ZOYA KOSMODEMYANSKAYA

At the beginning of December 1941, in the village of Petrishchevo in the Moscow region, the Nazis executed an 18-year-old Moscow girl. She told the Nazis her name was Tanya. Her real name was Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya…

Those were grim days when the threat to the capital was most grave. Fighting continued in Moscow’s countryside, where many Muscovites had their summer homes. In Moscow the bravest volunteers were selected and sent across the frontline to help partisan units fighting in the enemy rear.

Once the Nazis arrested a partisan, who had cut all the field telephone lines of the Germans in Pertishchevo and was just about to set fire to a horse stable. The circumstances of the arrest of the partisan, pieced together from various accounts by local peasants, were as follows: a man, wearing a fur cap, fur-lined jacket, padded trousers and felt boots, and carrying a shoulder-bag, made his way to an important military objective, took a bottle of benzene from his bag, poured it over the wall and was just bending down to set a match to it, when a German sentry crept up behind a grabbed hold of him.

The partisan managed to push the German soldier away and draw his revolver, but that was as far as he got. The sentry knocked it out of his hand and raised the alarm.

The partisan was taken to a house where officers were billeted, and then to their astonishment the Germans saw that the partisan was a girl, a very young girl, tall and slim, with big dark eyes and dark hair cut very short.

The owners of the house were ordered to go into the kitchen from where they could hear the German officer’s questions and the girl’s quick unhesitating answers: “No,” “I don’t know,” “I won’t tell you.” Then they heard leather belts swishing and striking the girl’s body. A few moments later, one of the German officers, a very young man, came rushing out of the room and sat in the kitchen until the interrogation was over, his eyes shut tight and his hands over his ears.

There was not a sound from the girl, however. After the execution was over the interrogation resumed but the only words the captive girl pronounced were “No,” “I won’t talk,” in the same deliberate tone, except that her voice sounded hollow now.

After the interrogation, the girl was led to the house of the Kuliks family. She was wearing only a chemise and knickers, and walked barefooted in the snow.

When she entered the house, Kulik and his wife saw in the light of the lamp that she had a large bruise on her forehead and welts on her legs and arms. The girl’s hands were tied behind her back. Her lips were swollen and bleeding – she must have bitten them while the Nazis were torturing her.

The girl was told to sit down on a bench… She sat perfectly still, and then asked for a drink of water. The owner of the house went to the water barrel, but the sentry pushed him away with the words: “Want a beating too?”

The German soldiers quartered in the house surrounded the girl and made cruel fun of her. Some pummeled her with their fists, others held lighted matches right under her chin, and one man ran a handsaw across her back.

When they had had their fill, they went to sleep. The sentry waved his rifle at her and ordered her outside. He walked behind her down the street, the tip of his bayonet almost touching her back. He kept the girl walking back and forth in the snow bare-foot and in her underwear until he himself was frozen through and decided it was time to go indoors…

The girl was taken out into the cold for 15 or 20 minutes every hour or so. And this torture lasted all night…

In the morning the interrogation began again. The owners of the house were ordered out and were only admitted again when the interrogation was over. So, they couldn’t hear anything.

The soldiers began to erect a gallows in the center of the village…

Meanwhile, the girl was stuffed into the trousers and jacket, and the Kuliks helped her pull her stockings over her livid, frost-bitten feet. The Germans hung the bottles of benzene they had found in her bag and a sign with the word “partisan” round her neck and walked her to the square where the gallows stood…

Ten mounted soldiers with drawn swords surrounded the gallows. Lined up behind them were over a hundred German soldiers and several officers, The local population had been ordered to be present at the execution, but only a few people had turned up. Some of them slipped quietly away so as not to witness the horrible spectacle.

Two packing cases were placed one on top of the other under the noose. Zoya was lifted up to the top case and the noose was slipped round her neck. One of the officers trained his camera on the gallows – the Nazis were notoriously fond of taking pictures of executions and punishments. The commandant made a sign to the hangmen, bidding them to wait.

Zoya took her chance and called out in a loud and clear voice addressing the peasants who lad herded there.

“Hey, comrades, why do you look so glum? Show more courage, fight, kill the Germans!

I am not afraid to die, comrades. It’s happiness to die for your people.

German soldiers! Surrender before it’s too late. Victory will be ours anyway! My death will be avenged. Yes, you are going to hang me, but I am not alone. There are two hundred million of us, you can’t hang us all!

Good-bye, comrades! Don’t be afraid and fight!”

The hangman pushed at the bottom packing case with his steel-tipped boot, and it slid along the slippery, icy snow. The top case toppled over and fell on the ground with a thud. The crowd backed away in horror. Someone screamed and the echo of this scream rolled over the forest…

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya died in enemy captivity, on Nazi gallows, betraying neither her suffering, nor her comrades by so much as a sound. She died a martyr’s death, she died like a hero, like a true daughter of the great people who will never bow to any conqueror! She was only eighteen…