The largest partisan detachments of the Second World War. Heroes of the Great Patriotic War

The Soviet army suffered huge losses during the Great Patriotic War. And it’s scary to imagine how many more people would have died without the help of the partisans, many of whom risked not only themselves, but also the lives of loved ones for the sake of victory in a bloody war.

According to some estimates, from 1941 to 1944, about 6.2 thousand partisan detachments, numbering more than 1 million people, operated behind enemy lines. During the war years, they inflicted serious damage on the enemy: 20 thousand train crashes, 2.5 thousand destroyed steam locomotives, 42 thousand blown up cars, 12 thousand bridges, 6 thousand tanks and armored vehicles withdrawn and put into service, 1.1 thousand blown up planes and about 600 thousand killed soldiers and officers.

On the Day of Partisans and Underground Workers, we decided to remember the names of people who influenced the outcome of the Great Patriotic War.

"Red October"

Tikhon Pimenovich Bumazhkov is considered the organizer of one of the first partisan detachments. In June 1941, a meeting was convened in the Oktyabrsky district committee of the Belarusian SSR, at which Bumazhkov reported on the German attack and called on citizens to join forces to repel the enemy. At the same time, a “fighter squad” was formed, called “Red October”.

Bumazhkov’s memoirs indicate that the group initially consisted of 80 fighters. Having broken up into platoons, they began military training: they learned camouflage and weapons use, acquired “the necessary sapper knowledge,” stocked up on bottles of fuel to destroy tanks, mined bridges and dug trenches.

Interacting with the Red Army, they struck at the enemy’s rear. One of the most memorable operations was the battle of Bobruisk. The target of Red October was the enemy headquarters located in the village of Ozemlya. The plan was as follows: open fire from the armored train and at the same time block all roads from the village so that the enemy could not escape. Operation was successfully completed. The partisans captured prisoners, two radio stations, important documents, and about a hundred pieces of equipment. Unfortunately, Bumazhkov died a few months after this operation. He died in November 1941, breaking out of encirclement near the village of Orzhitsa.

Kovpakovtsy

There is hardly a commander of a partisan detachment whom the Germans feared as much as Sidor Artemyevich Kovpak. The bravery of the military was noted during the First World War. For his participation in the Brusilov breakthrough, Emperor Nicholas II awarded him two Crosses of St. George. Nevertheless, in 1917, Kovpak chose the other side and joined the Red Army.

With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Kovpak led the Putivl partisan detachment, which instilled fear in the ranks of the enemy. One of the first clashes with the Germans took place in the Spadshchansky forest. After the loss of three tanks, which were captured by Kovpak’s group, almost 3 thousand German soldiers, supported by artillery, went on the offensive. The battle lasted a day, but the Soviet partisans, despite superior enemy forces, repulsed all attacks. The Germans retreated, leaving Kovpak with weapons and machine guns as trophies.

The most famous campaign of the Kovpakovites took place in June 1943. The Carpathian raid took place in difficult conditions: the detachment, finding itself behind enemy lines, was forced to move across open terrain without cover or support. During the raid, the partisans covered about 2 thousand km. Almost 4 thousand Germans were wounded or killed, and 19 trains, over 50 bridges and warehouses were blown up. The Kovpakov campaign greatly helped the troops fighting on Kursk Bulge. Thanks to the partisan operation, the Germans lost supplies of equipment and troops, which provided our troops with an advantage in the battle.

During the Carpathian raid, Kovpak was wounded in the leg. The USSR authorities decided not to risk the health of the commander, and he no longer participated in hostilities. For his service he received the title of Hero Soviet Union and became one of two partisans to receive this award twice.

"Kovel Knot"

The second commander of the partisan detachment, twice awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, was Alexey Fedorov. By March 1942, his group had fought 16 battles, during which about a thousand Germans were destroyed, several dozen bridges, five trains were destroyed, five warehouses were blown up and two factories were captured. Thanks to these merits, in May of the same year, Fedorov was awarded the first title of Hero of the USSR, and at the beginning of 1943, under his leadership there were already 12 partisan detachments, numbering over 5 thousand people.

One of the most important partisan operations during the war was the Kovel Knot mission. In eight months, Fedorov’s detachment managed to destroy 549 enemy trains with ammunition, fuel, and equipment on the lines of the Kovel railway junction and thus deprive the enemy of reinforcements.

In 1994, Fedorov was awarded the title of Hero of the USSR for the second time. In total, he took part in 158 battles, destroyed over 650 trains, eight armored trains, 60 warehouses with fuel and ammunition.

Juvenile partisan

At the start of the war, Leonid Golikov was only 15 years old. A thin boy, who many were not even 14 years old, walked around the villages, collected information about the location of the Germans and passed it on to the partisans. A year later, he himself joined the detachment. In total, Golikov took part in 27 combat operations, destroyed 78 Germans, 12 highway bridges and blew up nine cars with ammunition.

Golikov's most famous feat was accomplished on August 13, 1942. Together with other partisans, he blew up a car in which German Major General Richard Wirtz was sitting. The documents found in the car were transferred to the Soviet headquarters: they contained diagrams of minefields, reports from Wirtz and other important papers.

However, Golikov did not live to see the end of the war. In January 1943, the detachment in which the young man was a member was hiding from German troops. They found shelter in the village of Ostraya Luka, located not far from the German garrison. Not wanting to attract attention, the partisans did not post sentries. But among the residents there was a traitor who revealed the location of the detachment to the enemy. Some of the fighters managed to escape from the encirclement, but Golikov was not among them.

Sabotage in a cinema

Konstantin Chekhovich became the author of one of the largest acts of sabotage carried out during the war. In August 1941, he and four comrades went behind enemy lines. However, the operation failed: four were killed, and Chekhovich was captured. Nevertheless, he managed to escape and contact the Soviet command, which instructed him to infiltrate the Germans in the occupied city of Porkhov.

There he met future wife who bore him a son. At first, Chekhovich repaired watches, then got a job as an electrician at a local power plant, and later received a position as an administrator at a local cinema. The famous sabotage occurred in November 1943 during a screening of the film “Circus Artists.” On that day, the cinema was visited by 700 Germans, among whom were two generals. None of them suspected that the load-bearing columns and roof of the building were mined. Few people survived the explosion. For carrying out this operation, Chekhovich was nominated for the title of Hero of the USSR.

