Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya (September 13, 1923 - November 29, 1941) - in Soviet times there was a legend that the girl was a partisan. After declassification and study of the archives, it became known that she was a saboteur thrown behind the lines of the German army. Posthumously awarded the title of Hero Soviet Union.

Childhood

Zoya was born in one of the villages of the Tambov province. Her parents were teachers and from childhood instilled in the girl a love of knowledge.

The girl’s grandfather was a priest, which is why, according to one version, after the massacre of him, the family ended up in the depths of Siberia. According to other sources, Zoya’s father’s careless speeches against the collectivization policy led to the fact that they had to hastily flee away from power in order to be able to sit out until passions subsided.

Be that as it may, the Kosmodemyanskys still managed to get out of the snow and get to Moscow. Here in 1933, the head of the family died, so one mother had to take care of the children - Zoya and her younger brother.

Youth

Zoya studied very well. The teachers praised her and said that the girl had a great future ahead of her. She was especially fascinated by literature and history. The girl dreamed of connecting her future life with them.

Social activism has also always been among Zoe's activities. Having become a member of the Lenin Komsomol, she managed to be a group organizer. However, being a modest girl with a keen sense of justice, she did not always find a common language with people who allowed themselves to be two-faced and fickle. That's why Zoya had few friends.

In 1940, Zoya became seriously ill. She was diagnosed with acute meningitis. Fortunately, there were no irreversible consequences, but the girl had to recover her strength for a very long time. For this reason, she spent almost the entire winter in a sanatorium near Moscow.

There she was lucky enough to meet the famous writer Arkady Gaidar. They became friends and talked a lot. For Zoe it was very important event, because she dreamed of connecting her life with the study of literature.

Returning home, Zoya very easily and quickly caught up with her classmates, although during her illness she had to do a lot of school curriculum skip. Having received the certificate, the girl was sure that now all doors were open to her. However, the war crossed out plans and shattered dreams.

Service

In the fall of 1941, Zoya decided to volunteer for the front. The smart and quick-witted girl was sent to a sabotage school, where they trained fighters for reconnaissance and sabotage units. There was no time for long studies, so the groups took a crash course and went to the front. Zoya found herself in one of them. Having successfully completed the test task, students of the sabotage school were recognized as ready for combat.

According to the next order of the command, the sabotage units were ordered to make the life of the German invaders in every possible way. The new goal was to destroy any buildings in which they were located or where they kept horses and equipment. The command believed that this would significantly weaken the enemy, because being in the cold in winter did not contribute to strengthening combat effectiveness.

The group, which included Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, received one of these tasks. They had to destroy many buildings in various villages. However, initially things did not go as planned. The soldiers almost immediately came under fire and suffered heavy losses. The survivors were forced to retreat. However, it was decided to bring the matter to an end.

Zoya and several of her comrades managed to set fire to buildings in the village of Petrishchevo. At the same time, the Germans suffered significant losses, because the communications center and several dozen horses were killed in the fire. Retreating, Zoya missed her colleagues. Realizing this, the girl decided that she should return and continue to carry out the order.

However, this turned out to be her big mistake. The German soldiers were already ready for the meeting. In addition, the local residents were not happy about the fact that someone was destroying their homes. It was they who informed the enemies that a suspicious person had reappeared in the village. Soon Zoya was captured.

Heroic death

The Germans took their anger out on the defenseless girl for several hours. She also felt hatred from civilians, many of whom did not fail to inflict several brutal blows on her. However, nothing forced her to beg for mercy or give out any valuable information to her enemies.

At half past ten in the morning the mutilated girl was taken to a hastily constructed gallows. A sign saying “House Arsonist” was hung around her neck. Until her death, the girl never wavered.

Zoya was buried first in the village cemetery, and then reburied at Novodevichy in Moscow.

