Madness or bravery? How Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya fought and died. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya: between myth and truth

Know, Soviet people, that you are descendants of fearless warriors!
Know, Soviet people, that the blood of great heroes flows in you,
who gave their lives for their homeland without thinking about the benefits!
Know and honor, Soviet people, the exploits of our grandfathers and fathers!

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osinovye Gai, Tambov region. A very young girl showed the highest human valor. Zoya gave her life defending her homeland. I bow to Zoya and the memory of her feat will be eternal in our hearts.

November 29, 1941, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was executed by the Nazis after brutal torture in the village of Petrishchevo, Moscow region. And a few days after that, December 5, 1941, a turning point in the Great Patriotic War began. Now you understand why the Nazis tortured Zoya so cruelly and what exactly Zoya did not tell them at the cost of her young life.

The name of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is known to every history textbook. Photos of the massacre of a young Soviet girl, taken in 1941, spread all over the world. The Nazis tried to film the execution of the brave partisan from all angles; witnesses remembered her speech before her death word for word, and dozens of films were made about Zoya’s feat.

In November 1941, a group of Soviet military personnel, including NKVD officers, including young Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, went beyond the front line. Their task is to conduct reconnaissance of the enemy’s manpower and equipment, destroy the Nazis’ communications, and destroy food supplies located behind enemy lines. In Petrishchevo, near Moscow, a brave intelligence officer managed to disable a communications center. Here the Komsomol member was captured by the Nazis.

The girl was tortured for a long time. But the brave partisan, despite the terrible pain, did not betray her comrades and did not ask for mercy.

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya became the first woman Hero of the Soviet Union. Villages, schools, ships, military units, as well as dozens of streets throughout the country and abroad are named in her honor. Interest in the life and feat of Kosmodemyanskaya has not subsided to this day. About 20 thousand people come to the museum in Petrishchevo every year.

First, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was buried in Petrishchevo. In 1942, the urn with ashes was reburied in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. A monument was erected, which has not survived to this day.

Zoya's mother Lyubov Timofeevna at her daughter's funeral. April 1942.

Part 6
POST-MORTH ORDERLES OF ZOYA KOSMODEMYANSKAYA

Before moving on to the narrative, I want to explain to the reader why this essentially final part of the work is named so.
The tragic fate of Zoya in the USSR became widely known from the article “Tanya” by Pyotr Lidov, published in the newspaper Pravda on January 27, 1942.
The author accidentally heard about the execution in Petrishchevo from a witness - an elderly peasant who was shocked by the courage of the unknown girl: “They hanged her, and she spoke a speech. They hanged her, and she kept threatening them...” Lidov went to Petrishchevo, questioned the residents in detail and published an article based on their questions.
Her identity was soon established, as reported by Pravda in Lidov’s February 18 article “Who Was Tanya”; even earlier, on February 16, a decree was signed awarding her the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
But between January 27 and February 16, 1942, several manipulations were carried out by Soviet authorities both around the personality of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya and her body. For example, to identify her identity, 2 grave openings and one forensic examination of the body were carried out. Then Zoya’s body was reburied on the territory of the village of Petrishchevo, then the body was dug up again, cremated and the ashes were buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery. In 1945, her brother’s body was brought from Konigsberg and buried next to Zoya.
In this regard, the reader may have questions like why was all this necessary if the command of military unit 9903 already knew everything reliably from the testimony of V. Kolobov.
But the fact is that after January 27, 1941, about 20 mothers of the daughters of military personnel who disappeared during the battles began to claim. That “partisan Tanya” from the village of Petrishchevo is their own daughter. In connection with this, the authorities were forced to carry out two exhumations of the body of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.
In the end, everything was documented. True, no one took into account the tragedy of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya’s mother during all these manipulations with her body, but this is no longer the subject of our research. The time was such that people were not particularly valued as a value because they were a kind of consumable material!
And now that the reader has delved into the topic, I will again cite only genuine archival files from the declassified archives of the Russian Federation that are related to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.
№1
From the memoirs of K.A. Miloradova - about the identification and reburial of Zoya's body
1983 - 2003
<...>I had the sad fate of accompanying Lyubov Timofeevna on a trip to Petrishchevo in February 1942 to identify the deceased heroine. We have just returned from another mission behind enemy lines. We went skiing, sometimes day and night, and my hands and feet, like most people, were frostbitten.
And suddenly there was a call: “Report to the unit headquarters urgently.” From the headquarters we went to the building where the military examination was located.
There were two of the fighters: Boris Krainov and me. Boris, having read Lidov’s article “Tanya,” confidently said that this girl was Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, he had no doubts.
And here we are at the military examination building.
I saw another car ahead. And next to him stood a young man who looked remarkably like Zoya.
It was her brother Sasha. We met. He led me to the car in which Lyubov Timofeevna was sitting.
Never forget what her face was like. It bears the stamp of that numbness that many who have experienced a severe misfortune know. Mom was tall and thin, with dark brown hair, curly almost like Zoya’s, wearing a gray down shawl.
A few days before, Lyubov Timofeevna was in Petrishchevo for the first exhumation of the deceased heroine. Our unit commander A.K.

