In memory of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
This Zoya Tanya was called,
She was a true Komsomol member.
This Zoya sang and laughed
Because she had a fun life ...
She was a true Komsomol member.
This Zoya sang and laughed
Because she had a fun life ...
Konstantin Shchekotov. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya before execution. 1947-1949
On a frosty morning on November 29, 1941, in the village of Petrishchevo, Vereisky District (now Ruzsky District) near Moscow, an 18-year-old Komsomol member, a native of the Tambov Region, Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya, soldiers of the 332nd Infantry Regiment of the 197th Infantry Division of the Wehrmacht hung a sign on the chest near the erected gallows the inscription in Russian and German: "The arsonist of houses." An exhausted, bloody, disfigured, still very young girl was executed by hanging in front of the villagers and the Wehrmacht soldiers. With a noose around her neck, the heroine made a short speech, taking advantage of the pause associated with the photo shoot of the execution, as was customary among the executioners:
- Hey, comrades! What are you looking at sadly? Be brave, fight, beat the Germans, burn, poison!
A German standing nearby swung at her and wanted to interrupt, but a brave girl, on the threshold of her end, pushed his hand away and continued:
“I’m not afraid to die, comrades. It is happiness to die for your people ...
"Tatiana" (the episode is taken from the essay "Tanya" by the military commander Pyotr Lidov) turned towards the commandant and the German soldiers and said:
“You’ll hang me now, but I’m not alone, there are two hundred million of us, you don’t outweigh 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 (this is from the fresh testimony of the villagers, interviewed by military commander Peter Lidov in 1941, much more truthful than those ugly and dirty speculations from the 90s about the villagers' hatred of arsonists).
Were they arsonists in the cold of the huts of their compatriots?
No, the servicemen of military unit No. 9903 were executing order No. 428, which spoke of the "scorched earth" tactics!
So, the executioner pulled on the rope, and the noose squeezed Tanino's throat. But she parted the noose with both hands, raised herself on her toes and shouted, straining her strength:
- Farewell, comrades! Fight, don't be afraid! Stalin is with us! Stalin will come! ..
So the young life of the Hero of the Soviet Union was cut short posthumously - Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya Anatolyevna. According to this episode, described in the essay "Tanya" by military commander Peter Lidov, we see that at the very edge of life, public execution, after many hours of torture, abuse and humiliation, the young Komsomol member was fully conscious and made a deliberate speech. It is completely unlike the behavior of a psychiatric patient with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and silent stupor as one of the symptoms of this disease.
Have you read Nevzorov's essay?
Of course I read ...
On the morning of May 9, I, a 20-year-old, recently demobilized from the armed forces of the Russian Federation, approached the Victory Park in Chernikovka in the city of Ufa. The townspeople have traditionally flocked to the park, where veterans of the Great Patriotic War, many still alive, were waiting for them. At the entrance to the park, I came across a group of adults, among whom was a guy of about 30 years old or a little more, on whose neck was a boy of about seven years old, he had carnations in his hand, so that, according to the tradition of the inhabitants of Chernikovka, they would be gratefully given to the veterans of our two districts. - Kalininsky and Ordzhonikidzevsky - the city of Ufa.
Our Victory Park has the main composition of the monument from the monument to Alexander Matrosov, Hero of the Soviet Union, according to one version - a native of the village of Kunakbaevo, Tamyan-Kataysky canton (now Uchalinsky district) of the Bashkir Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic.
The kid asked his father: "Who is Alexander Matrosov?" Father's answer struck me like a knife in my heart: “This is a drunk who fell on an enemy bunker, and he was called a hero,” the company laughed stupidly.
I immediately stood up for my fellow countryman and said to my father:
- Aren't you ashamed? Did you or did you drink with Alexander on the front line that day, since you know such details?
The guy was embarrassed and muttered that they say so.
I continued that he did not dare to put this into his son's ears, and raising his son is his business, but my duty as a citizen, since I was a witness to this shameful statement, is to point out the TRUTH to his son! The company was already drunk, but after seeing my gaze and my gray whiskey (I got gray hair in the army at the age of 19, since then it has increased a little), the guys decided to disperse and not enter into conflict in front of the old veterans.
I was shocked, I was shaking, how can you take your son to Victory Park, to this sacred place of national memory and grief, to still living veterans and say such nasty things about one of the symbols of that Victory?
Oh yes, I didn’t know much then, I didn’t hear the vilification and insults of the heroes of that terrible war from the lips of my compatriots (are they compatriots?), Dirty gossip and speculation: Talalikhin was not Talalikhin, but there were no Panfilovites , terrible slander on many heroes ...
