Biography of Zinaida Portnova

Zina Portnova, a young underground partisan, pioneer, who died at the age of 17 the death of the brave. The fate of the girl strikes with its tragedy anyone who learns the story of her feat and martyrdom.

A native of Leningrad, Zina Portnova was born in 1926 and before the war led ordinary life Soviet girl. During the summer school holidays, Zina’s parents sent her and her younger sister Galya to her grandmother in the Vitebsk region, in the village of Zui, Shumilinsky district. After the sudden attack of Nazi Germany on the USSR, the threat of occupation immediately loomed over the Vitebsk region. The grandmother's attempt to send her granddaughters home to Leningrad failed - the Germans blocked all the roads. So, the girl remained in the occupied territory.

From the first days of the war, numerous underground and partisan formations began to be organized in the Vitebsk region to resist the Nazis. Fifteen-year-old Zina Portnova becomes the youngest participant in the underground organized in the Shumilinsky district, called “Young Avengers”. True, the oldest member of the group, organizer and ideological inspirer Efrosinya Zenkova (Fruza) was only 17.

Almost children, participants in the underground, began their actions with small things: they posted anti-fascist leaflets, and engaged in minor sabotage against the Germans. Fruza herself found access to the local partisan detachment and adult underground fighters and coordinated actions with them. Gradually, sabotage by the Young Avengers becomes more and more serious. They managed to set fire to wagons with flax looted by the Nazis and sent to Germany, to set fire to industrial enterprises that worked for the Nazis, and to carry out explosions.

The feat of partisan Zina Portnova

One of the largest operations was the poisoning of more than a hundred German officers. And here the merit goes to Zina Portnova. While working as a dishwasher in the canteen where officers sent to retraining courses ate, Zina poisoned the food. She herself then miraculously managed to avoid death and responsibility. The Germans forced her to eat from a plate of poisoned soup. She calmly took the spoon and ate some of the soup, thus averting suspicion from herself. Her grandmother saved her from poison with the help of folk remedies. Her strong body coped with it, and the girl survived.

After this sabotage, Zina Portnova joined the partisan detachment. Here she was accepted into the Komsomol. In August 1943, a traitor infiltrated into the Young Avengers underground surrendered all members of the organization. Only Fruza Zenkova and several young underground fighters manage to escape. After numerous tortures and interrogations, in October 1943, thirty young men and women were executed by the Nazis.

Zina Portnova, carrying out the instructions of the partisan detachment, tried to get in touch with the surviving underground fighters. But the mission failed, she was identified and arrested in the village of Mostishche. By that time, the Nazis already knew a lot about Zina’s role in the Young Avengers. Only her participation in the poisoning was not known. Therefore, they tried to negotiate with her so that she would hand over the surviving members of the underground. But the girl was unbending. One of the interrogations conducted in the village of Goryany ended with Zina managing to grab the investigator’s pistol and shoot him and two other Germans who were present during the interrogation. The escape attempt failed; Zina was shot in the leg. And when she tried to shoot herself with the last cartridge, the gun misfired.

Zina Portnova went through all the circles of hell before her execution. They tortured her brutally: they gouged out her eyes, mutilated her, and tried to inflict more torture by driving needles under her nails and burning her skin with a hot iron. Zina endured everything steadfastly and did not give any evidence. Expecting death as a release, after one of the interrogations she broke free from the hands of the guards and threw herself under a truck. But she was pulled out and thrown into the cell again.

In January 1944, a crippled, blind and completely gray-haired 17-year-old girl was led to execution. She was shot in the square along with other convicts. Only almost 15 years later did the world learn about the feat of the young underground fighters. The youngest of them, Zina Portnova, was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and the Order of Lenin in 1958.

Zina Portnova was born in Leningrad. After seventh grade, in the summer of 1941, she came on vacation to her grandmother in the Belarusian village of Zuya. There the war found her. Belarus was occupied by the Nazis.