Sprogis spoke in Moscow with several mothers who believed that “Tanya” was their daughter.
After talking with him, there were two contenders left, one of which was L.T. Kosmodemyanskaya.
Sprogis, two mothers, as well as Vera Sergeevna Novoselova and Viktor Belokun, a teacher and student of school 201, went to Petrishchevo, who were asked to help identify the dead woman.
A.K. Sprogis firmly said that this was Kosmodemyanskaya.
But the second mother began to cry that this was her Tanya.
But Lyubov Timofeevna both recognized her daughter and did not recognize her.
When the corpse was leaned upright against a tree, she confidently said that Zoya was much shorter.
The body of the deceased was greatly elongated, as it hung on the gallows for more than a month. Lyubov Timofeevna was also embarrassed by the fact that her daughter found herself in the thick of the war, and when we met, she asked me if we really fought in the Vereisky region.
A whole commission went to the second exhumation: from our unit - Major A.K. Sprogis, B. Krainov and I; Alexander Shelepin - from the Komsomol MK; Mikhail Kleimenov - from the headquarters of the Western Front; Lyubov Timofeevna and Shura Kosmodemyansky and a doctor - a specialist in military expertise.
Shura remembered the photograph in Pravda well and was almost sure that the deceased was his sister. So he told Boris and me: “I’ll stand in the middle and take your hands. I will squeeze your palms and, no matter what we see, don’t cry. Mom may not be able to stand it."

And here is the road to Petrishchevo. We drove slowly and for a very long time. Finally we turned off the Minsk highway. At the entrance to Petrishchevo there was still a sign in German.
The Nazis left less than a month ago. After they left, local residents removed the corpse from the gallows and buried it in the hole created by the crater. We got out of the trucks.
It was very cold and stormy. In some hut we were all fed lunch and taken to the grave. Zoya was lying in an excavated grave, on a torn off door. Opposite there was a school building, that was the school door. Boris, Shura, and I stood up as agreed. And mommy rushed to the grave. The body of the deceased was horribly mutilated.
One breast is cut off, arms are like whips, and fingers are without nails, instead of nails there are pink dimples. Mommy knelt down in front of her, froze, and stroked her whole body... Shura squeezed our palms, my tears flowed, but silently. I looked at him and his tears were flowing. And Boris too.
The doctor came up to me: “What signs do you remember?”
And I remain silent - my throat tightens.
He shook me: “Are you a fighter or not?”
I gathered my courage. I answer:
“On her left leg there is a scar across the knee; she was the one who, as a child in Osinovye Gai, escaped from a bull and climbed through the barbed wire.” (Zoya told me about the scar when they took us to the bathhouse in Kuntsevo.) They pulled down the stocking slightly on the numb leg - this very scar.
And mom was still on her knees. The wind blew, the snowflakes were blown away, and it was as if she remained in that Petrishchevsky snow forever. Mommy turned blonde - she turned gray before our eyes.
And then she fell down, losing consciousness, they ran up to her and carried her to the car... On the way back, my mother was sitting in the cab of the truck and Shura was with her, and everyone else was in the back. And Lyubov Timofeevna kept asking her son: “Why is it so quiet?”
All sounds on earth froze for her - from the shock she experienced, her mother almost lost her hearing.
Soon, an article by Pyotr Lidov “Who Was Tanya” and a decree on the posthumous awarding of the title of Hero of the Soviet Union to Zoya were published.
Following this, mother and Shura moved - they were given a room at the beginning of Gorky Street (opposite the Central Telegraph).
At the end of February, I visited Lyubov Timofeevna for the first time.
It was a large, bright room with two windows.
Zoya's bed stood neatly made. A fluffed pillow with a white beret on it, which Zoya loved very much and put there like that before leaving for the front. Mom did not allow me to approach the bed.
Above her is a full-length portrait of Zoya, possibly the work of her brother. It was hard to be in this room, next to the inconsolable, grief-stricken mother.
And in the spring, on May 5, we went to Petrishchevo again - it was necessary to bury Zoya properly. We understood that the ground had already melted greatly, and it would be difficult to rite the corpse.
Komsomol Central Committee instructor Lida Sergeeva took with her several meters of blue crepe de Chine. When we swaddled Zoya in this airy fabric, the women of Petrishchev howled and screamed... Then cremation. It was hard, terrible.
When Zoya was buried at the Novodevichy cemetery (3), the orchestra played “You fell a victim in the fatal struggle...” Zoya loved this song very much from the time she heard it in a Siberian village, when they were burying those killed by the fists of communists. I stood, holding her portrait and saw nothing because of the tears that blurred my eyes. And that day I swore to myself that if I didn’t die, I would serve your memory for the rest of my life, Zoya... Boris Krainov was also at the funeral. Shura was not there, he had already left for the Ulyanovsk Tank School.<...>
Monument to mother: memories of Lyubov Timofeevna
Kosmodemyanskaya. Tambov. 2010. pp. 32 - 36.
Notes:
(1) There was another irrefutable proof. Talking with Sprogis in Moscow, L.T. Kosmodemyanskaya said that Zoya had only one sign: a large black mole near her navel (and not a knotted navel, as for some reason they wrote later. Zoya was born not in a field, but in a hut with her grandmother Lydia Fedorovna Kosmodemyanskaya) (note. E.G. Ivanova).