The tragedy of Old Man Minai

In July 1941, Minai Filippovich Shmyrev, who at that time headed the Pudot Cardboard Factory, formed a partisan detachment from workers. Over the course of a few months, they engaged the enemy 27 times and caused significant damage to enemy troops. But the main exploits followed a year later, when Shmyrev, known by the nickname Old Man Minai, together with the partisans knocked out the Germans from 15 villages. Around the same time, under his command, the so-called Surazh Gate was created, which was a 40-kilometer zone through which weapons and food passed.

In February 1942, Shmyrev experienced a personal tragedy. The Germans captured the commander's sister, mother-in-law (his wife died before the war) and four young children, promising to leave them alive if he surrendered. Shmyrev was in despair: locality The building in which his relatives were kept was fortified, so he could not storm it. And even if he decided to take such a step, there was a great risk that his relatives would still be executed.

The prisoners did not hope that the occupiers would keep their word, so they prepared for the worst. Eldest daughter Shmyreva wrote a note and, with the help of a security guard, gave it to her father. “Dad, worry about us, don’t listen to anyone, don’t go to the Germans. If you are killed, then we are powerless and will not avenge you. And if they kill us, dad, then you will avenge us,” wrote a 14-year-old girl.

Shmyrev failed to save his loved ones - the Germans carried out their threat.

Guerrilla movement(partisan war 1941 - 1945) - one of the sides of the USSR resistance to the fascist troops of Germany and allies during the Great Patriotic War.

The partisan movement during the Great Patriotic War was very large-scale and, most importantly, well organized. It differed from other popular uprisings in that it had a clear command system, was legalized and subordinated Soviet power. The partisans were controlled special bodies, their activities were prescribed in several legislative acts and had goals described personally by Stalin. The number of partisans during the Great Patriotic War numbered about a million people; more than six thousand different underground detachments were formed, which included all categories of citizens.

Target guerrilla warfare 1941-1945 – destruction of infrastructure German army, disruption of food and weapons supplies, destabilization of the entire fascist machine.

The beginning of the guerrilla war and the formation of partisan detachments

Guerrilla warfare is integral part any protracted military conflict, and quite often the order to start a partisan movement comes directly from the country's leadership. This was the case with the USSR. Immediately after the start of the war, two directives were issued, “To the Party and Soviet organizations of the front-line regions” and “On the organization of the struggle in the rear of German troops,” which spoke of the need to create popular resistance to help the regular army. In fact, the state gave the go-ahead for the formation of partisan detachments. A year later, when the partisan movement was in full swing, Stalin issued an order “On the tasks of the partisan movement,” which described the main directions of the underground’s work.

An important factor for the emergence of partisan resistance was the formation of the 4th Directorate of the NKVD, in whose ranks special groups were created that were engaged in subversive work and reconnaissance.

On May 30, 1942, the partisan movement was legalized - the Central Headquarters of the partisan movement was created, to which local headquarters in the regions, headed, for the most part, by the heads of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, were subordinate. The creation of a single administrative body gave impetus to the development of large-scale guerrilla warfare, which was well organized, had a clear structure and system of subordination. All this significantly increased the efficiency of the partisan detachments.

Main activities of the partisan movement

• Sabotage activities. The partisans tried with all their might to destroy the supply of food, weapons and manpower to the headquarters of the German army; very often pogroms were carried out in the camps in order to deprive the Germans of sources fresh water and get kicked out of the place.
• Intelligence service. An equally important part of underground activity was intelligence, both on the territory of the USSR and in Germany. The partisans tried to steal or learn the Germans' secret attack plans and transfer them to headquarters so that the Soviet army would be prepared for the attack.
• Bolshevik propaganda. An effective fight against the enemy is impossible if the people do not believe in the state and do not follow common goals, so the partisans actively worked with the population, especially in the occupied territories.
• Fighting. Armed clashes occurred quite rarely, but still partisan detachments entered into open confrontation with the German army.
• Control of the entire partisan movement.
• Restoration of USSR power in the occupied territories. The partisans tried to raise an uprising among Soviet citizens who found themselves under the yoke of the Germans.

Partisan units

By the middle of the war, large and small partisan detachments existed almost throughout the entire territory of the USSR, including the occupied lands of Ukraine and the Baltic states. However, it should be noted that in some territories the partisans did not support the Bolsheviks; they tried to defend the independence of their region, both from the Germans and from the Soviet Union.

An ordinary partisan detachment consisted of several dozen people, but with the growth of the partisan movement, the detachments began to consist of several hundred, although this happened infrequently. On average, one detachment included about 100-150 people. In some cases, units were united into brigades in order to provide serious resistance to the Germans. The partisans were usually armed with light rifles, grenades and carbines, but sometimes large brigades had mortars and artillery weapons. The equipment depended on the region and the purpose of the detachment. All members of the partisan detachment took the oath.

In 1942, the post of Commander-in-Chief of the partisan movement was created, which was occupied by Marshal Voroshilov, but the post was soon abolished and the partisans were subordinate to the military Commander-in-Chief.

There were also special Jewish partisan detachments, which consisted of Jews who remained in the USSR. The main purpose of such units was to protect the Jewish population, which was subjected to special persecution by the Germans. Unfortunately, very often Jewish partisans faced serious problems, since anti-Semitic sentiments reigned in many Soviet detachments and they rarely came to the aid of Jewish detachments. By the end of the war, Jewish troops mixed with Soviet ones.

Results and significance of guerrilla warfare

Soviet partisans became one of the main forces resisting the Germans and largely helped decide the outcome of the war in favor of the USSR. Good management The partisan movement made it highly effective and disciplined, thanks to which the partisans could fight on an equal basis with the regular army.

The medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" was established in the USSR on February 2, 1943. Over the following years, about 150 thousand heroes were awarded it. This material tells about five people's militias who, by their example, showed how to defend the Motherland.

Efim Ilyich Osipenko

An experienced commander who fought during Civil War, a true leader, Efim Ilyich became the commander of a partisan detachment in the fall of 1941. Although a detachment is too strong a word: together with the commander there were only six of them. There were practically no weapons and ammunition, winter was approaching, and endless groups of the German army were already approaching Moscow.

