A message on the topic of Zina Portnov. Zina Portnova

Childhood
Zina was born on February 20, 1926 in Leningrad into the family of Kirov plant worker Martyn Nesterovich Portnov. She studied at ordinary city school No. 385, where in 1937 she was accepted into the pioneer organization. The girl studied well and dreamed of becoming a ballerina. In June 1941, seventh-grader Zina and her sister Galya went on vacation to their grandmother in Belarus, to the village of Zuya near Obol station in the Vitebsk region. There the war found them. Childhood is over. The sisters found themselves in German-occupied territory.
"Young Avengers"
Zina and Galya did not want to evacuate along with other civilians. We stayed in the city of Obol. Through her uncle Ivan Yablokov, Zina Portnova got in touch with the partisans. On their instructions, she distributed anti-fascist leaflets, collected and counted weapons left behind during the retreat of Soviet troops.
In 1942, the Portnov sisters joined the Young Avengers organization. Almost all of its participants were students of the Obol secondary school, gathered under the leadership of 20-year-old Efrosinya Zenkova. Very soon Zina earned the trust of her comrades: she was elected a member of the organization’s steering committee, and eight-year-old Galya was appointed liaison. The children vowed to take revenge on the Nazis for the grief and torment of the people, for their native Leningrad, squeezed into the ring of the blockade.
For about two years, the Young Avengers fought against the invaders. They derailed trains, destroyed railway lines, bridges and highways, blew up water supply facilities, and disabled factories.
The feat of Zina Portnova
Not far from Obol, in the village of a peat factory, a German officer school was located. Artillerymen and tankmen of the fascist army came here for retraining from near Leningrad, Novgorod, Smolensk and Orel. In Obol they simply made life impossible. Hanged with crosses and medals, they were sure that everything was permitted to them: violence, robbery, robbery.
The young underground fighters of Oboli planned to exterminate the fascists. Zina Portnova was given a job in the officers' mess. The Germans took a liking to the Russian girl with pigtails. One day she replaced a sick dishwasher. This made it easier for her to access food. Seizing the moment, Zina managed to pour powder into the cauldron...
Two days later, more than a hundred officers who had lunch that day in the canteen were buried in a military cemetery near Oboli.
The Nazis had no direct evidence against Zina. Fearing liability, the chef and his assistant claimed during the investigation that they did not allow the girl who was replacing the dishwasher to approach the food boilers even within a cannon shot. Just in case, they forced her to try the poisoned soup.
Zina, as if nothing had happened, took the spoon from the chef’s hands and calmly scooped up the soup. She did not give herself away and took a small sip. Soon I felt nausea and general weakness. It was with difficulty that I reached the village. I drank two liters of whey from my grandmother. It became a little easier and she fell asleep. To protect Zina from possible arrest, the underground members transported her to the partisans in the forest at night.
Interrogation and escape
Among the partisans, Zina Portnova became a fighter in reconnaissance, and Galya was accepted as a nurse’s assistant. Meanwhile, the provocateur betrayed several members of the Young Avengers. The detachment commander instructed Zina to establish contact with those who remained alive. The scout successfully completed the task, but failed to report it. Returning back, I came across an enemy ambush near the village of Mostishche. She was detained. A certain Anna Khrapovitskaya identified the girl, and Zina was transported to Obol. There the Gestapo was closely involved with her, since she was listed as a suspect in sabotage in the canteen.
During interrogation by the Gestapo, Zina Portnova grabbed the investigator's pistol and instantly shot him. Two Nazis came running to these shots, whom the girl also shot. Then she ran out of the building and rushed to the river in the hope of swimming to safety, but did not have time to reach the water. The pistol is out of ammunition. The Germans wounded Zina, captured her and sent her to Vitebsk prison. They no longer had any doubts about the pioneer’s involvement in the underground, so they did not interrogate her, but simply methodically tortured her. 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 torture continued. The torture lasted more than a month, but Zina did not betray anyone. On the last day before her execution, Portnova’s eyes were gouged out.
Death and memory
The Nazis brought out a blind and completely gray seventeen-year-old girl to be shot. She walked, stumbling with her bare feet, in the snow. She was shot in a ravine next to the railway, her body was left unburied.
On July 1, 1958, by decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Zina Portnova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union. The name of the brave partisan was carved on the obelisk; it was carried by a warship and pioneer detachments throughout the country.