From the first days of the occupation, boys and girls began to act decisively, and a secret organization “Young Avengers” was created. The guys fought against the fascist occupiers. They blew up a water pumping station, which delayed the sending of ten fascist trains to the front. While distracting the enemy, the Avengers destroyed bridges and highways, blew up a local power plant, and burned down a factory. Having obtained information about the actions of the Germans, they immediately passed it on to the partisans.

Zina Portnova was assigned increasingly complex tasks. According to one of them, the girl managed to get a job in a German canteen. After working there for a while, she carried out an effective operation - she poisoned food for German soldiers. More than 100 fascists suffered from her lunch. The Germans began to blame Zina. Wanting to prove her innocence, the girl tried the poisoned soup and only miraculously survived.

In 1943, traitors appeared who revealed secret information and handed our guys over to the Nazis. Many were arrested and shot. Then the command of the partisan detachment instructed Portnova to establish contact with those who survived. The Nazis captured the young partisan when she was returning from a mission. Zina was terribly tortured. But the answer to the enemy was only her silence, contempt and hatred. The interrogations did not stop.

“The Gestapo man came to the window. And Zina, rushing to the table, grabbed the pistol. Apparently catching the rustle, the officer turned around impulsively, but the weapon was already in her hand. She pulled the trigger. For some reason I didn’t hear the shot. I just saw how the German, clutching his chest with his hands, fell to the floor, and the second one, sitting at the side table, jumped up from his chair and hastily unfastened the holster of his revolver. She pointed the gun at him too. Again, almost without aiming, she pulled the trigger. Rushing to the exit, Zina pulled the door open, jumped out into the next room and from there onto the porch. There she shot at the sentry almost point-blank. Running out of the commandant’s office building, Portnova rushed like a whirlwind down the path.

“If only I could run to the river,” the girl thought. But behind me I could hear the sound of a chase... “Why don’t they shoot?” The surface of the water already seemed very close. And beyond the river the forest turned black. She heard the sound of machine gun fire and something spiky pierced her leg. Zina fell on the river sand. She still had enough strength to rise slightly and shoot... She saved the last bullet for herself.

When the Germans got very close, she decided it was all over and pointed the gun at her chest and pulled the trigger. But there was no shot: it misfired. The fascist knocked the pistol out of her weakening hands.”

Zina was sent to prison. The Germans brutally tortured the girl for more than a month; they wanted her to betray her comrades. But having taken an oath of allegiance to the Motherland, Zina kept it.

On the morning of January 13, 1944, a gray-haired and blind girl was taken out to be executed. She walked, stumbling with her bare feet in the snow.

The girl withstood all the torture. She truly loved our Motherland and died for it, firmly believing in our victory.

Zinaida Portnova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Soviet children were brought up using the examples of pioneer heroes. All the stories of the exploits of these young citizens Soviet country were extremely similar. The life of the country-famous Zina Portnova was no exception...

Official biographies of pioneer heroes followed the same pattern. A serene life before the war, war, torment due to the inability to join the active army. Searching for oneself in the current situation. Participation, most often not in battles, but in sabotage activities. Arrest. The most terrible torture to the Gestapo. Execution. Despite a large number of such stories, Soviet schoolchildren never ceased to admire the young heroes. Streets in big cities were named after them. In St. Petersburg, behind the Narva Gate there is a street named after Zina Portnova, the heroine of the Great Patriotic War. What did this girl become famous for during the war?

Faith in communism is stronger than pain

Sometimes it seems that all the books and essays about young war heroes were written by one person. The manner in which they were created can well be called iconographic: a typical life of saints of the 20th century. Another thing is striking: during perestroika, during the period of the overthrow of everything and everyone, the stories about the pioneer heroes were not refuted. They didn’t refute it because they weren’t lies.

Yes, it was always difficult to believe in them, because the feat that Zina Portnova accomplished, for example, contradicts human nature. An ordinary girl can't seem to bear the torment she went through. She didn't feel the pain the torture caused her? I felt that before her death the heroine turned gray - and yet she was not even 18 years old!