Realizing that as much time as possible was needed to prepare the defense of the capital, the partisans decided to blow up a strategically important area railway near Myshbor station. There were few explosives, there were no detonators at all, but Osipenko decided to detonate the bomb with a grenade. Silently and imperceptibly the group moved close to railway tracks and planted the explosives. Having sent his friends back and being left alone, the commander saw the train approaching, threw a grenade and fell into the snow. But for some reason the explosion did not happen, then Efim Ilyich himself hit the bomb with a pole from a railway sign. There was an explosion and a long train with food and tanks went downhill. The partisan himself miraculously survived, although he completely lost his sight and was severely shell-shocked. On April 4, 1942, he was the first in the country to be awarded the “Partisan of the Great Patriotic War” medal for No. 000001.

Konstantin Chekhovich

Konstantin Chekhovich - organizer and performer of one of the largest partisan sabotage acts of the Great Patriotic War.

The future hero was born in 1919 in Odessa, almost immediately after graduating from the Industrial Institute he was drafted into the Red Army, and already in August 1941, as part of a sabotage group, he was sent behind enemy lines. While crossing the front line, the group was ambushed, and of the five people, only Chekhovich survived, and he had nowhere to take much optimism - the Germans, after checking the bodies, were convinced that he only had a shell shock and Konstantin Aleksandrovich was captured. He managed to escape from it two weeks later, and after another week he already got in touch with the partisans of the 7th Leningrad Brigade, where he received the task of infiltrating the Germans in the city of Porkhov for sabotage work.

Having achieved some favor with the Nazis, Chekhovich received the position of administrator at a local cinema, which he planned to blow up. He involved Evgenia Vasilyeva in the case - his wife’s sister was employed as a cleaner at the cinema. Every day she carried several briquettes in buckets with dirty water and a rag. This cinema became a mass grave for 760 German soldiers and officers - an inconspicuous “administrator” installed bombs on the supporting columns and roof, so that during the explosion the entire structure collapsed like a house of cards.

Matvey Kuzmich Kuzmin

The oldest recipient of the "Partisan of the Patriotic War" and "Hero of the Soviet Union" awards. He was awarded both awards posthumously, and at the time of his feat he was 83 years old.

The future partisan was born back in 1858, 3 years before the abolition of serfdom, in the Pskov province. He spent his entire life isolated (he was not a member of the collective farm), but by no means lonely - Matvey Kuzmich had 8 children from two different wives. He was engaged in hunting and fishing, and knew the area remarkably well.

The Germans who came to the village occupied his house, and later the battalion commander himself settled in it. At the beginning of February 1942, this German commander asked Kuzmin to be a guide and lead the German unit to the village of Pershino occupied by the Red Army, in return he offered almost unlimited food. Kuzmin agreed. However, having seen the route of movement on the map, he sent his grandson Vasily to the destination in advance to warn the Soviet troops. Matvey Kuzmich himself led the frozen Germans through the forest for a long time and confusedly and only in the morning led them out, but not to the desired village, but to an ambush, where the Red Army soldiers had already taken positions. The invaders came under fire from machine gun crews and lost up to 80 people captured and killed, but the hero-guide himself also died.

Leonid Golikov

He was one of many teenage partisans of the Great Patriotic War, a Hero of the Soviet Union. Brigade scout of the Leningrad partisan brigade, spreading panic and chaos in German units in the Novgorod and Pskov regions. Despite young age- Leonid was born in 1926, at the time of the outbreak of the war he was 15 years old - he was distinguished by his sharp mind and military courage. In just a year and a half of partisan activity, he destroyed 78 Germans, 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, 2 food warehouses and 10 wagons with ammunition. Guarded and accompanied a food convoy to besieged Leningrad.

This is what Lenya Golikov himself wrote about his main feat in a report: “On the evening of August 12, 1942, we, 6 partisans, got out onto the Pskov-Luga highway and lay down near the village of Varnitsa. There was no movement at night. It was dawn. From Pskov 13 August, a small passenger car appeared. It was going fast, but near the bridge where we were, the car went quieter. Partisan Vasiliev threw an anti-tank grenade, but missed. Alexander Petrov threw the second grenade from the ditch, hit the beam. The car didn’t stop immediately, but went further 20 meters and almost caught up with us (we were lying behind a pile of stones). Two officers jumped out of the car. I fired a burst from a machine gun. I didn’t hit. The officer who was driving ran through the ditch towards the forest. I fired several bursts from my PPSh . Hit the enemy in the neck and back. Petrov began shooting at the second officer, who kept looking around, shouting and firing back. Petrov killed this officer with a rifle. Then the two of them ran to the first wounded officer. They tore off their shoulder straps, took a briefcase, documents, it turned out to be the general from the infantry of the special weapons troops, that is, the engineering troops, Richard Wirtz, who was returning from a meeting from Konigsberg to his corps in Luga. There was still a heavy suitcase in the car. We barely managed to drag him into the bushes (150 meters from the highway). While we were still at the car, we heard an alarm, a ringing sound, and a scream in the neighboring village. Grabbing a briefcase, shoulder straps and three captured pistols, we ran to our....”.

As it turned out, the teenager took out extremely important drawings and descriptions of new examples of German mines, maps of minefields, and inspection reports to higher command. For this, Golikov was nominated for the Golden Star and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

He received the title posthumously. Defending himself in a village house from a German punitive detachment, the hero died along with the partisan headquarters on January 24, 1943, before he turned 17 years old.

Tikhon Pimenovich Bumazhkov

Coming from a poor peasant family, Hero of the Soviet Union, Tikhon Pimenovich was already the director of the plant at the age of 26, but the onset of the war did not take him by surprise. Bumazhkov is considered by historians to be one of the first organizers of partisan detachments during the Great Patriotic War. In the summer of 1941, he became one of the leaders and organizers of the extermination squad, which later became known as “Red October”.

In collaboration with units of the Red Army, the partisans destroyed several dozen bridges and enemy headquarters. In just less than 6 months of guerrilla warfare, Bumazhkov’s detachment destroyed up to two hundred enemy vehicles and motorcycles, up to 20 warehouses with fodder and food were blown up or captured, and the number of captured officers and soldiers is estimated at several thousand. Bumazhkov died a heroic death while escaping from encirclement near the village of Orzhitsa, Poltava region.

Last updated: November 30, 2016 at 8:31 pm

The children in the Soviet partisan detachments did not think that they had not yet grown up, that it was too early to go defend their Motherland, that they could cope without them. They simply went and defended, although no one demanded this of them except their own conscience.