Zoya was born in the village of Osino-Gai, Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region. Zoya's grandfather - a priest - was executed in the years Civil War. In 1930, the Kosmodemyansky family moved to Moscow. Before the Great Patriotic War Zoya studied at Moscow Secondary School No. 201. In the fall of 1941, she was a tenth-grader. In October 1941, during the most difficult days for the defense of the capital, when the possibility of the city being captured by the enemy could not be ruled out, Zoya remained in Moscow. Having learned that the selection of Komsomol members had begun in the capital to carry out tasks behind enemy lines, she, on her own initiative, went to the district Komsomol committee, received a permit, passed an interview and was enlisted as a private in the reconnaissance and sabotage military unit No. 9903. It was based on volunteers from Komsomol organizations Moscow and the Moscow region, and the command staff was recruited from students of the Frunze Military Academy. During the battle of Moscow in this military unit of the intelligence department Western Front 50 combat groups and detachments were trained. In total, between September 1941 and February 1942, they made 89 penetrations behind enemy lines, destroyed 3,500 German soldiers and officers, eliminated 36 traitors, blew up 13 fuel tanks and 14 tanks. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, along with other volunteers, was taught the skills of intelligence work, the ability to mine and explode, cut wire communications, commit arson, and obtain information.

At the beginning of November, Zoya and other fighters received their first task. They mined roads behind enemy lines and returned safely to the unit's location.

On November 17, 1941, secret order No. 0428 of the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command appeared, which set the task of “expelling Nazi invaders from all populated areas into the cold in the field, smoke them out of all rooms and warm shelters and force them to freeze in the open air.” To do this, it was ordered to “destroy and burn to the ground all populated areas in the rear of German troops at a distance of 40-60 km in depth from the front line and 20-30 km to the right and left of the roads. To destroy populated areas within the specified radius, immediately deploy aviation, make extensive use of artillery and mortar fire, reconnaissance teams, skiers and sabotage groups equipped with Molotov cocktails, grenades and demolition devices. In the event of a forced withdrawal of our units... take the Soviet population with us and be sure to destroy all populated areas without exception, so that the enemy cannot use them.”

Soon, the commanders of sabotage groups of military unit No. 9903 were given the task of burning 10 settlements in the Moscow region behind enemy lines within 5-7 days, which included the village of Petrishchevo, Vereisky district, Moscow region. Zoya, along with other fighters, was involved in this task. She managed to set fire to three houses in Petrishchevo, where the occupiers were located. Then, after some time, she tried to carry out another arson, but was captured by the Nazis. Despite the torture and bullying, Zoya did not betray any of her comrades, did not say the unit number and did not give any other information that constituted a military secret at that time. She didn’t even give her name, saying during interrogation that her name was Tanya.

To intimidate the population, the Nazis decided to hang Zoya in front of the entire village. The execution took place on November 29, 1941. Already with a noose draped around her neck, Zoya managed to shout to her enemies: “No matter how much you hang us, you won’t outweigh them all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me.” For a long time the Germans did not allow Zoya’s body to be buried and mocked it. Only on January 1, 1942, the body of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was buried.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya managed to live only 18 years. But she, like many of her peers, put her young life on the altar of the future and much desired Victory. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, an exalted and romantic personality, with her painful death she once again confirmed the truth of the Gospel commandment: “There is no greater feat than to lay down your life for your friends.”

On February 16, 1942, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The streets of a number of cities are named after her, and a monument was erected on the Minsk Highway near the village of Petrishchevo.

You can contribute to perpetuating the memory of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat on the website . The names of all donors will be mentioned in the credits of the film “The Passion of Zoe.”

The story was first widely reported on January 27, 1942. On that day, the essay “Tanya” by correspondent Pyotr Lidov appeared in the Pravda newspaper. In the evening it was broadcast on All-Union Radio. It was about a certain young partisan who was caught by the Germans during a combat mission. The girl carried it out brutal torture the Nazis, but never told the enemy anything and did not betray her comrades.

It is believed that a specially created commission then took up the investigation of the case, which established the true name of the heroine. It turned out that

the girl's name was actually Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, she was an 18-year-old schoolgirl from Moscow.

Then it became known that Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was born in 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai (otherwise Osinovye Gai) in the Tambov region in the family of teachers Anatoly and Lyubov Kosmodemyansky. Zoya also had a younger brother, Alexander, whom his loved ones called Shura. Soon the family managed to move to Moscow. At school, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya studied diligently and was a modest and hardworking child. According to the memoirs of Vera Sergeevna Novoselova, a teacher of literature and Russian language at school No. 201 in Moscow, where Zoya studied, the girl studied excellently.

