occupied territory. She was not going to put up with the current state of affairs and decided to fight the enemy. She was a member of the underground youth group “Young Avengers”, fought against the fascist occupiers, never retreated and looked at new challenges with defiance. Even in the most difficult times, the girl never cared about herself, but was more worried about others. During her next mission, she was captured by the Nazis and executed in January 1944.

Heroes of the Great Patriotic War

Alexander Matrosov

Submachine gunner of the 2nd separate battalion of the 91st separate Siberian volunteer brigade named after Stalin.

Sasha Matrosov did not know his parents. He was brought up in an orphanage and a labor colony. When the war began, he was not even 20. Matrosov was drafted into the army in September 1942 and sent to the infantry school, and then to the front.

In February 1943, his battalion attacked a Nazi stronghold, but fell into a trap, coming under heavy fire, cutting off the path to the trenches. They fired from three bunkers. Two soon fell silent, but the third continued to shoot the Red Army soldiers lying in the snow.

Seeing that the only chance to get out from under fire was to suppress the enemy’s fire, Sailors and a fellow soldier crawled to the bunker and threw two grenades in his direction. The machine gun fell silent. The Red Army soldiers went on the attack, but the deadly weapon began to chatter again. Alexander’s partner was killed, and Sailors was left alone in front of the bunker. Something had to be done.

He didn't have even a few seconds to make a decision. Not wanting to let his comrades down, Alexander closed the bunker embrasure with his body. The attack was a success. And Matrosov posthumously received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Military pilot, commander of the 2nd squadron of the 207th long-range bomber aviation regiment, captain.

He worked as a mechanic, then in 1932 he was drafted into the Red Army. He ended up in an air regiment, where he became a pilot. Nikolai Gastello participated in three wars. A year before the Great Patriotic War, he received the rank of captain.

On June 26, 1941, the crew under the command of Captain Gastello took off to strike a German mechanized column. It happened on the road between the Belarusian cities of Molodechno and Radoshkovichi. But the column was well guarded by enemy artillery. A fight ensued. Gastello's plane was hit by anti-aircraft guns. The shell damaged the fuel tank and the car caught fire. The pilot could have ejected, but he decided to fulfill his military duty to the end. Nikolai Gastello directed the burning car directly at the enemy column. This was the first fire ram in the Great Patriotic War.

The name of the brave pilot became a household name. Until the end of the war, all aces who decided to ram were called Gastellites. If you follow official statistics, then during the entire war there were almost six hundred ramming attacks on the enemy.

Brigade reconnaissance officer of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad partisan brigade.

Lena was 15 years old when the war began. He was already working at a factory, having completed seven years of school. When the Nazis captured his native Novgorod region, Lenya joined the partisans.

He was brave and decisive, the command valued him. Over the several years spent in the partisan detachment, he participated in 27 operations. He was responsible for several destroyed bridges behind enemy lines, 78 Germans killed, and 10 trains with ammunition.

It was he who, in the summer of 1942, near the village of Varnitsa, blew up a car in which was the German Major General of the Engineering Troops Richard von Wirtz. Golikov managed to obtain important documents about the German offensive. The enemy attack was thwarted, and the young hero was nominated for the title of Hero of the Soviet Union for this feat.

In the winter of 1943, a significantly superior enemy detachment unexpectedly attacked the partisans near the village of Ostray Luka. Lenya Golikov died as a real hero- in battle.

Pioneer. Scout of the Voroshilov partisan detachment in the territory occupied by the Nazis.

Zina was born and went to school in Leningrad. However, the war found her on the territory of Belarus, where she came on vacation.

In 1942, 16-year-old Zina joined the underground organization “Young Avengers”. She distributed anti-fascist leaflets in the occupied territories. Then, undercover, she got a job in a canteen for German officers, where she committed several acts of sabotage and was only miraculously not captured by the enemy. Many experienced military men were surprised at her courage.

In 1943, Zina Portnova joined the partisans and continued to engage in sabotage behind enemy lines. Due to the efforts of defectors who surrendered Zina to the Nazis, she was captured. She was interrogated and tortured in the dungeons. But Zina remained silent, not betraying her own. During one of these interrogations, she grabbed a pistol from the table and shot three Nazis. After that she was shot in prison.