IN Soviet time portraits of young heroes of the Great Patriotic War hung in every school. And every teenager knew their names. Zina Portnova, Marat Kazei, Lenya Golikov, Valya Kotik, . But there were also tens of thousands of young heroes whose names are unknown. They were called “pioneer heroes”, Komsomol members. But they were heroes not because, like all their peers, they were members of a pioneer or Komsomol organization, but because they were real patriots and real people.

During the Great Patriotic War, a whole army of boys and girls acted against the Nazi occupiers. In occupied Belarus alone, at least 74,500 boys and girls, young men and women fought in partisan detachments. In big Soviet Encyclopedia it is written that during the Great Patriotic War, more than 35 thousand pioneers - young defenders of the Motherland - were awarded military orders and medals.

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

Likewise, many others began to act at their own peril and risk. Someone found leaflets scattered from airplanes and distributed them in their regional center or village. Polotsk boy Lenya Kosach collected 45 rifles, 2 light machine guns, several baskets of cartridges and grenades from the battlefields and hid it all securely; an opportunity presented itself - he handed it over to the partisans. Hundreds of other guys created arsenals for the partisans in the same way. Twelve-year-old excellent student Lyuba Morozova, knowing a little German, engaged in “special propaganda” among the enemies, telling them how well she lived before the war without the “new order” of the invaders. Soldiers often told her that she was “red to the bone” and advised her to hold her tongue until it ended badly for her. Later Lyuba became a partisan.

Eleven-year-old Tolya Korneev stole a pistol with ammunition from a German officer and began looking for people who would help him reach the partisans. In the summer of 1942, the boy succeeded in this, meeting his classmate Olya Demesh, who by that time was already a member of one of the units. And when the older guys brought 9-year-old Zhora Yuzov to the detachment, and the commander jokingly asked: “Who will babysit this little guy?”, the boy, in addition to the pistol, laid out four grenades in front of him: “That’s who will babysit me!”

For 13 years, Seryozha Roslenko, in addition to collecting weapons, conducted reconnaissance at his own risk: there will be someone to pass on information to! And I found it. From somewhere the children got the idea of ​​conspiracy.

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

Experienced Scout

In January 1942, one of the partisan detachments operating in the Ponizovsky district of the Smolensk region was surrounded by the Nazis. The Germans, pretty battered during the counteroffensive Soviet troops near Moscow, they did not risk immediately liquidating the detachment. They did not have accurate intelligence information about its strength, so they waited for reinforcements. However, the ring was held tightly. The partisans were racking their brains about how to get out of the encirclement. Food was running out. And the detachment commander requested help from the Red Army command. In response, an encrypted message came over the radio, in which it was reported that the troops would not be able to help with active actions, but an experienced intelligence officer would be sent to the detachment.

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

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

- I am. What, you don’t look like him? “The boy was wearing a uniform army pea coat, cotton pants and a hat with earflaps with an asterisk. Red Army soldier!

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

- It's going to be eleven soon! – answered importantly “ experienced scout».

The boy's name was Yura Zhdanko. He was originally from Vitebsk. In July 1941, the ubiquitous shooter and expert on local territories showed the retreating Soviet unit a ford across the Western Dvina. He was no longer able to return home - while he was acting as a guide, Hitler’s armored vehicles entered his hometown. And the scouts, who were tasked with escorting the boy back, took him with them. So he was enrolled as a graduate of the motor reconnaissance company of the 332nd Ivanovo Rifle Division named after. M.F. Frunze.

At first he was not involved in business, but, naturally observant, sharp-eyed and memorative, he quickly learned the basics of front-line raid science and even dared to give advice to adults. And his abilities were appreciated. They began to send him behind the front line. In the villages, he, dressed in disguise, with a bag over his shoulders, begged for alms, collecting information about the location and number of enemy garrisons. I also managed to take part in the mining of a strategically important bridge. During the explosion, a Red Army miner was wounded, and Yura, after providing first aid, led him to the unit’s location. Why did I get my first one? Medal of Honor".

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Having arrived safely at the detachment, ten-year-old Vitebsk resident Yura Zhdanko did what adults could not... He was dressed in all the village clothes, and soon the boy made his way to the hut where the German officer in charge of the encirclement lodged. The Nazi lived in the house of a certain grandfather Vlas. It was to him, under the guise of a grandson, that a young intelligence officer came to him from the regional center, who was given a rather difficult task- obtain from the enemy officer documents with plans for the destruction of the encircled detachment. An opportunity arose only a few days later. The Nazi left the house lightly, leaving the key to the safe in his overcoat... So the documents ended up in the detachment. And at the same time, Jurai brought grandfather Vlas, convincing him that it was impossible to stay in the house in such a situation.

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

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

Fourteen-year-old savior of prisoners of war

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

From the first days of the occupation of the Belarusian capital, mother and son Shcherbatsevichs hid Soviet commanders in their apartment, for whom underground fighters from time to time arranged escapes from a prisoner of war camp. Olga Fedorovna was a doctor and provided assistance to those released medical care, changed into civilian clothes, which Volodya and her son collected from relatives and friends. Several groups of rescued people have already been brought out of the city. But one day on the way, already outside the city blocks, one of the groups fell into the clutches of the Gestapo. Handed over by a traitor, the son and mother ended up in fascist dungeons. They withstood all the torture.

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

Die, but take revenge

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

Osintorf village. On one of the August days, the Nazis, together with their henchmen from local residents- burgomaster, clerk and chief police officer - raped and brutally killed the young teacher Anya Lyutova. By that time, a youth underground was already operating in the village under the leadership of Slava Shmuglevsky. The guys gathered and decided: “Death to traitors!” Slava himself volunteered to carry out the sentence, as did teenage brothers Misha and Zhenya Telenchenko, aged thirteen and fifteen.

By that time, they already had hidden a machine gun found in the battlefields. They acted simply and directly, like a boy. The brothers took advantage of the fact that their mother had gone to relatives that day and was supposed to return only in the morning. They installed a machine gun on the balcony of the apartment and began to wait for traitors who often passed by. We didn't miscalculate. When they approached, Slava began shooting at them almost point-blank. But one of the criminals, the burgomaster, managed to escape. He reported by telephone to Orsha that the village was attacked by a large partisan detachment (a machine gun is a serious thing). Cars with punitive forces rushed in. With the help of bloodhounds, the weapon was quickly found: Misha and Zhenya, not having time to find a more reliable hiding place, hid the machine gun in the attic of their own house. Both were arrested. The boys were tortured most cruelly and for a long time, but not one of them betrayed Slava Shmuglevsky and other underground fighters to the enemy. The Telenchenko brothers were executed in October.