№2
The act of examining and identifying the body of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

February 4, 1942
We, the undersigned members of the commission consisting of: Comrade Vladimirov - from the Central Committee of the Komsomol, Comrade Shelepin - from the Komsomol MK, senior lieutenant Comrade Kleimenov - from the Red Army, Comrade Muravyov - from the Vereisky Republic Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Comrade Berezina - from the Gribtsovsky village council, vol. Sedova, Voronina, Kulik - from residents of the village. Petrishchevo, on February 4, 1942, drew up this act on the inspection and identification of an unknown citizen hanged in the village. Petrishchevo, Gribtsovsky village council, Vereisky district, Moscow region.
We have established the following:
1. When interviewing eyewitnesses, citizens of the village. Petrishchevo - Sedova V.N., Sedova M.I., Voronina A.P., Kulik P.Ya., Kulik V.A. - it was established that in the first days of December 1941 in the houses of citizens of the village. Petrishchevo - Sedova M.I., Voronina A.P., Kulik V.A. an unknown Soviet girl was searched, interrogated and brutally abused by German soldiers and officers.

After a search, interrogation and brutal abuse of her, the next day she was hanged in the center of the village. Petrishchevo at the crossroads.
Citizens of the village Petrishchevo - Sedova V.N., Sedova M.I., Voronina A.P., Kulik P.Ya., Kulik V.A., as well as language and literature teacher Comrade Novoselova V.S. and student Belokun V.I. Based on the photographs presented by the Intelligence Department of the Western Front headquarters, it was identified that the hanged Komsomol member Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya.

2. The commission excavated the grave where Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was buried. An examination of the corpse confirmed the testimony of the above-mentioned comrades and once again confirmed that the hanged woman was Comrade Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya.

3. The commission, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses of the search, interrogation and execution, established that Komsomol member Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya. behaved like a true patriot of her socialist homeland and died the death of a hero. Addressing the local population, gathered by the German command for execution, she uttered the words of a call for a merciless fight against the German occupiers:
“Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look. We must help the Red Army fight, and for my death our comrades will take revenge on the German fascists. The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated. Comrades! Victory will be ours!"

"German soldiers! Before it's too late, surrender. No matter how much you hang, you can’t hang everyone, there are 170 million of us!”

Protocol of interviewing eyewitnesses - residents of the village. Petrishchevo, documents - passport and Komsomol card of Comrade Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya are attached.

Comrades were involved in the work of the commission. Novoselova V.S. - teacher of language and literature at school No. 201<г. Москва>and a 10th grade student of this school, Comrade V.I. Belokun, who have known Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya for several years.
This is what this act was about.
Signatures:
1. Vladimirov
2. Shelepin
3. Kleimenov
4. Muravyov 5. Berezin
6. Sedova
7. Voronina
8. Kulik
WITH<ело>Petrishchevo, Gribtsovsky s/s, Vereisky district, Moscow region, February 4, 1942
The copy from the original is correct(1) A. Shelepin
CAOPIM. F. 3. Op. 52. D. 145. L. 13-15.
Certified typewritten copy with Shelepin's autograph;
right there. F. 8682. 0p.1. D. 561. L. 31 - 33.
Uncertified typewritten copy with certified typewritten copy
copies. RGALI. F.1865. Op. 1. D. 110. L. 13 - 15.
Uncertified typewritten copy. Publ.: Zoya's feat (documents)
// Science and life. 1966. No. 12. P. 10; Moscow is frontline.
1941 - 1942: archival documents and materials. M., 2001. S. 566 -567.
Printed according to the text of a certified typewritten copy of CAOPIM.

№3
The act of exhumation of the corpse of Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya

February 12, 1942
A commission consisting of Lieutenant Colonel Sprogis, Senior Lieutenant Kleimenov from the Red Army, Shelepin - from the Moscow City Komsomol Committee, Nikiforov - SME (1) MosOME and in the presence of Miloradova went to the village of Petrishchevo, Vereisky district, Moscow region, where the corpse of an unknown female partisan was taken out of the grave, hanged by the Germans in this village.

This corpse was presented for identification to citizen L.T. Kosmodemyanskaya. and her son Kosmodemyansky A.A. and Miloradova K.A., who affirmatively stated that the corpse of an unknown female partisan is her daughter and brother [sic] of her son according to the following signs:
1. Height.
2. Hair cutting and hairstyle.
3. Facial features.
4. Navel condition.
5. Jacket.
6. Socks and stockings.
The corpse is in a frozen state, well preserved for identification.
Members of the commission:
1. Sprogis
2. Shelepin
3. Kleimenov
4. Nikiforov
Those who identified the corpse:
1. Kosmodemyanskaya
2. Kosmodemyansky
3. Miloradova

CAOPIM. F. 8682. Op. 1. D. 561. L. 36-36 vol.
Autograph in blue ink. Autographs of Shelepin, Kleimenov,
Nikiforov, Kosmodemyanskaya, Kosmodemyansky, Miloradova
in blue ink and Sprogis' autograph in blue pencil.
Publ.: Front-line Moscow. 1941 - 1942:
archival documents and materials. M., 2001. P. 574.
Notes:
(1) SME - Forensic medical examination.