What kind of people were these war heroes? Why did they undertake such feats? Of course, for the sake of the young country, which seemed to them a symbol of a fair society that is getting better every day. They seemed to have seen neither hard work, nor the nightmare of communal life, nor the pre-war repressions. They believed: tomorrow will be better than today. The main thing is to defeat the fascists.

Zina Portnova was born in 1926. Her father was a worker at the Kirov plant. And they lived not far from this huge enterprise where Martyn Portnov worked. That is why, after the war, a street was named after Zina, which is located not far from the places where the future heroine spent the first years of her life.

Zina was an ordinary girl: fair-haired, blue-eyed, chubby. Before the war I managed to finish 7 classes. She was the head girl. I studied well. That's all.

Summer rest"

The turning point in Zina’s fate was the most ordinary event: in June 1941, she and her younger sister Galya (she escaped during the war) were sent on a summer vacation to their grandmother in the village of Zui, in the Vitebsk region.

The war interrupted the girls’ quiet holiday in the Belarusian freedom. The Germans were moving across Belarusian soil at some cosmic speed. Zina and her sister tried to evacuate, but did not have time: fascist troops stood in the way of the refugees.

Zina would have liked to sit quietly in her grandmother’s warm house, but then it turned out that the girl simply could not calmly look at what the Nazis were doing on the land, which, having barely occupied, they began to consider theirs.

Portnova decided to fight. And again you are amazed at how fearless the belief in the coming communism inspired people. After all, in Belarus, from the first days of the war, they knew firsthand how the Germans dealt with those who were not satisfied with the new order. But Portnova didn’t even want to think about it.

And one more psychological phenomenon. Often, “heroes” demonstrate miracles of courage until they are captured by their enemies. And once in the clutches of the punitive authorities, the “dared souls” break under torture, realizing that they were not prepared for such an outcome. Leningradka was made of a different cloth.

The level of fascist cruelty on the territory of Belarus corresponded to the level of resistance that the local population offered them.

Zina very quickly became acquainted with the local Komsomol resistance, which was led by 17-year-old Fruza (Efrosinya) Zenkova (she survived the war and died in 1984). The organization was called "Young Avengers". It was strongly reminiscent of the Young Guard, which operated in the city of Krasnodon, Lugansk region. “The Young Guard” is much better known: circumstances were such that materials about it fell into the hands of the writer Alexander Fadeev, and he wrote a novel about it, which was later filmed.

At first, the Young Avengers were engaged in minor subversive activities: they posted anti-fascist leaflets. They damaged German equipment. Gradually, the sabotage of Komsomol members became more and more large-scale: they blew up German carriages, power plants, factories that worked for the German defense industry. The Nazis went berserk, unable to catch the saboteurs.

Zina Portnova was not afraid of anyone or anything. Even among the fearless underground fighters, she stood out for her special courage.

And the things she took upon herself became more and more adventurous...

The only thing that Portnova was reproached for in the 1990s was that she was no longer a pioneer, but a Komsomol member. This is actually true. But Zina was accepted into the Komsomol in the underground district committee. At that time and in that place, joining the ranks of this organization of young communists was already a feat. But Portnova’s heroic nature thirsted for revenge. What the Nazis did in the occupied territories defies description. The brutal conquerors, fueled by Hitler's propaganda, did not spare anyone.

Poison for the enemy

Portnova got a job in the canteen of advanced training courses for German officers. When no one was looking, Zina managed to pour a jar of poison into the soup. Hundreds of Nazis died. The Germans suspected the entire canteen staff. And Portnova too - they forced her to eat several spoons of that same soup. Zina did it without blinking an eye. She barely made it home.

The grandmother gave her granddaughter the serum and the young body survived.

This story not only did not stop Zina - it embittered her even more.

The partisans rightly decided: after the story of Portnova’s poisoned soup, it was dangerous to stay in her grandmother’s house. And she was taken into the partisan detachment. Zina felt bad, being in relative safety. Participation in various “general” partisan operations did not bring her satisfaction. She was eager to receive a personal - the most risky - task. And it didn’t take long to arrive.