The Great Conspirator

Pavlik Titov for his eleven he was a great conspirator. He fought as a partisan for more than two years without even his parents knowing about it. Many episodes of his combat biography remained unknown. This is what is known. First, Pavlik and his comrades rescued a wounded Soviet commander who had been burned in a burnt tank - they found a reliable shelter for him, and at night they brought him food, water, and brewed some medicinal decoctions according to his grandmother’s recipes. Thanks to the boys, the tanker quickly recovered.

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

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

- I think it will be useful for you... Not to carry it yourself, of course...

- Where did you get it?

- Yes, the Krauts were swimming...

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

Zina Portnova

Leningrad schoolgirl Zina Portnova arrived in June 1941 with younger sister Galey on summer holidays to my grandmother in the village of Zui (Shumilinsky district of the Vitebsk region). She was fifteen... First, she got a job as an auxiliary worker in a canteen for German officers. And soon, together with her friend, she carried out a daring operation - she poisoned more than a hundred Nazis. She could have been captured right away, but they began to follow her. By that time, she was already connected with the Obol underground organization “Young Avengers”. In order to avoid failure, Zina was transferred to a partisan detachment.

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

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

"Kid" and his sisters

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

Was a "kid" Alyosha Vyalov, who enjoyed special sympathy among the local partisans. And he acted as part of a family group. When the war began, he was 11, his older sisters Vasilisa and Anya were 16 and 14, the rest of the children were a little younger. Alyosha and his sisters were very inventive. They set fire to the Vitebsk railway station three times, prepared to blow up the labor exchange in order to confuse the population records and save young people and other residents from being taken to the “German paradise”, blew up the passport office in the police premises... They have dozens of acts of sabotage. And this is in addition to the fact that they were messengers and distributed leaflets...

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

Meanwhile, we also know about another Vitebsk family - Lynchenko. 11-year-old Kolya, 9-year-old Dina and 7-year-old Emma were the messengers of their mother, Natalya Fedorovna, whose apartment served as a reporting area. In 1943, as a result of the failure, the Gestapo broke into the house. The mother was beaten in front of her children, they shot above her head, demanding to name the members of the group. They also mocked the children, asking them who came to their mother and where she herself went. They tried to bribe little Emma with chocolate. The children didn't say anything. Moreover, during the search in the apartment, seizing the moment, Dina took out encryption codes from under the board of the table, where one of the hiding places was, and hid them under her dress, and when the punishers left, taking her mother away, she burned them. The children were left in the house as bait, but they, knowing that the house was being watched, managed to warn the messengers with signs who were going to the failed appearance...

Prize for the head of a young saboteur

For the head of an Orsha schoolgirl Oli Demes The Nazis promised a round sum. Hero of the Soviet Union, former commander of the 8th Partisan Brigade, Colonel Sergei Zhunin, spoke about this in his memoirs “From the Dnieper to the Bug”. A 13-year-old girl at the Orsha-Tsentralnaya station blew up fuel tanks. Sometimes she acted with her twelve-year-old sister Lida. Zhunin recalled how Olya was instructed before the mission: “It is necessary to place a mine under the gasoline tank. Remember, only for a gasoline tank!” “I know what kerosene smells like, I cooked with kerosene gas myself, but gasoline... let me at least smell it.” There were a lot of trains and dozens of tanks at the junction, and you had to find “the one.” Olya and Lida crawled under the trains, sniffing: is this one or not this one? Gasoline or not gasoline? Then they threw stones and determined by the sound: empty or full? And only then they hooked the magnetic mine. The fire destroyed a huge number of carriages with equipment, food, uniforms, fodder, and steam locomotives were also burned...

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

Eleven-year-old saboteur

Vitya Sitnitsa. How he wanted to be a partisan! But for two years from the beginning of the war he remained “only” a conductor of partisan sabotage groups passing through his village of Kuritichi. However, he learned something from the partisan guides during their short rests. In August 1943, he and his older brother were accepted into the partisan detachment. They were assigned to the economic platoon. Then he said that peeling potatoes and taking out slops with his ability to lay mines was unfair. Moreover, the “rail war” is in full swing. And they began to take him on combat missions. The boy personally derailed 9 echelons of enemy manpower and military equipment.

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

Little Susanin

He began his war against the Nazi invaders at the age of 9. Already in the summer of 1941, in the house of his parents in the village of Bayki in the Brest region, the regional anti-fascist committee equipped a secret printing house. They issued leaflets with reports from the Sovinforburo. Tikhon Baran helped distribute them. For two years the young underground worker was engaged in this activity. The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the printers. The printing house was destroyed. Tikhon’s mother and sisters hid with relatives, and he himself went to the partisans. One day, when he was visiting his relatives, the Germans came to the village. The mother was taken to Germany, and the boy was beaten. He became very ill and remained in the village.

Local historians dated his feat to January 22, 1944. On this day, punitive forces appeared in the village again. All residents were shot for contacting the partisans. The village was burned. “And you,” they told Tikhon, “will show us the way to the partisans.” It is difficult to say whether the village boy heard anything about the Kostroma peasant Ivan Susanin, who more than three centuries earlier led the Polish interventionists into a swampy swamp, only Tikhon Baran showed the fascists the same road. They killed him, but not all of them got out of that quagmire.

Covering detachment

Vanya Kazachenko from the village of Zapolye, Orsha district, Vitebsk region, in April 1943 he became a machine gunner in a partisan detachment. He was thirteen. Anyone who served in the army and carried at least a Kalashnikov assault rifle (not a machine gun!) on their shoulders can imagine what it cost the boy. Guerrilla raids most often lasted many hours. And the machine guns of that time were heavier than the current ones... After one of the successful operations to defeat the enemy garrison, in which Vanya once again distinguished himself, the partisans, returning to the base, stopped to rest in a village not far from Bogushevsk. Vanya, assigned to guard duty, chose a place, disguised himself and covered the road leading to the settlement. Here the young machine gunner fought his last battle.