An underground anti-fascist organization operating in the area of ​​modern Lugansk region. There were more than a hundred people. The youngest participant was 14 years old.

This underground youth organization was formed immediately after the occupation of the Lugansk region. It included both regular military personnel who found themselves cut off from the main units, and local youth. Among the most famous participants: Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Vasily Levashov, Sergey Tyulenin and many other young people.

The Young Guard issued leaflets and committed sabotage against the Nazis. Once they managed to disable an entire tank repair workshop and burn down the stock exchange, from where the Nazis were driving people away for forced labor in Germany. Members of the organization planned to stage an uprising, but were discovered due to traitors. The Nazis captured, tortured and shot more than seventy people. Their feat is immortalized in one of the most famous military books by Alexander Fadeev and the film adaptation of the same name.

28 people from the personnel of the 4th company of the 2nd battalion of the 1075th rifle regiment.

In November 1941, a counter-offensive against Moscow began. The enemy stopped at nothing, making a decisive forced march before the onset of a harsh winter.

At this time, fighters under the command of Ivan Panfilov took up a position on the highway seven kilometers from Volokolamsk, a small town near Moscow. There they gave battle to the advancing tank units. The battle lasted four hours. During this time, they destroyed 18 armored vehicles, delaying the enemy's attack and thwarting his plans. All 28 people (or almost all, historians’ opinions differ here) died.

According to legend, the company political instructor Vasily Klochkov, before the decisive stage of the battle, addressed the soldiers with a phrase that became known throughout the country: “Russia is great, but there is nowhere to retreat - Moscow is behind us!”

The Nazi counteroffensive ultimately failed. The Battle of Moscow, which was assigned the most important role during the war, was lost by the occupiers.

As a child, the future hero suffered from rheumatism, and doctors doubted that Maresyev would be able to fly. However, he stubbornly applied to the flight school until he was finally enrolled. Maresyev was drafted into the army in 1937.

He met the Great Patriotic War at a flight school, but soon found himself at the front. During a combat mission, his plane was shot down, and Maresyev himself was able to eject. Eighteen days later, seriously wounded in both legs, he got out of the encirclement. However, he still managed to overcome the front line and ended up in the hospital. But gangrene had already set in, and doctors amputated both of his legs.

For many, this would have meant the end of their service, but the pilot did not give up and returned to aviation. Until the end of the war he flew with prosthetics. Over the years, he made 86 combat missions and shot down 11 enemy aircraft. Moreover, 7 - after amputation. In 1944, Alexey Maresyev went to work as an inspector and lived to be 84 years old.

His fate inspired the writer Boris Polevoy to write “The Tale of a Real Man.”

Deputy squadron commander of the 177th Air Defense Fighter Aviation Regiment.

Viktor Talalikhin began to fight already in the Soviet-Finnish war. He shot down 4 enemy planes in a biplane. Then he served at an aviation school.

In August 1941, he was one of the first Soviet pilots to ram, shooting down a German bomber in a night air battle. Moreover, the wounded pilot was able to get out of the cockpit and parachute down to the rear to his own.

Talalikhin then shot down five more German aircraft. He died during another air battle near Podolsk in October 1941.

73 years later, in 2014, search engines found Talalikhin’s plane, which remained in the swamps near Moscow.

Artilleryman of the 3rd counter-battery artillery corps of the Leningrad Front.

Soldier Andrei Korzun was drafted into the army at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War. He served on the Leningrad Front, where there were fierce and bloody battles.

On November 5, 1943, during another battle, his battery came under fierce enemy fire. Korzun was seriously injured. Despite the terrible pain, he saw that the powder charges were set on fire and the ammunition depot could fly into the air. Gathering his last strength, Andrei crawled to the blazing fire. But he could no longer take off his overcoat to cover the fire. Losing consciousness, he made a final effort and covered the fire with his body. The explosion was avoided at the cost of the life of the brave artilleryman.

Commander of the 3rd Leningrad Partisan Brigade.