PORTNOVA Zinaida Martynovna Young underground partisan, pioneer, who died at the age of 17 the death of the brave. Born on February 20, 1926 in the city of Leningrad in a working-class family. Belarusian by nationality. Graduated from 7th grade. A native of Leningrad, Zina Portnova was born in 1926 and before the war led the ordinary life of a Soviet girl. During the summer school holidays, her parents sent Zina 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, members of the underground, began their actions with small things: they posted anti-fascist leaflets, engaged in petty 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, set fire to industrial enterprises that worked for the Nazis, and carried out explosions. The feat of the 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 using 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, fulfilling 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 squad. 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. On January 10, 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. “Jackdaw, the war has begun!” In June 1941, the Portnov sisters traveled from Leningrad to Belarus to visit relatives. Zina had just finished 7th grade, and Galya had not yet gone to school. Parents, seeing off their daughters at the Vitebsk station, wished them a good rest. How could they have known then that soon the fertile land would be occupied by the Nazis, and they would see their eldest for the last time?.. “We lived with our aunt and uncle in Volkovysk,” recalls Galina Martynovna. “I remember one day I woke up and heard that Aunt Ira and Zinochka were crying behind the wall. I ran to them, and they said to me: “Jackdaw, the war has begun!” We went out onto the balcony, and then a German plane flew right over us. He flew so low that I could even see the pilot’s face! You know, this indifferent, concentrated face with a heavy chin has been engraved in my memory for the rest of my life, I always remembered it when I heard the expression “SS face”... Then Uncle Kolya called us and shouted: “Drop everything and run to the station!” “Aunt Ira grabbed a velvet tablecloth from the table, wrapped linen and some small items in it, and we rushed off. The train at the station was already completely filled with people. I remember Aunt Ira putting me on the train, asking me to take the baby, but there was no room at all, they pushed me out... We didn’t get on that train. Fortunately. Then it became known that the Germans bombed it completely! We reached Vitebsk in the second echelon and a couple of days later we were supposed to take the train to Leningrad, but the Germans arrived. Vitebsk fell into the occupation zone. As a result, it was decided to go on foot to my grandmother, who lived 60 kilometers from the city, in the village of Zuya, near the Obol station. I remember we were walking along the road, and then a German plane appeared, bombing the highway. Everyone rushed into the ditch by the road, and Aunt Ira’s alarm clock rang in her bundle. How scared she was then that the pilot would hear! But we still reached the village safely. “Don’t cry, we’re going to join the partisans!” In the village during the occupation, Zina joined the underground Komsomol organization “Young Avengers”. The guys secretly caught Sovinformburo reports on the radio, scattered leaflets about the victories of the Red Army, transferred information, weapons and medicine to the partisans and organized more than twenty acts of sabotage. Galina Martynovna shows us a document that lists the most notorious exploits of the underground: they blew up a flax and brick factory, a power plant, a water pumping station, six cars with fascists... “Zina didn’t tell me anything, only sometimes she asked me to pick up something for her,” Galina continues. Melnikova. - For example, she said: “Go to Mostishche, bring me a basket from there. If a German stops you, cry, but don’t let him inspect the basket!” Once they actually stopped me, the German even took a couple of eggs from the basket, but did not go any further. And under the eggs in the basket there was a mine. Then, on instructions from the organization, Zina got a job in a German canteen. Nearby, at the factories, there was a retraining school for German officers, and a sister peeled potatoes in their canteen. I often resorted to her. I, of course, remembered this time as relatively calm, because Zinochka brought home potato peelings and we were no longer as hungry as before. Then she received the task of poisoning the Germans. My sister sewed me a rag doll and I walked around the village with it for some time. From Mostishch I brought a container with poison in a basket. The sister hid the container inside the doll. During these same days, the Germans decided to drive away a large party of our youth to Germany, so the children walked around the village in shock, many were crying. Zina and I were also supposed to be taken away. But my sister told me: “Galya, don’t cry, you and I are going to join the partisans