In October 1943, the Nazis shot about three dozen members of the Young Avengers. Before their death, the Komsomol members were tortured for more than a month.

Portnova was made a scout - she had to find out from the survivors who became a traitor.

If you think about it, it’s hard to imagine a more strange decision than sending Portnova, who had already appeared in the episode with the poisoning of officers, in search of the informer. And then she disappeared from her grandmother’s house, which, from the point of view of the Nazis, clearly indicated her involvement in the death of the dining room visitors. After all, in order to identify the traitor, Zina should have held many meetings with different people. Obviously, the same informer had to be among them. This strange decision by the leadership of the Young Avengers still remains without explanation...

Portnov, of course, was extradited almost immediately.

At first, the Nazis promised her life in exchange for giving away the location of Zenkova’s detachment. Portnova held firm.

During one of the interrogations, this city girl, who before the war had held nothing in her hands except a pen with which she wrote in school notebooks, grabbed a pistol and shot the officer. Then she jumped out into the street and killed two more fascists.

They chased her. Only the pursuers' bullets that hit her legs could stop Portnova.

After this, the Nazis tortured Zina no longer in order to obtain valuable information from her. They were simply taking out their rage on the girl. They did not execute her immediately for one purpose - to make her suffer more before her death.

They burned her with hot irons, drove needles under her nails, and cut off her ears. Zina dreamed of death: one day, when she was being transferred across the yard, she threw herself under the wheels of a truck. The driver managed to brake. The torment continued.

On the last day before her execution, Portnova’s eyes were gouged out.

The Nazis brought out a blind and completely gray seventeen-year-old girl to be shot. She was shot on January 10, 1944.

Zinaida Portnova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Published: November 9, 2015

Heroines of the Great Patriotic War (Zina Portnova)

Soviet children were raised using the examples of pioneer heroes. All the stories of the exploits of these young citizens of the Soviet country were extremely similar. The life of the country-famous Zina Portnova was no exception...

Seventeen-year-old Zina Portnova turned gray from torture!

Photo: Zina Portnova - feat summary

Official biographies of pioneer heroes followed the same pattern. A serene life before the war, war, torment due to the inability to join the active army. Finding yourself in the current situation. Participation, most often not in battles, but in sabotage activities. Arrest. The most terrible tortures in the Gestapo. Execution. Despite the large number of similar stories, Soviet schoolchildren never ceased to admire the young heroes. Streets in big cities were named after them. In St. Petersburg, behind the Narva Gate there is a street named after Zina Portnova, the heroine of the Great Patriotic War. What did this girl become famous for during the war?

Belief in communism more pain

Sometimes it seems that all the books and essays about young war heroes were written by one person.

The manner in which they were created can well be called iconographic: typical lives of saints sample of the 20th century. Another thing is striking: during perestroika, during the period of the overthrow of everything and everyone, the stories about the pioneer heroes were not refuted. They didn’t refute it because they weren’t lies.

Yes, it was always difficult to believe in them, because the feat that Zina Portnova accomplished, for example, contradicts human nature. An ordinary girl can't seem to bear the torment she went through. She didn't feel the pain the torture caused her? I felt that before her death the heroine turned gray - and yet she was not even 18 years old! What kind of people were these war heroes? Why did they undertake such feats? Of course, for the sake of the young country, which seemed to them a symbol of a fair society, which is getting better every day. They seemed to have seen neither hard work, nor the nightmarish communal life, nor the pre-war repressions. They believed: tomorrow will be better than today. The main thing is to defeat the fascists.

Zina Portnova was born in 1926. Her father was a worker at the Kirov plant. And they lived not far from this huge enterprise where Martyn Portnov worked. That is why, after the war, a street was named after Zina, which is located not far from the places where the future heroine spent the first years of her life.

Zina was an ordinary girl: fair-haired, blue-eyed, chubby. Before the war I managed to finish 7 classes. She was the head girl. I studied well. That's all.