“A very modest girl, easily flushed with embarrassment, she found strong and bold words when it came to her favorite subject - literature. Unusually sensitive to artistic form“, she knew how to put her speech, oral and written, into a bright and expressive form,” the teacher recalled.

Sending to the front

On September 30, 1941, the Germans began their offensive on Moscow. On October 7, on the territory of Vyazma, the enemy managed to encircle five armies of the Western and Reserve Fronts. It was decided to mine the most important objects Moscow - including bridges and industrial enterprises. If the Germans entered the city, the objects were to be blown up.

Zoya's brother Shura was the first to go to the front. “How good am I if I stayed here? The guys went, maybe to fight, but I stayed at home. How can you do nothing now?!” — Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya recalled the words of her daughter in her book “The Tale of Zoya and Shura.”

Air raids on Moscow did not stop. Then many Muscovites joined communist workers' battalions, combat squads, and detachments to fight the enemy. So, in October 1941, after a conversation with one of the groups of boys and girls, among whom was Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, the guys were enrolled in the detachment. Zoya told her mother that she had submitted an application to the Moscow district Komsomol committee and that she had been taken to the front and would be sent behind enemy lines.

Having asked not to tell her brother anything, the daughter said goodbye to her mother for the last time.

Then about two thousand people were selected and sent to military unit No. 9903, which was located in Kuntsevo. So Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya became a fighter in the reconnaissance and sabotage unit of the Western Front. This was followed by exercises, during which, as Zoe’s fellow soldier Klavdiya Miloradova recalled, the participants “went into the forest, laid mines, blew up trees, learned to remove sentries, and use a map.” At the beginning of November, Zoya and her comrades were given their first task - to mine roads behind enemy lines, which they successfully completed and returned to their unit without losses.

Operation

On November 17, Order No. 0428 was received from the Headquarters of the Supreme High Command, according to which it was necessary to deprive “the German army of the opportunity to be located in villages and cities, drive the German invaders out of all settlements into the cold in the field, smoke them out of all premises and warm shelters and force them to freeze.” open air".

On November 18 (according to other information - November 20), the commanders of the sabotage groups of unit No. 9903, Pavel Provorov and Boris Krainov, received the task: by order of Comrade Stalin on November 17, 1941, “to burn 10 settlements: Anashkino, Gribtsovo, Petrishchevo, Usadkovo, Ilyatino, Grachevo, Pushkino, Mikhailovskoye, Bugailovo, Korovino.” 5-7 days were allotted to complete the task. The groups went on missions together.

Near the village of Golovkovo, the detachment came across a German ambush and a shootout took place. The groups scattered, part of the detachment died. “The remnants of the sabotage groups united into a small detachment under the command of Krainov. The three of them went to Petrishchevo, located 10 km from the Golovkovo state farm: Krainov, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and Vasily Klubkov,” said Candidate of Historical Sciences, Deputy Director of the Center for Scientific Use and Publication of the Association’s Archival Fund in his article “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya”. Moscow City Archive" Mikhail Gorinov.

However, it is still not known for certain whether the partisan managed to burn down the very houses that could have contained fascist radio stations. In December 1966, the magazine “Science and Life” published a material presenting a memorandum. According to the text of the document, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya “in early December at night came to the village of Petrishchevo and set fire to three houses (the houses of citizens Karelova, Solntsev, Smirnov) in which the Germans lived. Along with these houses, the following burned:

20 horses, one German, many rifles, machine guns and a lot of telephone cable. After the arson she managed to escape.”

It is believed that after setting fire to three houses, Zoya did not return to the appointed place. Instead, after waiting in the forest, the next night (according to another version - the next night) she again went to the village. It is this act, the historian notes, that will form the basis of a later version, according to which “she went to the village of Petrishchevo without permission, without the permission of the commander.”

Moreover, “without permission,” as Mikhail Gorinov points out, she went there only the second time to carry out the order to burn the village.