№4
Act

We, the undersigned members of the commission consisting of: Comrade Vladimirov - from the Central Committee of the Komsomol, Comrade Shelepin - from the Komsomol MK, senior lieutenant Comrade Kleimenov - from the Red Army, Comrade Muravyov - from the Vereisky Republic Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Comrade Berezina - from the Gribtsovsky village council, vol. Sedova, Voronina, Kulik - from the residents of the village of Petrishchevo - drew up this act on February 4, 1942 for the inspection and identification of an unknown citizen hanged in the village of Petrishchevo, Gribtsovsky village council, Vereisky district, Moscow region.
We have established the following:
1. When interviewing eyewitnesses - citizens of the village of Petrishchevo - V.N. Sedova, M.I. Sedova, A.P. Voronina, P.Ya. Kulik, V.A. Kulik. It was established that in the first days of December 1941, in the houses of citizens of the village of Petrishchevo, Sedova M.I., Voronina A.P., Kulik V.A. a search, interrogation and brutal mockery of an unknown Soviet girl were carried out by German soldiers and officers.
After a search, interrogation and brutal abuse of her, the next day she was hanged in the center of the village of Petrishcheva at a crossroads.
Citizens of the village of Petrishchevo - Sedova V.N., Sedova M.I., Voronina A.P., Kulik P.Ya., Kulik V.A., as well as language and literature teacher comrade. Novoselova V.S. and student Belokun V.I. Based on the photographs presented by the intelligence department of the Western Front headquarters, it was identified that the hanged Komsomol member Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya.
2. The commission excavated the grave where Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was buried. An examination of the corpse confirmed the testimony of the above-mentioned comrades and once again confirmed that the hanged person was comrade. Kosmodemyanskaya Z.A.
3. The commission, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses of the search, interrogation and execution, established that Komsomol member Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya. behaved like a true patriot of the socialist Motherland and died the death of a hero.
Addressing the local population, gathered by the German command for execution, she uttered the words of a call for a merciless fight against the German occupiers:
“Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look. We must help the Red Army fight, and for my death our comrades will take revenge on the German fascists. The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated.
Comrades! Victory will be ours!"
Addressing the German soldiers, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya said:
"German soldiers! Before it's too late, surrender. No matter how much you hang us, you can’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us.”
Protocol of interviewing eyewitnesses - residents of the village of Petrishchevo, documents - passport and Komsomol card of comrade. Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya are attached.
Comrade V.S. Novoselova was involved in the work of the commission. - teacher of language and literature at school No. 201, and a 10th grade student of this school, Comrade V.I. Belokun, who knew Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya for several years.
This is what the present act was about.
Signatures: 1. Vladimirov.
2. Shelepin.
3. Kleimenov.
4. Muravyov.
5. Berezin.
6. Sedova.
7. Voronina.
8. Kulik.
Petrishchevo village, Gribtsovsky s/s, Vereisky district, Moscow region, February 4, 1942.

In MK and MGK VKP (b)
Comrade Shcherbakova,
Comrade Popov,
Comrade Chernousov.
Memorandum
In January 1942, the Pravda newspaper No. 27 (8798) (dated January 27) published an article by Comrade. Lidova "Tanya". The Komsomol Moscow City Committee created a commission to investigate the facts set out in this article, which established the following.
In early December 1941, in the village of Petrishchevo, Gribtsovsky s/s, Vereisky district, Moscow region, an unknown Soviet citizen was brutally tortured and hanged by the German occupiers.
A thorough check has established that she is a Komsomol member, a student of the 10th grade of the 201st school in the Timiryazevsky district of Moscow - Z.A. Kosmodemyanskaya, who expressed a desire to voluntarily join the army and was mobilized by the Komsomol Moscow City Committee to the intelligence department of the Western Front. The intelligence department sent her to work behind enemy lines.
On November 1, the Komsomol Moscow City Committee sent a group of Komsomol members, including Komsomol member Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, to the disposal of the intelligence department of the Western Front.

After the arson she managed to escape.

Two days later, at seven o'clock in the evening, she came to the same village again.

While trying to set fire to a house on the edge of the village, she was captured by German patrols, who brought her to the house of a resident of this village, citizen V.N. Sedova.
From the stories of local residents: gr. Sedova V.N., Sedova M.I., Voronina A.P., Kulik P.Ya., Kulik V.A. The commission established the following circumstances of the search, interrogation and execution.

To the house of gr. Sedova M.I. Three German patrols brought her with her hands tied at about 7 pm.
She was wearing a jacket, cold boots, a balaclava, and sheepskin mittens. She had a backpack hanging over her shoulders and a bag with flammable liquid over her shoulder. One of the Germans pressed her to the stove, two others carried out a search. During the search, another 15-20 Germans were present who lived in this house.

They laughed at her all the time and shouted: “Partisan, partisan!” First, they removed her backpack, then her bag with flammable liquid. Under her jacket they found a revolver hanging over her shoulder. The Germans undressed her: they took off her jacket, balaclava, jacket, and boots. She was left in quilted trousers, socks and a white undershirt.
An interpreter was not present during the search. The Germans didn’t ask her any questions, they just talked among themselves, laughed and hit her on the cheeks several times.

She behaved courageously and did not utter a single word. The search in this house lasted no more than 20 minutes.
After the search, the eldest of them commanded: “Rus! March!"

She calmly turned around and walked out with her hands tied, accompanied by German soldiers, from this house into the street.

The Germans brought her to the house of gr. Voronina A.P., where the German headquarters of the signal troops was located.

Entering the house, the Germans who brought her shouted:
"Uterus! Rus! She was the one who burned the houses!” Here she was searched a second time. Bottles with flammable liquid showed gr. Voronina, and said: “Here, mother, what they use to set houses on fire,” and after that they hung a bag of bottles around this girl’s neck.
Gr. The Germans ordered Voronina to climb onto the stove, and they themselves began to undress this girl.
They took off her trousers, and she was left in only her underwear, after which the officer began asking her in Russian: “Where are you from?”
She answered: “From Saratov.” “Where were you going?” Answer: “To Kaluga.” “How long did it take you to cross the front line?”
She replied: “Three days.” "Who were you with?" Answer: “There were two of us, my friend was detained by the Germans in Kubinka.”
How many houses have you burned?” Answer: "Three."
“What else have you done?” She replied: “I didn’t do anything else and I won’t say anything more.”
This answer infuriated the officer, and he ordered four soldiers to flog her. They flogged her with belts, intermittently, they hit her with belts more than 200 times.
They spanked her and asked her: “Will you tell or not tell?”
But she was silent all the time, did not utter a single word. Only at the end of the spanking did she sigh from severe pain and say:
“Stop flogging. I won’t tell you anything more.”
During the flogging, the officer went into another room several times and held his head in his hands, since he himself could not look at this picture.
Then she was taken to another room wearing only her undershirt. She looked exhausted, her legs and pelvis were blue from the blows.
She behaved courageously, proudly, and answered their questions sharply.