Summer rest"

The turning point in Zina’s fate was the most ordinary event: in June 1941, she and her younger sister Galya (she escaped during the war) were sent on a summer vacation to their grandmother in the village of Zui, in the Vitebsk region.

The war interrupted the girls’ quiet holiday in the Belarusian freedom. The Germans were moving across Belarusian soil at some cosmic speed. Zina and her sister tried to evacuate, but did not have time: fascist troops stood in the way of the refugees.

Zina would have liked to sit quietly in her grandmother’s warm house, but then it turned out that the girl simply could not calmly look at what the Nazis were doing on the land, which, having barely occupied, they began to consider theirs.

Portnova decided to fight. And again you are amazed at how fearless the belief in the coming communism inspired people. After all, in Belarus, from the first days of the war, they knew firsthand how the Germans dealt with those who were not satisfied with the new order. But Portnova didn’t even want to think about it.

And one more psychological phenomenon. Often, “heroes” demonstrate miracles of courage until they are captured by their enemies. And once in the clutches of the punitive authorities, the “dared souls” break under torture, realizing that they were not prepared for such an outcome. Leningradka was made of a different cloth.

The level of fascist cruelty on the territory of Belarus corresponded to the level of resistance that the local population offered them.

Zina very quickly became acquainted with the local Komsomol resistance, which was led by 17-year-old Fruza (Efrosinya) Zenkova (she survived the war and died in 1984). The organization was called "Young Avengers". It was strongly reminiscent of the Young Guard, which operated in the city of Krasnodon, Lugansk region. “The Young Guard” is much better known: circumstances were such that materials about it fell into the hands of the writer Alexander Fadeev, and he wrote a novel about it, which was later filmed.

At first, the Young Avengers were engaged in minor subversive activities: they posted anti-fascist leaflets. They damaged German equipment. Gradually, the sabotage of Komsomol members became more and more large-scale: they blew up German carriages, power plants, factories that worked for the German defense industry. The Nazis went berserk, unable to catch the saboteurs.

Zina Portnova was not afraid of anyone or anything. Even among the fearless underground fighters, she stood out for her special courage.

And the affairs that she took upon herself became more and more adventurous... The only thing that Portnova was reproached for in the 1990s was that she was no longer a pioneer, but a Komsomol member. This is actually true. But Zina was accepted into the Komsomol in the underground district committee. At that time and in that place, joining the ranks of this organization of young communists was already a feat. But Portnova’s heroic nature thirsted for revenge. What the Nazis did in the occupied territories defies description. The brutal conquerors, fueled by Hitler's propaganda, did not spare anyone.

Poison for the enemy

Portnova got a job in the canteen of advanced training courses for German officers. When no one was looking, Zina managed to pour a jar of poison into the soup. Hundreds of Nazis died. The Germans suspected the entire canteen staff. And Portnova too - they forced her to eat several spoons of that same soup. Zina did it without blinking an eye. She barely made it home. The grandmother gave her granddaughter the serum and the young body survived.

This story not only did not stop Zina - it embittered her even more.

The partisans rightly decided: after the story of Portnova’s poisoned soup, it was dangerous to stay in her grandmother’s house. And she was taken into the partisan detachment. Zina felt bad, being in relative safety. Participation in various “general” partisan operations did not bring her satisfaction. She was eager to receive a personal - the most risky - task. And it didn’t take long to arrive.

In October 1943, the Nazis shot about three dozen members of the Young Avengers. Before their death, the Komsomol members were tortured for more than a month.

Portnova was made a scout - she had to find out from the survivors who became a traitor.

If you think about it, it’s hard to imagine a more strange decision than sending Portnova, who had already appeared in the episode with the poisoning of officers, in search of the informer. And then she disappeared from her grandmother’s house, which, from the point of view of the Nazis, clearly indicated her involvement in the death of the dining room visitors. After all, in order to identify the traitor, Zina should have held many meetings with different people. Obviously, the same informer had to be among them. This strange decision by the leadership of the Young Avengers still remains without explanation... Portnov, of course, was extradited almost immediately.