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

The hero was 14 years old

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

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

It would seem that all this should have made the Kazei angry with the authorities - but no. In 1941, Anna Kazei, the wife of an “enemy of the people,” hid wounded partisans in her home - for which she was executed by the Germans. Ariadne and Marat went to the partisans. Ariadne remained alive, but became disabled - when the detachment left the encirclement, her legs froze, which had to be amputated. When she was taken to the hospital by plane, the detachment commander offered to fly with her and Marat so that he could continue his studies interrupted by the war. But Marat refused and remained in the partisan detachment.

Marat went on reconnaissance missions, both alone and with a group. Participated in raids. He blew up the echelons. For the battle in January 1943, when, wounded, he roused his comrades to attack and made his way through the enemy ring, Marat received Medal of Honor". And in May 1944, Marat died. Returning from a mission together with the reconnaissance commander, they came across the Germans. The commander was killed immediately, Marat, firing back, lay down in a hollow. There was nowhere to leave in the open field, and there was no opportunity - Marat was seriously wounded. While there were cartridges, he held the defense, and when the magazine was empty, he picked up his last weapon - two grenades, which he did not remove from his belt. He threw one at the Germans, and left the second. When the Germans came very close, he blew himself up along with the enemies.

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

The boy from the legend

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

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

Together with his peers, he once picked up several rifles at a battle site and stole two boxes of grenades from the Nazis. They then handed all this over to the partisans. “Comrade Golikov joined the partisan detachment in March 1942, the award sheet says. - Participated in 27 military operations... Exterminated 78 German soldiers and officers, blew up 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, blew up 9 vehicles with ammunition... On August 15, in the new combat area of ​​the Golikov brigade, he crashed a passenger car in which Major General of the Engineering Troops Richard was located Wirtz, heading from Pskov to Luga. A brave partisan killed the general with a machine gun and delivered his jacket and captured documents to the brigade headquarters. The documents included: a description of new types of German mines, inspection reports to higher command and other valuable intelligence data.”

Lake Radilovskoye was a gathering point during the brigade’s transition to a new area of ​​operations. On the way there, the partisans had to engage in battles with the enemy. The punishers monitored the progress of the partisans, and as soon as the forces of the brigade united, they forced a battle on it. After the battle at Lake Radilovskoe, the main forces of the brigade continued their journey to the Lyadskie forests. The detachments of I. Grozny and B. Eren-Price remained in the lake area to distract the fascists. They never managed to connect with the brigade. In mid-November, the occupiers attacked the headquarters. Many soldiers died defending him. The rest managed to retreat to the Terp-Kamen swamp. On December 25, the swamp was surrounded by several hundred fascists. With considerable losses, the partisans broke out of the ring and entered the Strugokrasnensky region. Only 50 people remained in the ranks, the radio did not work. And the punishers scoured all the villages in search of partisans. We had to follow untrodden paths. The path was paved by scouts, and among them Lenya Golikov. Attempts to establish contact with other units and stock up on food ended tragically. There was only one way out - to make our way to the mainland.

After crossing the Dno-Novosokolniki railway late at night on January 24, 1943, 27 hungry, exhausted partisans came to the village of Ostray Luka. Ahead, the Partizansky region, burned by punitive forces, stretched 90 kilometers. The scouts did not find anything suspicious. The enemy garrison was located several kilometers away. The partisans' companion, a nurse, was dying from a serious wound and asked for at least a little warmth. They occupied the three outer huts. Brigade commander Glebov decided not to post patrols so as not to attract attention. They were on duty alternately at the windows and in the barn, from where both the village and the road to the forest were clearly visible.

About two hours later, my sleep was interrupted by the roar of an exploding grenade. And immediately the heavy machine gun began to rattle. Following the traitor's denunciation, punitive forces arrived. The partisans jumped out into the courtyard and through the vegetable gardens, firing back, and began to rush towards the forest. Glebov with a military escort covered the retreating forces with light machine gun and machine gun fire. Halfway there, the seriously wounded chief of staff fell. Lenya rushed to him. But Petrov ordered to return to the brigade commander, and he himself, covering the wound under his padded jacket with an individual bag, again stitched with a machine gun. In that unequal battle, the entire headquarters of the 4th partisan brigade was killed. Among the fallen was the young partisan Lenya Golikov. Six managed to reach the forest, two of them were seriously wounded and could not move without assistance... Only on January 31, near the village of Zhemchugovo, exhausted and frostbitten, they met with the scouts of the 8th Guards Panfilov Division.

For a long time, his mother Ekaterina Alekseevna knew nothing about Leni’s fate. The war had already moved far to the west when one Sunday afternoon a horseman in military uniform. Mother went out onto the porch. The officer handed her a large package. With trembling hands I accepted it old woman, called my daughter Valya. The package contained a certificate bound in crimson leather. There was also an envelope, which Valya opened quietly and said: “This is for you, mom, from Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin himself.” With excitement, the mother took a bluish sheet of paper and read: “Dear Ekaterina Alekseevna! According to the command, your son Leonid Aleksandrovich Golikov died a brave death for his homeland. For the heroic feat performed by your son in the fight against the German invaders behind enemy lines, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by Decree of April 2, 1944, awarded him the highest degree of distinction - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. I am sending you a letter from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR conferring on your son the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to be kept as a memory of a heroic son whose feat will never be forgotten by our people. M. Kalinin." - “That’s what he turned out to be, my Lenyushka!” - the mother said quietly. And in these words there was grief, pain, and pride for his son...

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

Valya Kotik. Young partisan scout Great Patriotic War in the detachment named after Karmelyuk, operating in temporarily occupied territory; the youngest Hero of the Soviet Union. He was born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Kamenets-Podolsk region of Ukraine, according to one information in the family of an employee, according to another - a peasant. From education there are only 5 classes high school in the regional center.

During the Great Patriotic War, being in territory temporarily occupied by Nazi troops, Valya Kotik worked to collect weapons and ammunition, drew and pasted up caricatures of the Nazis. Valentin and his peers received their first combat mission in the fall of 1941. The guys lay down in the bushes near the Shepetovka-Slavuta highway. Hearing the noise of the engine, they froze. It was scary. But when the car with the fascist gendarmes caught up with them, Valya Kotik stood up and threw a grenade. The head of the field gendarmerie was killed.