However, according to many historians, when it got dark, Zoya actually returned to the village. However, the Germans were already ready to meet the partisans: it is believed that two German officers, a translator and a headman gathered local residents, ordering them to guard houses and monitor the appearance of partisans, and if they met them, to report immediately.

Further, as many historians and participants in the investigation note, Zoya was seen by Semyon Sviridov, one of the village residents. He saw her at the moment when the partisan was trying to set fire to the barn of his house. The owner of the house immediately reported this to the Germans. Later it will become known that, according to the protocol of the interrogation of village resident Semyon Sviridov by the NKVD investigator for the Moscow region on May 28, 1942, “except for treating him to wine,” the owner of the house did not receive any other reward from the Germans for the capture of the partisan.

As village resident Valentina Sedova (11 years old) recalled, the girl had a bag with compartments for bottles that hung over her shoulder. “They found three bottles in this bag, which they opened, sniffed, then put them back in the case. Then they found a revolver on her belt under her jacket,” she said.

During interrogation, the girl identified herself as Tanya and did not give out any information the Germans needed, for which she was severely beaten. As resident Avdotya Voronina recalled, the girl was repeatedly flogged with belts:

“Four Germans flogged her, flogged her four times with belts, as they came out with belts in their hands. They asked her and flogged her, she remained silent, she was flogged again. During the last spanking she sighed: “Oh, stop spanking, I don’t know anything else and I won’t tell you anything else.”

As follows from the testimony of village residents, which was taken by the Moscow Komsomol commission on February 3, 1942 (shortly after Petrishchevo was liberated from the Germans), after interrogation and torture, the girl was taken out into the street at night without outer clothing

and forced to stay long time in the cold.

“After sitting for half an hour, they dragged her outside. They dragged me along the street barefoot for about twenty minutes, then they brought me back again.

So, they took her out barefoot from ten o'clock at night until two o'clock in the morning - along the street, in the snow, barefoot. All this was done by one German, he is 19 years old,”

- said a resident of the village, Praskovya Kulik, who the next morning approached the girl and asked her several questions:

"Where are you from?" The answer is Moscow. "What is your name?" — she remained silent. "Where are the parents?" — she remained silent. “Why were you sent?” - “I was tasked with burning the village.”

The interrogation continued the next day, and again the girl said nothing. Later, another circumstance will become known - Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was tormented not only by the Germans. In particular, residents of Petrishchevo, one of whom had previously had her house burned down by a partisan. Later, when on May 4, 1942, Smirnova herself admits to what she had done, it becomes known that the women came to the house where Zoya was then kept. According to the testimony of one of the village residents, stored in the Central State Archives of Moscow,

Smirnova “before leaving the house, she took the cast iron with slop on the floor and threw it at Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.”

“After some time, even more people came to my house, with whom Solina and Smirnova came a second time. Through the crowd of people, Solina Fedosya and Smirnova Agrafena made their way to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, and then Smirnova began to beat her, insulting her with all sorts of bad words. Solina, being with Smirnova, waved her arms and shouted angrily: “Hit! Beat her!”, while insulting the partisan Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya lying near the stove with all sorts of bad words,” states the text of the testimony of a resident of the village of Praskovya Kulik.

Later, Fedosya Solina and Agrafena Smirnova were shot.

“The military tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Moscow district opened a criminal case. The investigation lasted several months. On June 17, 1942, Agrafena Smirnova, and on September 4, 1942, Fedosya Solina, were sentenced to capital punishment. Information about their beating of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was classified for a long time,” Mikhail Gorinov said in his article. Also, after some time, Semyon Sviridov himself, who surrendered the partisan to the Germans, will be convicted.

Identification of the body and versions of events

The next morning, the partisan was taken out into the street, where the gallows had already been prepared. They hung a sign on her chest that read “House Arsonist.”

Later, five photographs taken at Zoya’s execution will be found in the possession of one of the Germans killed in 1943.

It is still not known for certain what the last words of the partisan were. Nevertheless, it should be noted that after the published essay by Pyotr Lidov, history acquired more and more new details, various versions of the events of those years appeared, including thanks to Soviet propaganda. There are several various options the last speech of the famous partisan.