At first, the Nazis promised her life in exchange for giving away the location of Zenkova’s detachment. Portnova held firm.

During one of the interrogations, this city girl, who before the war had not held anything in her hands except a pen with which she wrote in school notebooks, grabbed a pistol and shot the officer. Then she jumped out into the street and killed two more fascists.

They chased her. Only the pursuers' bullets that hit her legs could stop Portnova.

After this, the Nazis tortured Zina no longer in order to obtain valuable information from her. They were simply taking out their rage on the girl. They did not execute her immediately for one purpose - to make her suffer more before her death.

They burned her with hot irons, drove needles under her nails, and cut off her ears. Zina dreamed of death: one day, when she was being transferred across the yard, she threw herself under the wheels of a truck. The driver managed to brake. The torment continued.

On the last day before her execution, Portnova’s eyes were gouged out.

The Nazis brought out a blind and completely gray seventeen-year-old girl to be shot. She was shot on January 10, 1944.

Zinaida Portnova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union

Magazine: Mysteries of History, No. 18 - May 2015
Category: Woman in history



From:  

- Join us! Your name:

A comment:

Somehow, the 90th anniversary of the birth of the heroic partisan, who was born in 1926, passed completely unnoticed. But in Soviet times, all schoolchildren’s names bounced off their teeth Volodya Dubinina, Marat Kazeya, Leni Golikova, Vali Kotika and other pioneer heroes of the Great Patriotic War. Hero of the Soviet Union rightfully takes his place in this series (posthumously) Zina Portnova.

Fatal coincidence

Zina was born in 1926 in Leningrad, in the area adjacent to the huge industrial giant - the plant named after. Kirov, where her father worked, Martyn Portnov. The most ordinary girl, she studied like everyone else, well, or a little better than the rest, because the position obliged: due to her active life position, Zina was the head of the class.

Born into a family of Belarusians, she also had Western roots: there, in the Vitebsk region, in the village of Zuya, Zina’s grandmother lived, to whom she and her sister Galya were sent on vacation every summer. So in the tragic year of 1941, the girls who came to stay in Zui enjoyed nature, sunbathed, swam in the Luchos River and did not know grief. But the war began. And already on June 28, the fascist hordes took Minsk and immediately moved on to Orsha and Smolensk. It is for this reason that the girls did not have time to evacuate to the mainland, to the rear.

According to surviving witnesses of that war, who, by the will of fate, found themselves in occupation, the Nazis mercilessly bombed columns with refugees: they were not interested in local residents, whom they had practically registered as their slaves, left their homes. The Nazis needed not only free labor, but also hostages - many hostages, with whom, if something happened, they could hide behind them as a shield, which later happened with frightening regularity.

New order, which the Germans installed in the occupied territory, could not please anyone. But among Belarusians there were tens of thousands of people who not only could not calmly look at the outrages of representatives of the “superior race”, the “nation of masters”, but preferred to act - to fight this brown scourge. One of these caring people’s avengers was Zina Portnova, who from the very first days began to look for connections with the partisans or, at worst, patriots like herself. Often, through the fault of the provocateurs, such searches led to disastrous consequences: the Germans captured and shot in the hundreds people who were seen in connections with the partisans or simply did not agree with their occupation policy.

But Portnova was lucky - in 1942 she contacted the underground Komsomol organization headed by Efrosinya Zenkova(later Hero of the Soviet Union). It was here that Zina was accepted into the Komsomol in 1943. Much later they would be compared to the “Young Guard,” although the “Young Avengers,” as the underground Komsomol members called themselves, acted in parallel and at about the same time, depriving the occupiers of peace and lives in the same way. It’s just that documents about the activities of the Krasnodon heroes caught my eye after the war Alexander Fadeev- so he glorified (deservedly) this collective feat.