During the flogging, several hundred Germans came to the house and watched and laughed.

After the flogging at 10 pm from the house of gr. Voronina, barefoot, with her hands tied, wearing only her undershirt, was led through the snow into the house of the gr. Kulik V.A., where 25 Germans lived.
Entering the house, the Germans shouted: “Matka! They caught a partisan."
She was put on a bench. She moaned in pain. Her lips were black, caked from the heat, her face was swollen, her forehead was broken. She asked for a drink. Instead of water, one of the Germans brought a burning kerosene lamp without glass under her chin and burned her chin.

After sitting for half an hour, the Germans dragged her in her undershirt and barefoot into the cold. They took her barefoot and undressed in the cold for about 20 minutes. Then they brought her back to the house, after 10-15 minutes they took her out into the cold again, then they brought her back into the house.

This went on from ten o'clock in the evening until two o'clock in the morning. All this was done by a 19-year-old German assigned to her.
At two o'clock in the morning this German was replaced by another, who was assigned to her by an officer.
This German put her on the bench to sleep. After lying down for a while, she asked him in German to untie her hands.
He untied her hands. She fell asleep and slept for three hours. At 7 o’clock in the morning, the owner of the house, Kulik P.Ya, approached her and managed to talk to her for a while.
That's what she said to her.
The hostess asked: “Where are you from?” She answered: “Moscow.” "What is your name?" She remained silent. "Where are your parents?"
She remained silent. “Why did they send you?” She replied: “I was tasked with burning the village.” “Who was with you?”
She said: “There was no one with me, I was alone.” The hostess asked: “Who burned the houses last night?”
She replied: “I burned these houses.” Then she asked the landlady: “How many houses have I burned?”
The owner answered that she had burned three houses and twenty horses. She also asked the hostess if there were victims. Then she advised the hostess to leave the village from the Germans.
She asked the hostess to give her something to put on.
But the hostess didn’t give her anything; she herself had nothing.
In conclusion, she said: “Victory is still ours. Let them shoot me, let these monsters mock me, but still they won’t shoot us all.”

Several Germans were present during the conversation, but they did not speak Russian.
One German asked her: “Where is Stalin?”
She replied: “Stalin is on duty.”
Then she turned away and told the German: “I won’t talk to you anymore!”
After this, the owner was kicked out of the house. She was transferred to a bunk, she lay down, and hundreds of Germans came to look at her. This all happened at 8 o'clock in the morning.

At 9 o'clock, 3 officers came with translators and began to interrogate her.
During the interrogation, except for the Germans, there was no one in this room, since they kicked out the mistress and owner of the house, but the owner of the house stayed in another room and heard the interrogation.
As soon as the officers entered, she told them: “Your Germans left me completely barefoot and naked.”
One of the officers ordered her to bring trousers.
She was given wet cotton trousers brought from the street to wear.
After that they began to interrogate her.
The translator asked several times: “Where are you from, what is your name?”
But she didn’t say a single word.
They didn't ask her any more questions. She could not put on the trousers brought to her herself, since her feet were frostbitten and she could not stand on her feet.
She put on her trousers while sitting, with the help of one officer, while other officers shouted at her: “Get dressed quickly!” When she asked them for boots, they laughed and did not give them to her.
After that, at 10:30 a.m., she was taken outside to the gallows that had been prepared in advance.
Two soldiers led her by the arms, since she herself could not walk from the beating, pain and frostbitten legs.
Around her walked a large crowd of Germans on foot and on horseback, heading towards the gallows.
Many Germans and civilians had already gathered at the gallows. As soon as they took her out of the house, they hung a plywood sign around her neck with the inscription: “House Arsonist.” It was written in Russian and German: in Russian - in large letters, in German - in small letters.

From the house to the gallows she walked smoothly, proudly, with her head raised. When they brought her to the gallows, the officer ordered to expand the circle of spectators. After that they started taking pictures of her. They photographed it from three sides: from the front, from the side, on which a bag with a flammable liquid hung, and from the back (it was turned each time).
At the time of filming, she uttered the following phrases:
“Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look. We must help the Red Army fight. This death of mine is my achievement.”
For these words, one officer swung his fist at her and wanted to hit her, others screamed.
But she continued to say:
“Comrades! Victory will be ours".
Addressing the German soldiers, she said:
"German soldiers! Before it’s too late, surrender!”
The officer yelled angrily: “Rus!..”
But she continued to say:
“The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated!”
Then they placed a wooden box under the rope. She climbed onto the box herself without any command. The German began to put a noose around her neck. She still managed to say:
“No matter how much you hang us, you can’t hang us all!” There are 170 million of us. Our comrades will avenge you for me!”
She said this with a noose around her neck. She grabbed the noose with her hand and wanted to say something else, but the soldier hit her hands and knocked the box out from under her feet.