I began my service in the city of Volzhsky near Volgograd in the training center of the Engineering and Sapper Troops. Needless to say that we, still very young, were personally convinced and saw the traces of that terrible war? We were taken to Mamaev Kurgan, we saw the Pavlov House and the panorama, by the nature of the troops we saw with our own eyes tons of fragments on plots of land, the surviving shells, bombs during the endless demining.
I was fond of the military before the army history, but it’s one thing to read the archives, it’s quite another thing when I found myself in the room and under heavy music I saw an endless number of surnames and names of my real peers who gave their lives for my sake, including my real one, and for then back in 1942 unknown future ...
So, on a frosty night on November 27, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, as part of her sabotage group, in pursuance of order No. 428, began to perform a combat mission. She organized the arson of three houses in the village of Petrishchevo, one of which was used by the Germans as a communications center. Also, a young Komsomol member destroyed the stable with the incapacitation of the horses.
I would like to note an important fact: armed with Molotov cocktails, a combat friend's pistol without self-cocking (she gave her revolver to her friend before going out as more reliable weapon), having missed the group's comrades, which obviously thwarted the group's exit plan, in the terrible frost, without a parking lot in the forest, independently DECIDED to continue setting fire to the winter apartments of the Wehrmacht servicemen.
I will occasionally draw your attention to important facts of the conditions themselves and the proposed circumstances for the implementation of the combat mission that faced Zoya, hoping for an assessment of these circumstances and the INDEPENDENT decisions made by her readers who, on duty, performed combat missions in hot spots.
So, left without a group, without a parking lot or a secret in the forest, with a partially completed combat mission, in a terrible frost, the fighter Zoya decides to continue the sabotage in extremely unfavorable circumstances - alone.
Did she understand that the successful sabotage on the night of November 27 attracted the attention of the Germans and the proposed circumstances were developing according to the scenario with her inevitable death or capture, followed by torture and unambiguous execution as a saboteur or partisan?
I think that according to the established facts, the 18-year-old girl clearly understood the combat situation and made a decision, of course, based on the facts known to her.
It must also be said that when mobilizing and entering the military unit No. 9903, the Komsomol commanders were told in detail by the commanders that the fate of the fighters is unenviable, and 95% of them will die, or will be captured and tortured with subsequent execution.
The practice of actions of servicemen who have undergone sabotage training of intelligence in this unit confirms that this is what happened, and almost all of the personnel suffered this or that fate.
On the same day, November 29, 10 kilometers from the village of Petrishchevo, near the village of Golovkovo, another saboteur was hanged on a willow - 22-year-old Vera Danilovna Voloshina, her group was ambushed by military outposts and, having no serious weapons, was dispersed, and she herself is caught. Vera was brutally and brutally tortured, beaten, trying to find out the combat mission of the group, but Vera Danilovna, showing amazing courage and heroism, did not give the testimony the Germans needed.
At the execution itself, the brave girl also made a short fiery speech:
- You came to our country and you will find your death here! You cannot take Moscow ... Farewell, Motherland! Death to fascism!
A worthy award for the heroism of Vera Voloshina was awarded posthumously to her mother only in 1966, after the essay "The Order of the Daughter" by Georgy Nikolaevich Frolov in the newspaper Pravda - the Order of the Patriotic War, 6st degree, awarded to Vera posthumously a year earlier on May 1965, XNUMX.
On May 6, but already in 1994, by decree of B.N. Yeltsin, Vera Danilovna Voloshina was posthumously awarded the high title of Hero of the Russian Federation.
On our memorial monument to the fallen guys, natives of the Iglinsky region of the Republic of Bashkortostan, it is written in hot spots: "Time has chosen us!"
Indeed, in different years of hard times, it is not us, but it is the time that chooses us and the place where you must pay your homeland a debt in full, and maybe more than that, as in the slogan of the production of the USSR - "For that guy" (by the way, this movement has interesting origins from the times of the war, when our workers in the rear and front-line soldiers wrote the slogan - "For Zoya!"). And it so happens that the time chooses some of us and determines the time and place for us.
The sacred task of the survivors is to REMEMBER those who were chosen by the time!
What is it for me?
And to the fact that there are also exceptional cases when a citizen who does not have the opportunity to evade, chosen by a time, a difficult year for the Fatherland, with a certain time place, also himself, independently chooses a place and time in the proposed circumstances! We call such people heroes. And their choice is an act.
By the act of a mature, conscientious compatriot, whose maturity does not depend on age and experience. Here Zoya Anatolyevna and Vera Danilovna, at their 18 and 22 years old, respectively, chosen by the time, did an act - they made a CHOICE of place and time, boldly stepping into the abyss. And from this only they are heroes, more is not needed: they made a choice and made a decision.