tomorrow! I’ll take your doll, while you get ready.” And in the evening she took me to Mostishche. I remember that a lot of young people gathered there in some attic. And at night the partisans came to take the people to their place. One shined a flashlight on us all, saw me and asked: “What kind of pigtail is this? We don’t take children into partisans!” But a cousin, the son of Aunt Ira, showed some paper - they say, this is Zina Portnova’s sister, here is the permission, they will take it. Then we walked all night: we crossed the Western Dvina and stopped in Kisely. There I was assigned to a partisan hospital, where I stayed to help: I ​​gave drinks to the wounded, twisted bandages... Little Galya did not know that her sister, having sent her out of harm’s way to the partisans, was herself preparing to commit an extremely risky sabotage. She seized the right moment and added poison to the soup for the Germans. As a result of her actions, more than a hundred fascist invaders were destroyed! And in order to divert suspicion from herself, Zina herself took a sip of poisoned soup during the inspection. Fortunately, she got a portion that was scooped up not from the side of the cauldron where she poured the poison, but from the opposite side. It was only thanks to this lucky chance that the girl survived. From last bit of strength, staggering from weakness, she reached the partisans, but there she lay in the hospital for a long time. How Romashka was betrayed. The eldest of the sisters, Zina, was enlisted by the partisans in reconnaissance, and little Galochka was left to help the wounded and sick. “Zina often went on missions, and before that she always ran into the hospital to kiss me,” says Galina Martynovna Melnikova. - And one day, at the end of 1943, she did not return. Everyone told me that Zina was taken to Germany. And I believed them, wanted to believe, hoped that my sister was alive! Zina’s last task was to collect the necessary information from Oboli. In general, they often went there; a lineman worked at the Obol station, who conveyed information to the partisans about how many German trains had passed. Railway Vitebsk - Polotsk was very important; trains from Riga to Stalingrad passed through it. The partisans then sent this information to Headquarters. During her last assignment, Zina wanted to find out about the fate of the underground fighters. After all, a month before this, many of the “Young Avengers” were arrested and shot. The elderly woman falls silent for a while, and then continues with tears in her voice: “To be honest, she was caught, of course, stupidly!” Zina walked along with other guys - Manya and Ilyukha. She came to Mostishche to meet with her contact, but on the way back she was detained by a policeman and taken to the commandant’s office. It was necessary to go past the cemetery, to the Obol River. People who saw Zina then say that she walked with her hands clasped behind her back and looked around all the time. She knew that Ilya and Manya had machine guns, but the policeman was leading her alone, past the forest, through a deserted place. She apparently hoped that the guys would have time to save her. But they walked to the village all night, 26 kilometers, and... fell asleep! Then Ilyukha blamed himself for the fact that they were “watching” Zina. And in the commandant’s office sat Grechukhin, one of those who sold the underground fighters. In general, Zina was identified. During one of the interrogations, which was conducted by the head of the Gestapo, Captain Krause, Zina grabbed a pistol lying on the table and shot the Gestapo man. But she couldn’t escape; she was wounded and then sent to a concentration camp. According to eyewitnesses, Zina Portnova was very cruelly tortured in the concentration camp in Polotsk, but she continued to remain silent. On January 10, 1944, the Nazis shot a graying 17-year-old girl. And the partisans transported little Galya by plane across the front line to the mainland, along with some of the wounded. - There were 16 partisan detachments operating behind the Western Dvina, and the Germans were afraid to stick their nose there! - says Galina Martynovna. - But then they got tired of this business, they withdrew their regular troops and decided to clear out all the partisans. Our troops were encircled, I was transported by plane literally ten days before the defeat. You could say they saved us at the last moment! The detachments were destroyed, most of the partisans died. Lenya, my cousin, trying to break through the cordon, was blown up by a mine, and the Germans took my second brother, Kolya, prisoner. He then sat in the same Polotsk concentration camp as Zina. I learned about my sister’s death only in 1944, when I returned to my parents in Leningrad... Zina Portnova, the legendary Romashka (that was the call sign of the Leningrad schoolgirl in the Young Avengers organization), is still remembered and honored by a generation of real people - those for whom the word “Motherland” is not an empty phrase.