The people present here and the soldiers dispersed."

Here I am forced to interrupt the quotation of this important document and remind the reader that not all residents of the village of Petrishchevo treated Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya well.
Two of them took exactly the opposite position, which was classified by the NKVD of the USSR as treason and both women were shot by a military tribunal!

Secondly, these statements raise great doubts:
On November 28-29, it was sent across the front line in the Vereisky direction. In the area of ​​the village. In Obukhovo she was thrown out of the car and went behind enemy lines.
In early December, she came to the village of Petrishchevo at night and set fire to three houses (the houses of citizens Karelova, Solntsev, Smirnov) in which the Germans lived.
Along with these houses, the following were burned: 20 horses, one German, many rifles, machine guns and a lot of telephone cable.
After the arson she managed to escape."

During our historical investigation, we reliably established that she was sent to the rear of the Germans not alone, but in a group of 20 people (two DRGs).
While crossing the front line, they were all ambushed and in the end there were only 6 of them left! Of these, Krainov, Kolobov and Kosmodemyanskaya went to the village of Petrishchevo!!!
The attack on the village of Petrishchevo was carried out once and Krainov and Kosmodemyanskaya managed to set fire to three huts, but there were no German soldiers and officers in them!
Therefore, it is hardly appropriate to talk about any damage from fires for the command of the 332nd Infantry Regiment.
Indeed, Z. Kosmodemyanskaya for the second time on the same day, using the last bottle of KS, tried to set fire to a barn with hay near Sitnikov’s house.
Where did the Germans really live? As a result, she was discovered by the owner of the house, Sitnikov, and was soon detained by German guards!!!

Continued citing documents No. 5

“For three days, German sentries stood near the gallows. She hung there for a month and a half. They hanged her in the center of the village, at a crossroads. Three days before the retreat, the German command ordered her to be removed from the gallows and buried in the ground.
The headman of the village of Petrishchevo carried out this order, and it was buried 50 meters from the school.

When checking all the circumstances of her death, the grave was opened and the corpse was examined in order to establish her belonging to the front group.

The testimony of citizens Sedova V.N., Sedova M.I., Voronina A.P., Kulik V.A., Kulik P.Ya., examination of the corpse and comparison with photographs confirmed that she was Kosmodemyanskaya Z.A., indeed that Komsomol member who was mobilized by the Komsomol Moscow City Committee and placed at the disposal of the intelligence department of the Western Front.
From all of the above, we can conclude that Komsomol member Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya led as a true patriot of the socialist Motherland and died the death of a hero, as befits the daughter of the Lenin Komsomol.

5/II. 1942 Secretary of the MK and MGK Komsomol PEGOV.
The style, spelling and punctuation of the document have been preserved. - M.T.
Material from the monthly popular science magazine “Science and Life”, No. 12, December 1966 (pp. 10-13).

№7
Recorded conversation with mother, brother Shura and school friends
Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in the Timiryazevsky Republic Committee of the Komsomol
February 10, 1942
Comrade Kosmodemyanskaya. Zoya's death was not unexpected for me, since Zoya went to the front. So she said: “Either I die a hero, or I come as a hero.” I cried, and she told me: “What are you, be proud that you have a hero daughter.”
Zoya was born in 1923. She spoke like an adult, and I consulted with her. Zoya said that you need to act decisively: once you have outlined a plan, then carry it out. That's what she told me. I would need to teach her, but it turned out that she taught me by saying this.
Zoya was a pioneer from the age of 9; she studied with her brother Shura in the same class until the 10th grade. I myself used to work as a teacher at school number 9 in the Oktyabrsky district, now school number 216.
Zoya loved literature very much and was going to be a writer. She wrote an essay: “I want to learn to recognize people.” She kept a diary since 1936, and she burned the last diary.
Zoya wanted to take him to the labor front, but I said that this could not be done, then she threw her last diary into the oven, but I wanted to know what she wrote there. Representatives of the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper took from us her diary, which had been kept since 1936.

How Zoya was dressed when she went to the front. She was wearing a beige wool sweatshirt, this sweatshirt is mine, with a beige turn-down collar. The sweatshirt had three gray-beige buttons. One elbow is sewn with threads of the same color. The coat is long, striped, already old, with fur at the bottom, and a large collar.
In addition, she had a men's overall, a gray shirt with pockets on the sides and a leather belt made from leaves. There was nothing fur on her. She wore a pistachio-colored woolen scarf on her head; she took it with her and a beret, which she did not wear.

On her hands were green home-knitted mittens. She took with her two pairs of small mittens, the second pair in beige factory knit. On her feet were brown shoes with Viennese heels, leg warmers and beige stockings. She had dark blue panties and two or three pairs of lighter ones. There was also a shirt with wide lace.

Zoya began living in Moscow in 1931. This year she began studying in first grade. Her homeland is the village of Osinovye Gai, Tambov region.
We live in the house of the former student dormitory of the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.

Zoya joined the Komsomol at school 201. This was a real event for her. She was preparing to join the Komsomol and was proud of it. It was necessary to know the Charter, and when she was accepted, she came radiant. When she received the ticket, it was also a big event for her. She was very worried. At home, Zoya worked seriously and persistently. Mathematics was difficult for her, but literature was easy. Zoya worked on her essays for a long time, for example, Shura prepared an essay in an hour, and Zoya sat the whole night, but Shura also had good essays. Zoya's cool essays were left at our house. There are no personal notes of hers at all.