Even in the training unit, they were made clear that this was not a linear front-line unit, there were almost no chances to survive! They then made their choice. And they carried their decision to the very end, soberly thinking and realizing clearly, deciding to continue the combat mission in the frosty forest, under brutal torture and cruel violence, bullying, realizing the inevitability of execution. And, as we see from eyewitness accounts, at the very edge, with a noose around their necks, they continued to fearlessly make their choice.
At 7 pm on November 28, while trying to set fire to the barn, due to the noise raised by the resident Sviridov, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was captured by the Germans. It is known that Kosmodemyanskaya did not fire back. Perhaps, busy with arson, Zoya simply did not have time to bring the pistol into a combat state, it is known that she did not have time to get her revolver, given to her friend in exchange, due to the group's departure on a mission.
In the interrogations and subsequent brutal torture, according to eyewitnesses, soldiers and officers of the 332nd Wehrmacht Infantry Regiment took part. During interrogation, Zoya called herself Tanya and did not say anything definite. Then Kosmodemyanskaya, an 18-year-old girl, was stripped naked and flogged with belts. After beating her for hours with bare feet, they took her out into the cold, the frost was so strong that the sentry periodically warmed himself in a warm room and occasionally took Zoya into the room. It is known that Zoya received severe frostbite of her legs, the manifestation of which was already visible after a short time. Then, beaten, frostbitten and mutilated with belts, Zoya was put on a bench, where she remained until the morning.
In the periodic and prolonged beatings of the girl, the residents of two houses burned down on the night of November 27 - A. V. Smirnova and F. V. Solina also participated. By the way, Smirnova, apparently dissatisfied with the night beating of the unfortunate woman, beat the scout on the legs with a stick at the very execution in the morning of the next day. For this, both of these women were subsequently convicted under Article 193 of the Criminal Code of the RSFSR for collaboration and shot.
In the morning, Zoya was executed by hanging in front of the Wehrmacht servicemen and residents of Petrishchevo. The body of Kosmodemyanskaya hung on the gallows for about a month and was repeatedly abused by Wehrmacht soldiers passing through the village. And on New Year's Eve (1942), her body was stripped and again abused, stabbing with knives and cutting off her chest.
I would like to draw your attention again to one fact, very important, from my point of view - brutal abuse, beating, and subsequent abuse of the already lifeless body of Zoya were committed by ordinary servicemen of a completely ordinary 332 infantry regiment of a completely ordinary Wehrmacht 197th infantry division. And, given the terrible and atrocious desecration of the corpse on New Year's Eve, perhaps the servicemen of other linear, again, ordinary Wehrmacht units. These are not SS soldiers, not special SS teams, not commandant companies or offended traitorous policemen, or whatever beasts.
These were the most ordinary German workers, peasants and employees mobilized for the Eastern Front.
That is why I never share the blame between the SS and the Wehrmacht for the murdered of my compatriots - they are all guilty, to one degree or another, of terrible crimes against my Motherland!
I wish I could read these lines now to that young man who apologized in the German parliament for the allegedly "innocent ordinary Germans who died near Stalingrad"!
These weren't simple Germans who mocked the girl?
Not ordinary Germans flogged her with belts, beat her and abused her young body?
Weren't they oskotin and brutalized, sank to the very bottom of humanity?
What did this young Komsomol member, already dead, hanging on the gallows, do to ordinary Germans from other parts of the Wehrmacht that passed through Petrishchevo?
And when they talk now about the bloody "gebna", for some reason they don't remember the atrocities of ordinary Germans?
Or when they talk about our camps, they do not mention for some reason about the silence of enlightened ordinary Germans, who witnessed the atrocities committed in front of their eyes behind barbed wire, and do not indicate that this has never happened in our places of confinement?
Or when they talk about the "criminal" ideology of the young Soviet state and the "blind" faith of the Komsomol members in Stalin, then for some reason they do not talk about what made ordinary German workers and peasants, not burdened with the ideology of the Nazis, and not members of the NSDAP party, to commit similar atrocities - to kill and mock children?
Concluding my article dedicated to the feat of the Hero of the Soviet Union Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya, I would like to say that her feat is immortal in our hearts, nothing and no one can shake her miraculous monument! Our sacred duty and duty to Zoya and her comrades is to REMEMBER, this is all that we can and should do. Pass this story about an 18-year-old scout, her feat - to our children! This is she and Vera Voloshin, and their feat should be an example for us, and not the head of the Ministry of Emergencies with a similar award. It is about them that films and TV series should be shot, and not about the Moscow elite. This should be talked about in schools and speeches!
An early frosty morning on November 29, 1941 ... A very young girl is led barefoot to the gallows, beaten, mutilated, frostbitten ... Here are two boxes of pasta and a gallows, like Calvary calling her, and a tablet is even prepared ... But her spirit is not broken, like her body, which refuses her ... And her eyes are full of determination, and she utters words of appeal ... This Zoya Tanya was called, the faithful daughter of my country!
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