A native of Petrograd, Alexander German, according to some sources, was a native of Germany. He served in the army since 1933. When the war started, I joined the scouts. He worked behind enemy lines, commanded a partisan detachment that terrified enemy soldiers. His brigade destroyed several thousand fascist soldiers and officers, derailed hundreds of trains and blew up hundreds of cars.

The Nazis staged a real hunt for Herman. In 1943, his partisan detachment was surrounded in the Pskov region. Making his way to his own, the brave commander died from an enemy bullet.

Commander of the 30th Separate Guards Tank Brigade of the Leningrad Front

Vladislav Khrustitsky was drafted into the Red Army back in the 20s. At the end of the 30s he completed armored courses. Since the fall of 1942, he commanded the 61st separate light tank brigade.

He distinguished himself during Operation Iskra, which marked the beginning of the defeat of the Germans on the Leningrad Front.

Killed in the battle near Volosovo. In 1944, the enemy retreated from Leningrad, but from time to time they attempted to counterattack. During one of these counterattacks, Khrustitsky's tank brigade fell into a trap.

Despite heavy fire, the commander ordered the offensive to continue. He radioed to his crews with the words: “Fight to the death!” - and went forward first. Unfortunately, the brave tanker died in this battle. And yet the village of Volosovo was liberated from the enemy.

Commander of a partisan detachment and brigade.

Before the war he worked for railway. In October 1941, when the Germans were already standing near Moscow, he himself volunteered complex operation, in which his railway experience was needed. Was thrown behind enemy lines. There he came up with the so-called “coal mines” (in fact, these are just mines disguised as coal). With the help of this simple but effective weapon, hundreds of enemy trains were blown up in three months.

Zaslonov actively agitated the local population to go over to the side of the partisans. The Nazis, realizing this, dressed their soldiers in Soviet uniforms. Zaslonov mistook them for defectors and ordered them to join the partisan detachment. Path to an insidious enemy was opened. A battle ensued, during which Zaslonov died. A reward was announced for Zaslonov, alive or dead, but the peasants hid his body, and the Germans did not get it.

Commander of a small partisan detachment.

Efim Osipenko fought back in Civil War. Therefore, when the enemy captured his land, without thinking twice, he joined the partisans. Together with five other comrades, he organized a small partisan detachment that committed sabotage against the Nazis.

During one of the operations, it was decided to undermine the enemy personnel. But the detachment had little ammunition. The bomb was made from an ordinary grenade. Osipenko himself had to install the explosives. He crawled to the railway bridge and, seeing the train approaching, threw it in front of the train. There was no explosion. Then the partisan himself hit the grenade with a pole from a railway sign. It worked! A long train with food and tanks went downhill. The detachment commander survived, but completely lost his sight.

For this feat, he was the first in the country to be awarded the “Partisan of the Patriotic War” medal.

Peasant Matvey Kuzmin was born three years before the abolition of serfdom. And he died, becoming the oldest holder of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

His story contains many references to the story of another famous peasant - Ivan Susanin. Matvey also had to lead the invaders through the forest and swamps. And, like the legendary hero, he decided to stop the enemy at the cost of his life. He sent his grandson ahead to warn a detachment of partisans who had stopped nearby. The Nazis were ambushed. A fight ensued. Matvey Kuzmin died at the hands of a German officer. But he did his job. He was 84 years old.

A partisan who was part of a sabotage and reconnaissance group at the headquarters of the Western Front.

While studying at school, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya wanted to enter a literary institute. But these plans were not destined to come true - the war interfered. In October 1941, Zoya came to the recruiting station as a volunteer and, after a short training at a school for saboteurs, was transferred to Volokolamsk. There, an 18-year-old partisan fighter, along with adult men, performed dangerous tasks: mined roads and destroyed communication centers.

During one of the sabotage operations, Kosmodemyanskaya was caught by the Germans. She was tortured, forcing her to give up her own people. Zoya heroically endured all the trials without saying a word to her enemies. Seeing that it was impossible to achieve anything from the young partisan, they decided to hang her.

Kosmodemyanskaya bravely accepted the tests. A moment before her death, she shouted to the crowd local residents: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender!” The girl’s courage shocked the peasants so much that they later retold this story to front-line correspondents. And after publication in the newspaper Pravda, the whole country learned about Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat. She became the first woman to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War.