According to the version outlined in the essay by correspondent Pyotr Lidov, immediately before her death the girl uttered the following words: “You will hang me now, but I am not alone, there are two hundred million of us, you cannot hang everyone. You will be avenged for me...” The Russian people standing in the square were crying. Others turned away so as not to see what was about to happen. The executioner pulled the rope, and the noose squeezed Tanino’s throat. But she spread the noose with both hands, rose up on her toes and shouted, straining her strength:

“Farewell, comrades! Fight, don't be afraid! Stalin is with us! Stalin will come!..”

According to the recollections of village resident Vasily Kulik, the girl did not talk about Stalin:

“Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender.” The officer shouted angrily: “Rus!” “The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated,” she said all this while she was being photographed. They took pictures of her from the front, from the side where the bag is, and from the back.

Soon after the hanging, the girl was buried on the outskirts of the village. Later, after the area was liberated from the Germans, the investigation also included identification of the body found.

According to the inspection and identification report dated February 4, 1942, “Citizens of the village. Petrishchevo<...>Based on the photographs presented by the intelligence department of the Western Front headquarters, it was identified that the hanged person was Komsomol member Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya. The commission excavated the grave where she was buried Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya Anatolyevna. An examination of the corpse confirmed the testimony of the above-mentioned comrades and once again confirmed that the hanged woman was Comrade Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya.”

According to the act of exhumation of the corpse of Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya dated February 12, 1942, among those identified were Zoya’s mother and brother, as well as fellow soldier Klavdiya Miloradova.

On February 16, 1942, Kosmodemyanskaya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, and on May 7, 1942, Zoya was reburied at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Over the years, the story has continued to gain new interpretations, including various “revelations” in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Historians also began to offer new versions not only of the events of those years, but also of the personality of the girl herself. So, according to the hypothesis of one of the scientists, in the village of Petrishchevo the Nazis captured and tortured not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, but

and another partisan who disappeared during the war, Lilya Azolina.

The hypothesis was based on the memoirs of war invalid Galina Romanovich and materials collected by one of the Moskovsky Komsomolets correspondents. The first allegedly saw a photograph of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in Komsomolskaya Pravda back in 1942 and recognized her as Lilya Azolina, with whom she studied at the Geological Exploration Institute. In addition, according to Romanovich, her other classmates recognized the girl as Lilya.

According to another version, there were no Germans in the village at the time of those events: Zoya was allegedly caught by village residents when she tried to set fire to houses. However, later, in the 1990s, this version would be refuted thanks to the residents of Petrishchevo who survived the dramatic events, some of whom lived until the early 1990s and were able to tell in one of the newspapers that the Nazis were still in the village at that time.

After Zoya's death, Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya, Zoya's mother, will receive many letters throughout her life.

Throughout the war years, according to Lyubov Timofeevna, messages will come “from all fronts, from all corners of the country.” “And I realized: letting grief overcome you means insulting Zoe’s memory. You can't give up, you can't fall, you can't die. I have no right to despair. We must live,” wrote Lyubov Kosmodemyanskaya in her story.

At the end of January 1942, the essay “Tanya”, written by correspondent Pyotr Lidov, appeared in the Pravda newspaper. Already in the evening it was read on the radio by Olga Vysotskaya. The announcer's voice trembled with tears and his voice became confused.

Even in the conditions of the most brutal war, when not only at the front, but also in the rear, every person faced grief, pain and suffering every day, the story of the partisan girl shocked everyone who learned about it. A special commission found out that yesterday’s Moscow schoolgirl Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya called herself Tanya during interrogation by the Nazis.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Years of life 1923 - 1941

Pyotr Lidov learned about it from a conversation with an elderly resident of the village of Petrishchevo near Moscow. The peasant was shocked by the courage of the heroine, who steadfastly resisted the enemy, and repeated one phrase:

“They hang her, and she threatens them.”

Short life

The biography of the brave partisan is very short. Born on September 13, 1923 in a family of teachers in the village of Osnov Gai, Tambov Region. Seven years later, the Kosmodemyanskys moved to the capital and settled in the Timiryazevsky Park area. At school, Zoya was an excellent student and was interested in literature and history. She was very direct and responsible, and demanded the same from other guys, which caused conflicts. The girl got sick on nervous soil and was treated at a sanatorium in Sokolniki.