| Patriotic, spiritual and moral education of schoolchildren | Young heroes of the Great Patriotic War | Pioneer heroes of the Great Patriotic War | Zina Portnova

Pioneer heroes of the Great Patriotic War

Zina Portnova

Zinaida Martynovna (Zina) Portnova (February 20, 1926, Leningrad, USSR - January 10, 1944, Polotsk, BSSR, USSR) - Pioneer hero, Soviet underground fighter, partisan, member of the underground organization “Young Avengers”; scout of the partisan detachment named after K. E. Voroshilov on the territory of the Belarusian SSR occupied by the Nazis. Member of the Komsomol since 1943. Hero of the Soviet Union.

Born on February 20, 1926 in the city of Leningrad in a working-class family. Belarusian by nationality. Graduated from 7th grade.

At the beginning of June 1941, she came for school holidays to the village of Zui, near the Obol station, Shumilinsky district, Vitebsk region. After the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Zina Portnova found herself in occupied territory. Since 1942, a member of the Obol underground organization “Young Avengers,” whose leader was the future Hero of the Soviet Union E. S. Zenkova, a member of the organization’s committee. While underground she was accepted into the Komsomol.

She participated in the distribution of leaflets among the population and sabotage against the invaders. While working in the canteen of a retraining course for German officers, at the direction of the underground, she poisoned the food (more than a hundred officers died). During the proceedings, wanting to prove to the Germans that she was not involved, she tried the poisoned soup. Miraculously, she survived.

Since August 1943, scout of the partisan detachment named after. K. E. Voroshilova. In December 1943, returning from a mission to find out the reasons for the failure of the Young Avengers organization, she was captured in the village of Mostishche and identified by a certain Anna Khrapovitskaya. During one of the interrogations at the Gestapo in the village of Goryany (now Polotsk district, Vitebsk region of Belarus), she grabbed the investigator’s pistol from the table, shot him and two other Nazis, tried to escape, and was captured. 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 10, 1944, a gray-haired and blind girl was taken out to be executed. She was shot in the prison of Polotsk (according to another version, in the village of Goryany).

Awards.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 1, 1958, Zinaida Martynovna Portnova was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and awarded the Order of Lenin.
Memorial plaque in St. Petersburg. Zina Portnova Street.
Memorial plaque st. Zina Portnova, 60 St. Petersburg.

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 the water pump, 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.

They were ordinary boys and girls. But they happened to be born in extraordinary time. In a tragic time. And it made them become heroes. Children-Heroes... In memory of them... One of the names that one cannot help but remember is Zina Portnova. The girl who became posthumously Hero of the Soviet Union...

Zinaida Martynovna Portnova (Zina Portnova)
The young partisan is a member of the underground Komsomol and youth organization “Young Avengers”; scout of the partisan detachment named after K.E. Voroshilov in the temporarily occupied territory of the Belarusian SSR. Born in the city of Leningrad (since 1965 a hero city, now St. Petersburg) in a working-class family. Belarusian by nationality. Member of the Komsomol since 1943. Graduated from 7th grade.