She loved Mayakovsky very much and said that only those who do not understand do not like him, and that books about Mayakovsky should be read by everyone. She beautifully recited and read his works. Zoya also loved Gorky.
(From school: Zoya read Mayakovsky’s poem “Good!” at a school party)

Zoya was very interested in literature and also loved music. She always regretted that we didn't have a piano. When Zoya was in the sanatorium, she took advantage of several music lessons there. The teacher told her that she could be an excellent musician.

She also loved the theater very much and said that she would not have breakfast, but would go to the theater. Zoya said: “If, mom, they give you a ticket, then buy a second one for me.” She was very brave and was not afraid of anything in life. During the raids of German planes on Moscow, even the men of our house hid in a shelter or somewhere behind the door, and she and Shura went to the attic to watch, or Zoya walked around the house, not talking to anyone, as people sometimes looked at this with ridicule and they thought that she was boasting of her courage, not being afraid of fragments. But this was not a showy side.

Our house is made of wood and sometimes shook from the shooting. When I started to worry, she told me: “Mom, be ashamed, aren’t you ashamed, why are you shaking,” and she herself was so calm. Our room is on the second floor of the house, and I was worried when Zoe was downstairs.
She didn't have any special close friends. There was one girl, Serikova, whom she dated. In my opinion, Shura was sitting with her in class.
(From school: This girl is now in Omsk with her parents and works there.)
Ira Pozdnyak also went to Zoya, but during the war they developed differences in views. When they made bomb shelters and trenches, they had different opinions and quarreled, but Ira is an empty-headed girl.
When the school stopped working, Zoya and Shura entered the Borets plant. There Zoya met a good Stakhanovite and said that he was a serious person. But Zoya was dissatisfied with the work environment she found herself in at the factory, and she worried about it all. Zoya’s goal was to study, and she entered the factory to do something, since the school was not working, and as soon as the school started working, she immediately left the factory. They didn't let her go.

I used to work at this plant as a teacher. And they told me that my daughter had just started work and was leaving in three days, but she was dissatisfied with the order at the plant.

I have already said that at the plant she really liked one Stakhanovite, and during three days of work she somehow got along with her. I don’t know the name of this Stakhanovka, she spoke on the radio. Zoya earned 40 rubles at the factory. in three to four days.
At the sanatorium for nervous diseases in Sokolniki, Zoya was also friends with one sister, who, in my opinion, also spoke on the radio or her letter was published from the front.
This sister was a serious girl. Comrade Gaidar was also in this sanatorium, who taught her moral lessons, and she did the same to him. They went ice skating together. He was with her all the time, and I would like to know from him what they talked about.

Zoya stayed in the sanatorium for 40 days, and no matter how often I came to see her, I always saw them together in the park. Zoya had been suffering from a nervous disease since 1939, when she moved from 8th to 9th grade, and when moving from 9th to 10th grade in 1940 she suffered from acute meningitis. At first, doctors said that there was no hope for recovery, but she went to Professor Margulis, who saved her. If she had ended up with someone else, she would not have survived. The doctors were even surprised when she was discharged from the hospital.

She endured such painful injections into the spinal cord! Zoya was in memory and said that the injections were very painful. She was resilient and patient.
When my friends looked at Tanya’s photo, they decided that it was Zoya, not Tanya, but they didn’t tell me.
(Looks at the photo shown to her.) Yes, this is Zoya, she looks similar, her hair, nose and lips.
(Son: Everything is very similar, the hair is very similar.)
Yes, this is Zoya. It was removed earlier for the passport, and later for the Komsomol card, and here it is more similar.
(Son: It’s more typical on the passport.)

Her last photograph is on her Komsomol card.
Firewood has just been brought to us, and we are heating it in the morning, so the temperature has now risen a little. We have a stove that opens into two adjacent rooms, and when you heat it up, there is no heat, your arms and legs cannot move from the cold. I asked to at least temporarily transfer us somewhere warmer, but nothing has been done so far.

I’m not working right now, but they promised to give me a job. It is impossible not to work, as there will be nothing to live on. If today, for example, I sell Zoya’s coat, how will I live?
We live in this area all the time, at first we lived in another house. They wanted to evict us after my husband's death, but the prosecutor did not allow it. My husband worked as an accountant at the Timiryazev Agricultural Academy.
I also worked at a school at the academy, teaching student children. My husband died unexpectedly.
(From school: In September, school students went to dig potatoes, and Zoya went. At first she worked separately from the brigade, but her labor productivity was no worse than that of others. When she started working in the brigade, there were four boys there, things happened conversations, work was going badly, but she loved to work properly, and so she began to work alone).
Mother: Zoya said that some people work dishonestly and leave potatoes in the field. She tried to choose all of him.
(From school: She said that some people are dishonest about their work. Zoya tried to work as best as possible.)

Mother: Zoya said: “When I see the poster “How did you help the front?”, it takes me by the heart and I think how I helped the front.” I said that she was on the labor front and that she helped.

“No, that’s not it,” Zoya answered. She wanted to go to the front and talked about it with her history teacher. When Zoya returned from the labor front, she said that she would go to the front. After that she became so serious.
Zoya wanted to take a nursing course and did everything in one day. She was given a health certificate. But she did not go to nursing courses and two days later she announced that she would go to the front.
Zoya said: “I can’t help but tell you, mom, you are the closest person that I am going to join the partisan detachment. But don't tell anyone." She was so pleased and excited.