Here I became friends with a wonderful writer whose books I read: Arkady Gaidar. She dreamed of studying at the Literary Institute. These plans would probably come true. But the war began. In the Colosseum cinema, which until recently showed films, a recruiting station opened. At the end of October 1941, Zoya came to enroll in a sabotage school.

She couldn’t stay in Moscow, watching the enemy getting closer and closer to the capital! They selected young people who were strong and strong, able to withstand increased loads. They immediately warned: only 5% would survive. The eighteen-year-old Komsomol member looked fragile and was not accepted at first, but Zoya had strong character, and she became a member of a sabotage group.

In a partisan detachment

And here is the first task: mining the road near Volokolamsk. It was completed successfully. Then they are ordered to burn ten settlements. It took no more than a week to complete. But an enemy ambush awaited the partisans near the village of Golovkovo. Some of the soldiers died, some were captured. The remnants of the groups united under the command of Krainev.

Together with the commander, Vasily Klubkov, Zoya went to the village of Petrishchevo near Moscow, located 10 km from the Golovkovo state farm, made her way into the enemy camp, crawled to the stables, and soon smoke rose above them and flames appeared. Screams were heard and the sound of shooting was heard. The partisan set fire to three houses and decided not to return to the appointed place, spent the night in the forest, and in the morning went to locality to carry out the order.

I waited until it was dark, but the Germans were on their guard. They ordered local residents to guard their estates. The partisan went to the house of local resident S.A. Sviridov, in whose apartment German officers and their translator were standing, managed to set fire to a barn with hay, at which time Sviridov noticed her and called for help. The soldiers surrounded the barn and captured the young partisan. The officers “thanked” the traitor Sviridov with a bottle of vodka.

Torture

Later P. Ya. Kulik, the owner of the hut to which the beaten Komsomol member was brought, said that she was led with hands tied barefoot in the snow in an undershirt, over which she was wearing men's shirt. The girl sat down on the bench and groaned, her appearance was terrible, her lips were black with dried blood. She asked for a drink, and the Germans, mocking, removed the glass from the lit kerosene lamp and brought it to their lips. But then they “relented” and allowed her to be given water. The girl immediately drank four glasses. For her, the torment was just beginning.

At night the torture continued. A young German man, who looked about nineteen years old, mocked the young partisan. He took the unfortunate woman out into the cold and forced her to walk barefoot in the snow, then brought her into the house. Before she had time to warm up, she was driven out into the cold again.

By two o'clock in the morning the German was tired and went to bed, handing the victim over to another soldier. But he did not torture the girl with frostbitten feet, untied her hands, took a blanket and pillow from the hostess, and allowed her to go to bed. In the morning Zoya was talking to the hostess, there was no translator, and the Germans did not understand the words. The girl did not give her name, but said that she burned three houses in the village and twenty horses on these estates. I asked the hostess for some shoes. The Nazi asked her:

- Where is Stalin?

“On duty,” the brave partisan answered briefly.

They began to interrogate her again so thoroughly that eyewitnesses later said: the unfortunate woman’s legs were completely blue, she could barely walk. As local residents testified, Zoya was beaten not only by her enemies, but also by two women, Smirnova and Solina, whose houses were damaged by arson.

Execution

At half past ten on November 29, 1941, the heroine, who did not betray her comrades during interrogation, was taken out into the street by the arms; she could not walk on her own. The gallows had already been put together, and all the residents had been herded to watch the execution. On the chest of the brave Komsomol member hung a sign “Arsonist of houses.” The inscription was made in two languages: German and Russian.

Near the gallows, the Germans began to photograph the partisan. She raised her head, looked around at the local residents, the enemy soldiers and uttered the words that will forever remain in history: “Victory will be ours!” She pushed the German away, stood on the box herself and shouted, “You can’t outweigh everyone, there are 170 million of us!” They will avenge me! The box was knocked out from under his feet, the execution was completed. In the silence you could hear the clicking of camera shutters; photographs of torture and execution were later found on captured German soldiers. The body was not allowed to be removed for a month.