During the Great Patriotic War, being in the summer school holidays in the village of Zuya near the Obol station (now within the urban village of Obol, Shumilinsky district) of the Vitebsk region of Belarus, Zina Portnova found herself in temporarily occupied territory. In 1942, the young patriot joined the Obolsk underground Komsomol youth organization “Young Avengers” (leader - Hero of the Soviet Union E.S. Zenkova), and actively participated in distributing leaflets among the population and sabotage against the Nazi invaders.

Very close by, the lead-gray surface of the water rippled from the wind. Across 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 they got very close, she decided it was all over and pointed the gun at her chest. She pulled the trigger. But there was no shot: it misfired. The fascist knocked the pistol out of her weakening hands.

The case of the Obol underground partisan was now handled by Gestapo men of a higher rank than in Goryany. Zina was immediately transported to Polotsk. She was interrogated by the executioners most sophisticated in cruel torture. For more than a month, Zina was beaten, needles were driven under her nails, and she was burned with a hot iron. After the torture, as soon as she came to her senses a little, she was again brought in for interrogation. They were interrogated, as a rule, at night. They promised to save her life if only the young partisan confessed everything and named the names of all the underground fighters and partisans known to her. And again the Gestapo men were surprised by the unshakable firmness of this stubborn girl, who in their protocols was called a “Soviet bandit.”

Zina, exhausted by torture, refused to answer questions, hoping that they would kill her faster. Death now seemed to her the easiest way out of torture. Once, in the prison yard, prisoners saw how a completely gray-haired girl, when she was being led to another interrogation and torture, threw herself under the wheels of a passing truck. But the car was stopped, the gray-haired girl was pulled out from under the wheels and again taken for interrogation.

At the beginning of January, it became known in the Polotsk prison that the young partisan was sentenced to death. She knew that she would be shot in the morning.
Once again transferred to solitary confinement, Zina spent her last night in semi-oblivion. She can't see anything anymore. Her eyes are gouged out... The fascist monsters cut off her ears... Her arms are twisted, her fingers are crushed... Will there ever be an end to her torment!.. Tomorrow everything must end. And yet these executioners got nothing from her. She swore an oath of allegiance to the Motherland and kept it. She swore to take merciless revenge on the enemy for the grief he brought to the Soviet people. And she took revenge as best she could.

The thought of her sister again and again made her heart flutter. “Dear Galochka! You are left alone... Remember me if you remain alive... Mommy, father, remember your Zina.” Tears, mixing with blood, flowed from the mutilated eyes - Zina could still cry...

The morning came, frosty and sunny... Those sentenced to death, there were six of them, were taken to the prison yard. One of her comrades grabbed Zina’s arms and helped her walk. Old men, women and children had been crowding around the prison wall, surrounded by three rows of barbed wire, since early morning. Some brought a package to the prisoners, others expected that among the prisoners who were taken to work, they would be able to see their loved ones. Among these people stood a boy in worn-out felt boots and a quilted jacket torn to shreds. He didn't have any transmission. He himself had only been released from this prison the day before. He was detained during a raid while making his way from the partisan zone to the front line. They put him in prison because he had no documents on him.

A cart with a barrel drove along a street covered with white snowdrifts - they brought water to the prison.
A few minutes later the gates opened again, and machine gunners escorted six people out. Among them, in a gray-haired and blind girl, the boy hardly recognized his sister... She walked, stumbling with her bare blackened feet in the snow. Some black-moustached man supported her by the shoulders.
"Zina!" - Lenka wanted to shout. But his voice was interrupted.

Zina, along with other people sentenced to death, was shot on the morning of January 10, 1944 near the prison, on the square...

Epilogue

The Soviet people learned about the exploits of the young avengers fifteen years later, when the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR was published in July 1958. For the exploits and courage shown during the Great Patriotic War, a large group of participants in the Obol underground Komsomol organization "Young Avengers" was awarded orders of the Soviet Union. And on the chest of the head of the organization, Efrosinya Savelyevna Zenkova, the Golden Star of the Hero of the Soviet Union sparkled.