"Bon" poisonous appetite

Starting with the little things of posting leaflets, the Young Avengers over time began to increasingly actively fight the hated regime. They disabled the Nazis' equipment, burned warehouses with ammunition and weapons... But it was Zina Portnova who distinguished herself more than her other comrades. She managed to get a job in a canteen for German officers, which she immediately took advantage of by adding a huge dose of poison to the common cauldron from which the Nazis were pouring soup. Thus, she sent more than a hundred Nazis to the next world.

The Nazis began searching for the perpetrators, suspecting everyone. Zina also came under suspicion, whom the Germans almost force-fed with that same soup. She didn’t remember how she got to the porch of her grandmother’s house, but she gave her a drink herbal decoctions and whey, as a result, the girl remained alive. However, after what happened, it was mortally dangerous for her to remain in the village, and Portnova was transferred to a partisan detachment.

With the same fearlessness and courage with which she was not afraid to poison more than a hundred enemy officers, Zina now crushed the fascist invaders in the ranks of her partisan comrades. But even quite risky stocks seemed not dangerous enough to her. She longed for the most important task, to prove to her friends and herself that she was no longer the same girl who had just joined the underground group of Komsomol members a few months ago. That she is worthy of the high title of people's avenger and is ready for the most dangerous and risky tasks of the partisan command.

And the opportunity soon presented itself. However, this was a tragic occasion: in early autumn, for unknown reasons, the Germans arrested the backbone of the Young Avengers organization. For a whole month, Komsomol members (thirty people were arrested) were brutally tortured, extracting information from them about where the rest of the underground fighters and partisans were hiding. In the end, the “young avengers” were shot. And then Zina volunteered to penetrate the fascist garrison to find out who became a traitor and betrayed her comrades.

Last task

It would seem that this was initially an obvious gamble - to climb into the very mouth of a fierce enemy, brutalized by the sabotage that the Young Avengers regularly carried out. But Portnova needed just such a task, although by that time they were looking for her with might and main after the incident with the poisoning of German officers. Be that as it may, apparently, the traitor learned that Zina had appeared in the garrison, and she was immediately captured.

Following the logic of things, the thugs from the Gestapo, where the intelligence officer was brought, initially tried to keep appearances and offered her a “carrot”. They say, nothing will happen to you, girl, if you show everyone where the partisans are hiding and tell who is part of the detachment. Moreover, the “carrot” was supposed to not only “sweeten”, but also frighten: on the table of the Gestapo investigator, as if by chance, lay a loaded pistol to intimidate Portnova.

This frivolity cost the German officer dearly: he never imagined that a young girl could distinguish a pistol from a revolver, much less be able to use it for its intended purpose. One way or another, as soon as the fascist turned away for a moment, Zina grabbed a weapon from the table and shot at the Nazi. Then, without wasting a minute, she rushed out of the Gestapo building. They tried to detain her, but Portnova, with an unwavering hand, shot two more pursuers.

But they didn’t let her leave: machine gun fire hit her legs - and the girl fell as if she had been knocked down. The Nazis were furious; they no longer needed information from her about the partisans and underground fighters: the Gestapo was now driven only by revenge for the murdered Krauts. In a blind, cold rage, they began to torture. The masters systematically drove needles under Zina’s nails and burned stars on her body with a hot iron. It got to the point that the young girl’s ears were cut off and her eyes were gouged out.

Portnova behaved extremely stoically. She didn’t utter a word, but from inhuman pain and overexertion she turned gray. The fascist thugs did everything to break the “young avenger.” But nothing worked out for them: in their last way On January 10, 1944 (to be shot), Zina Portnova walked with her head held high. Later, at the Nuremberg trials, this whole gang of scum and sadists will claim that they followed the orders of their commanders when they shot civilians and tortured partisans, and they themselves, they say, had nothing to do with it. However, the fact remains: every fourth resident of Belarus during the war was destroyed by Nazi and nationalist scum.

The feat of Zina Portnova was not forgotten: monuments were erected to her, streets in Leningrad and Belarus were named after her, as well as a ship in the Far Eastern Shipping Company. In 1958, Zinaida Martynovna Portnova was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously). More than 70 years have passed since her death. But her memory is still alive and will live forever.