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

On February 16, 1944, in a battle for the city of Izyaslav, Khmelnitsky region, a 14-year-old partisan scout was mortally wounded and died the next day. He was buried in the center of a park in the Ukrainian city of Shepetivka. For his heroism in the fight against the Nazi invaders, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated June 27, 58, Kotik Valentin Aleksandrovich was posthumously awarded title of Hero of the Soviet Union. He was awarded the Order of Lenin, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, medal "Partisan of the Great Patriotic War" 2nd degree. A motor ship is named after him, a row secondary schools, there used to be pioneer squads and detachments named after Vali Kotik. In Moscow and its hometown in 60, monuments were erected to him. There is a street named after the young hero in Yekaterinburg, Kyiv and Kaliningrad.

I read and couldn’t believe it: the legendary Belarusian partisans, the avengers of Polesie, on whose exploits we were all raised, turned out to be bloody murderers and sadists. Scoundrels and scum.

They killed their own, those who expected protection from them in order to send the reports needed by their superiors.
Women and children - old people and young people. Komsomol members and wives of front-line soldiers. Those who hated the Nazis with all their hearts were killed by the Red partisans.

Another lie about war heroes originally from the USSR has been revealed.

No, not everyone was like that, not even the majority. But terrible truth about the crimes of the partisans, overshadowing the horrors of Khatyn, has come out and needs to be known. Stop rewriting history - it's time to start writing it: honest.

Who was hiding in the Belarusian forests?

Belarusian partisans bravely fought against the Nazis during the Great Patriotic War. The partisan was the main defender of civilians, a symbol of liberation from fascism. Soviet history idealized the image of the “people's avenger,” and it was unthinkable to talk about his misdeeds. Only six decades later, the surviving residents of the Belarusian village of Drazhno, Starodorozhsky district, decided to talk about terrible events what they experienced in 1943. Belarusian local historian Viktor Hursik collected their stories in his book “Blood and Ashes of Drazhna”.

The author claims that on April 14, 1943, partisans attacked Drazhno and indiscriminately shot, slaughtered and burned civilians alive. The author confirms the testimony of the surviving Drazhne residents with documents from the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus.

One of the surviving witnesses to the burning of the village, Nikolai Ivanovich Petrovsky, moved to Minsk after the war, where he worked as an electrician at a state-owned enterprise until his retirement. Today the veteran is 79 years old and seriously ill.

“I’m probably visiting Drazhno for the last time,” Nikolai Ivanovich said slowly, frowning, as we drove into the village. “For more than sixty years, I remember that horror every day, every day.” And I want people to know the truth. After all, the partisans who killed their fellow countrymen remained heroes. This tragedy is worse than Khatyn.

“The shots woke us up around four in the morning.”

— When the Nazis came in 1941, a police garrison, to our misfortune, was formed in Drazhno. The policemen, and there were 79 of them, settled in the school, which they surrounded with bunkers. This place was strategic. The village stood at the intersection of roads, on a hill. The policemen could perfectly shoot through the area, and the forests were far away - three kilometers from Drazhno.

Even before the Germans arrived, my father, the chairman of the general store and a party member, managed to go into the forest along with the chairman of the collective farm and a major in the Red Army. And on time. The police began to commit atrocities: they arrested veterinarian Shaplyko and shot him. They were hunting for my father too. They ambushed him near his house.

Our entire family - me, my mother, three brothers and sister Katya - were driven almost naked to the collective farm threshing floor. My father was tortured before our eyes, beaten, and forced to dig a grave. But for some reason they weren’t shot and a few days later they were sent to a concentration camp,” Nikolai Ivanovich tries to speak dryly, without emotion. But it seems that the old man is about to lose his temper.

“That’s how we lived: without a father, with hatred for the occupiers, we waited for liberation,” continues Nikolai Ivanovich. “And so in January 1943, the partisans carried out an operation to capture the police garrison.

Today it is clear that the operation was planned ineptly, the partisans attacked head-on, almost all of them were killed with a machine gun. The villagers were forced to bury the dead. I remember how worried my mother was, crying. After all, we considered the partisans our hope...

But a few months later these “defenders” committed unprecedented atrocities! “The old man stopped for a minute, looked around the village, and looked for a long time towards the forest. — Shots woke us up at about four in the morning on April 14, 1943.

Mom shouted: “Dzetko, garyum!” Naked people jumped out into the yard, we looked: all the houses were on fire, shooting, screams...

We ran to the garden to save ourselves, and my mother returned to the house, wanting to take something out. The thatched roof of the hut was already on fire by that time. I lay there, didn’t move, and my mother didn’t return for a long time. I turned around, and ten of her people, even women, were stabbing with bayonets, shouting: “Take it, you fascist bastard!” I saw how her throat was cut. - The old man paused again, his eyes were devastated, it seemed that Nikolai Ivanovich was reliving those terrible minutes. “Katya, my sister, jumped up, asked: “Don’t shoot!”, and took out her Komsomol card. Before the war, she was a pioneer leader and a convinced communist. During the occupation, I sewed my father’s ticket and party ID into my coat and carried it with me. But the tall partisan, in leather boots and uniform, began to aim at Katya. I shouted: “Dziadzechka, don’t forget my sister!” But a shot rang out. My sister's coat instantly became stained with blood. She died in my arms. I will always remember the killer's face.

I remember how I crawled away. I saw that my neighbor Fekla Subtselnaya and her baby daughter were thrown alive into the fire by three partisans. Aunt Thekla held her baby in her arms. Further, at the door of the burning hut, lay the old woman Grinevichikha, burnt, covered in blood...

- How did you survive? — I ask the almost sobbing old man.

— My brothers and I crawled through the vegetable gardens to the guy. His house was burned down, but he miraculously survived. They dug a dugout and lived in it.

Later we learned that the partisans did not shoot a single policeman. The houses that were located behind their fortifications also survived. The Nazis arrived in the village, provided medical assistance to the victims, and took someone to the hospital in Starye Dorogi.

In 1944, the police began to abuse me and sent me and several other teenagers to work in a concentration camp in the city of Unigen, near Stuttgart. The American military liberated us.

After the war, I learned that the Drazhnenites were directly burned and killed by partisans from the Kutuzov detachment, commanded by Lapidus. Other detachments from Ivanov’s brigade covered the Kutuzovites. I found Lapidus when I was 18 years old. He lived in Minsk, in the Komarovka region, and worked in the regional party committee. Lapidus unleashed the dogs on me... I know that this man lived a good life and died a hero.