Enemy soldiers passing through the village abused him: they tore off his clothes, stabbed him with knives, and cut off his chest. But this mockery was the last; the remains were allowed to be buried. After the liberation of the village, the body was exhumed, identification was carried out, and later the ashes were reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery. A film was made about these events in 1944, bearing the name of the heroine.

Memory

Posthumously, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was awarded the Gold Star of the Hero and the Order of Lenin. She is the first woman - Hero of the Soviet Union. The traitors also got theirs. Sviridov, Smirnova and Solina were executed. Kosmodemyanskaya’s feat has not been forgotten. Streets are named in her honor educational institutions, village, asteroid.

Books and prose were written about her, poems and poems were dedicated to her. musical works. Schoolchildren can watch the feature film online to learn more about those events. At the 86th kilometer of the Minsk Highway there is a monument: a fragile girl looks into the distance. Her hands are behind her back, her back is straight, and her head is raised proudly.

The museum in Petrishchevo, dedicated to the heroine, attracts many people. A pretty girl looks from one of the photographs, next to her mother, brother Alexander, who also died in the war. There are school notebooks and a diary with excellent grades, embroidery. Ordinary things of a girl who once became a legend.

Unfortunately, publications appear aimed at belittling and even denigrating the act of the young partisan, but the truth about the feat will live in the hearts of people no matter what. To be fair, it should be said that there were many such girls who committed equally courageous acts and exploits at that time. But not all of them are known. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya became a symbol of the era terrible war- a monument not only to herself, but also to all those girls who gave their lives for the sake of victory, for the sake of life.

The pressing issues of the Soviet-Nazi confrontation are reflected in articles, documentaries and thousands of books.

Second world war is rethought every year in a new way. Detailed analysis Such bright personalities and arbiters of human destinies during the war years as Hitler can be gleaned from the books of M. Solonin, A. Suvorov, which are so replete with bookstores.

Meanwhile they fade into the shadows ordinary people, whose feat should live for centuries.Let's remember Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

Until recently, it seemed that the courage, boundless love for the Motherland, and fortitude of this fragile girl would always be for us the standard of true heroism. But ideals modern youth completely different, few people remember Zoya’s patriotism Kosmodemyanskaya, but it should.

Biography

Zoya was born Kosmodemyanskaya September 8, 1923 in the Tambov region in a small village. Zoya's grandfather was a priest. The Bolsheviks drowned him in it. At first, the girl signed up for a sabotage group, information about which was kept in the strictest confidence. That is why information about the last operation of the young Komsomol member is so contradictory.

Feat

Zoe Kosmodemyanskaya just turned 17 years old. Supreme Commander Order No. 428 called for depriving the enemy of a warm shelter and burning houses in which the Germans were camped. Zoya, as part of a group of 20 people, was thrown behind enemy lines. The Germans were located in the area of ​​the village of Petrishchevo. In the occupied territory, the fighters came across an enemy patrol. Someone was killed, someone showed cowardice and returned back.

Three people took on the task: Zoya, Vasily Klubkov and Boris Krainov. They reached the village and agreed to meet after the arson at an appointed place, which never took place. The Germans captured Vasily Klubkov, he chickened out and betrayed his comrades. After this, Zoya was also captured. Kosmodemyanskaya.

The young defender of the Motherland showed an unbending character, not revealing information about the name of the group or about the comrade who miraculously managed to escape. The Nazis subjected the girl to excruciating torture. They brutally beat her with sticks, burned her body with matches, and took her barefoot out into the cold. Not a word of mercy escaped her lips.

Dozens of people who witnessed Zoya’s death testified to her uttering the following dying words: “We are two hundred million. You can't outweigh everyone. You will be avenged for me!”The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to a woman for the first time. It was Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya, who during the terrible years of the war showed a true example of courage and fearlessness. Streets were named in her honor, and every schoolchild heard the girl’s legendary name on their lips.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, A. Matrosov, N. Gastello, N. Onilova are true heroes who gave their lives for the Motherland, for the world, for our bright present.