Residents killed on April 14, 1943 are buried at the Drazhno cemetery. Some families were completely destroyed by the partisans that fateful morning. There was no one to erect monuments on their graves. Many burial sites have almost been leveled to the ground and will soon disappear altogether.

Even the families of front-line soldiers were not spared.

Today Drazno is a prosperous village, with a good road, old but well-kept houses.

At the village grocery store we met other living witnesses to the partisan crime. The partisans did not reach the house of Eva Methodyevna Sirota (today her grandmother is 86 years old).

“Children, God forbid anyone finds out about that war,” Eva Methodyevna clutched her head. “We survived, but my friend Katya was shot, even though she screamed: “I belong!” The daughter-in-law and mother-in-law were shot, they little boy left to die. But the father of their family fought at the front.

“People were hanging out in potato pits, so they shot one family right there, they didn’t regret it,” said 80-year-old Vladimir Apanasevich with despair. Grandfather could not stand it and burst into tears. “Fate saved me, but the partisans deliberately took some teenagers half a kilometer into a field and shot them. Recently, about eight people came to us from the district executive committee. They asked about the burning of Drazhno by partisans, is this true? They were silent for the most part, shaking their heads. So they left in silence.

Alexander Apanasevich, the son of Vladimir’s grandfather, showed the passport of Valentina Shamko, who was killed by partisans. In the photograph there is a girl, sweet, with a naive look, defenseless.

- This is my aunt. Mom told me that they shot her in the head,” says Uncle Alexander with bewilderment in his voice. “Mom kept Valentina’s scarf, which was shot through, but now I can’t find it.

Brigade commander Ivanov:

“...the battle went very well”

And brigade commander Ivanov, in a report to his superiors, summed up the outcome of the military operation in Drazhno like this (from case No. 42 of fund 4057 of the National Archive of the Republic of Belarus, we fully retain the author’s style):

“...the battle went very well. They completed their task, the garrison was completely destroyed, with the exception of 5 bunkers, from which it was not possible to enter, the rest of the police were destroyed, up to 217 bastards were killed and suffocated from smoke ... "

For this “operation” many partisans were presented with awards.

If the Drazhnets had not told Viktor Khursik about the tragedy of distant days, no one would have ever known about the wild burning of a Belarusian village by partisans.

An ordinary red bastard - brigade commander Ivanov.

Viktor Khursik: “The partisans wanted to pass off civilians as policemen”

— Spadar Victor, some people are trying to challenge the contents of your book...

- Apparently, it’s too late to do this. I know that when the book was published, the Ministry of Information sent it for closed review to authoritative experts. Scientists have come to the conclusion that the facts I present in the book correspond to reality. I foresaw this reaction. I consider my position to be a state position, as is the approach of the ministry. I had one goal - the search for truth. The book “Blood and Ashes of Drazhn” has nothing to do with politics.

— How did you find out about the burning of the village?

“The Drazhnets themselves decided to contact me.” At first I did not believe that the partisans could burn down a village with civilians. I checked and rechecked. I delved into the archives and met with the residents of Drazno more than once. When I realized the depth of the tragedy, I realized that it was necessary to talk not only about heroism, but also about the crimes of the partisans, and they were. Otherwise, the Belarusian nation will not exist.

— The book contains a lot of documentary incriminating evidence on the partisans, where does it come from?

— Each detachment had a security officer. He diligently recorded all cases of violations of discipline and reported this to his superiors.

— Did the partisans burn Belarusian villages everywhere?

- Of course not. Most of the partisans fought bravely for the freedom of their homeland. But there were isolated cases of crimes against civilians. And not only in Drazno. The same tragedy occurred in the village of Staroselye, Mogilev region, and in other regions. Today it is necessary to raise the question of the state erecting monuments at the sites of tragedies.

— What is the fate of the commander of the 2nd Minsk partisan brigade, Ivanov?

— He comes from Leningrad. 21-year-old Ivanov was sent to lead the brigade from the headquarters of the partisan movement. It is clear from the documents that more than one partisan died due to his inexperience. He personally shot those who refused to go into stupid attacks. Ivanov is perhaps one of the few partisan brigade commanders who was not awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. According to information received from former senior officials of the Pukhovichi district committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, in 1975 he committed suicide.

“And yet I still can’t wrap my head around why the partisans committed such a terrible crime?”

— Until 1943, they practically did not fight, they hid in the forests. The policemen and partisans lived relatively peacefully, only clashes occurred under pressure from above. But in 1943, Stalin began to demand concrete results. Ivanov lacked the talent to take the police garrison in Drazhno. Then the brigade command took a criminal path. They decided to burn the village, kill the local residents and pass them off as policemen.

“There are a lot of marauding acts behind Kutuzov’s detachment”

Viktor Hursik included in his book testimonies of several more surviving victims of the burning of Drazhno. These people are no longer alive.

Here are excerpts from the book “Blood and Ashes of Drazhn”.

Memorandum by the head of the special department of the NKVD, Bezuglov, “On the political and moral state of the 2nd Minsk partisan brigade”:

“...Coming back, they (the partisans - Ed.) went to Gurinovich M., tore out 7 more families of bees, broke the lock, broke into the hut, took all the things, including cast iron, also took 4 sheep, 2 pigs, etc.

The entire population is outraged by this marauding act and demands protection from the command.

There are a lot of marauding acts behind Kutuzov’s detachment, so it requires this issue take measures in the strictest manner..."

EYEWITNESS TESTIMONY

The story of a witness to the burning of Drazhno, Ekaterina Gintovt (wife of a Hero of the Soviet Union):

“In the sixties, they appointed us a new boss. He was so calm. Maybe on the second or third day of his arrival a conversation happened between us.

—Where were you during the war? - I asked.

- At the front and in the partisans.

—Where in the partisans? During the war, they killed many people and burned half the village.

We were in the Starodorozhsky district, in Drazhno...

I said that in Drazhno my friend was shot, other residents were burned and killed.

As I told him this, I saw that the man felt bad before my eyes.

“I’ll go to the hospital,” he said.

A few days later the boss died.”

Viktor Hursik is outraged by the monument to the Red Army soldiers who did not fight in Drazhno. And many more partisans died here than is indicated on the tombstone.

Nikolai Petrovsky showed the place where people were shot.

Vladimir Apanasyevich’s house survived because it was located behind the police garrison.

Passport of the murdered Valentina Shamko.