He says: “I was given a task, but Shura was not given it.” She didn’t have a tear when she left, she was even offended by me when she saw the tears: “Since you’re crying, then don’t come see me off.”
When Comrade Molotov spoke on the radio about the declaration of war, Shura and I were not at home, so I don’t know how Zoya reacted to this. But Zoya was confident that victory would be ours, even though ours were giving up the cities. Zoya said that she was ready to tear to pieces people who hesitate, doubting our victory. She knew we would win.
Lately, I even doubted who Zoya had a connection with. She always told me when she went where, but two or three times she disappeared somewhere and came home even more convinced. It felt like someone was influencing her. I understood that someone was influencing her. Zoya didn't say where she was going.
She stated that she would come soon and asked not to worry about her.
(Son: When someone started talking about where the bombs and shrapnel fell, Zoya always said: “We should shoot such people, they only create panic.” When it happened that you quarreled with her over something, she replies: “What are you, a fascist, or what?!”)

She was greatly influenced by Comrade Stalin’s report. She went to the front in November, when the Germans were approaching Moscow.
Mother: On the third day after her departure, I received a postcard with the “Field Mail” stamp. Shura even said that the postcard was probably from Moscow, and not from the front, but there was a mark “Army in the field.” I also received the second letter quickly, probably within a week.
It has been preserved, although it is written very briefly and laconically: “I feel good. Don't worry about me. After completing the task, I’ll come and stay.”

She did physical education, did rubdowns with cold water, and went ice skating.
(Son: Zoya got permission from the doctor to do physical education. We had good equipment in the school gym, and she really wanted to do it. If she didn’t do well on the apparatus, she continued to work hard.)

Zoya got up quickly in the morning and did physical exercise, but I couldn’t follow the entire daily routine. She managed to do everything. He goes to the store, cooks dinner, washes the floor, although our room is small. I managed to do everything. It was difficult for her to wash the floor for health reasons, but she said that I was older than her.
Sometimes I went to the cinema, rarely to the theater. She never sat and talked to gossips, as others did. Zoya loved to read, she would borrow books from the library, and I would also get books for her. She read mainly classics - Sholokhov153, Fadeev154, Furmanov155, Tolstoy, etc.

She wanted to enter the Literary Institute. She was going to enter a university from the 9th grade, but they told her that there was no such situation, that she needed to complete a ten-year course. Zoya said that she prepared herself in literature. But then she left the matter.

I've been thinking about writing about Zoya since her birth. I wrote to the newspaper myself and I think I can write about Zoya. Three years ago, Pravda published an article about how one mother was raising her daughter, but I didn’t like this article, and I wrote a refutation to Pravda. I was told that my article was valuable and that the article was self-praising, but I wrote this article a month after the first one was published. So maybe I will succeed if I start writing about Zoya.

She even had a nervous illness for the reason that her guys did not understand. She didn’t like the fickleness of her friends, as sometimes happens - today a girl will share her secrets with one friend, tomorrow with another, these will be shared with other girls, etc. Zoya did not like this and often sat alone. But she was worried about all this, saying that she was a lonely person, that she could not find a girlfriend.
After her illness, they began to treat her more sensitively at school and got her a ticket to a sanatorium (1).
CAOPIM. F. 8682. Op. 1. D. 561. L. 56-63.
Typewritten copy. Publ.: Front-line Moscow. 1941 - 1942:
archival documents and materials. M., 2001. S. 572 - 574.

Further events developed in the following way.
Having reburied Zoya at the Novodeviachevo cemetery in the USSR, they gradually began to forget about her. There was a war in the country, more and more new heroes and heroines appeared, then there was restoration and peaceful life.
But in 1961, to commemorate the 20th anniversary of her feat, the Soviet propaganda apparatus remembered the feat of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, and from that time she, together with her brother Alexander, became cult heroes for pioneers and Komsomol members in the USSR.
Here, as if from a “horn of plenty,” books began to be written and published, and museums were created. to build numerous monuments in different places of the USSR, not to mention the names of the streets. and steamships!!!
But all good things come to an end sooner or later. in August 1991, the USSR collapsed, democracy and glasnost began, archives gradually began to be opened, and in the country, as it is not strange, the figure of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya arose again. Moreover, the interest is negative. They tried to remove her as a symbol of tollitarianism, and knowing the state of affairs 26 years later, we must admit that the anti-communists almost succeeded!
In order not to be unfounded, I will further cite another document. This is an act of forensic examination. Because in 1992 Once again, the media began to raise the question that it was not Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya who was buried in the village of Petrishchevo, but another serviceman from military unit 9903, Liliya Azolina.

№8
Conclusion of a specialist from the All-Russia Research Institute of Forensic Expertise
Alexander Alexandrovich Gusev at the request of the Komsomol Central Election Commission
on conducting an examination to establish the identity of the partisan who died in the village of Petrishchevo
No. 1828/020 January 4, 1992
On December 17, 1991, the All-Russian Scientific Research Institute of Forensic Expertise received 9 photographs from the Central Archive of the Komsomol with a transmittal letter from the head of the Central Archive of the Komsomol V. Khorunzhego dated December 16, 1991:
two with the image of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya,
three with the image of Lily Azolina,
one with a picture of a girl among German soldiers,
three depicting the corpse of a hanged girl.
Parts and
elements of the face Features of appearance Signs of appearance images on
object 1 object 2 object 3
1 2 3 4 5
Head shape oval oval oval
Hair growth boundary tortuous smooth tortuous
color dark dark dark
density average average average
shape slightly wavy straight slightly wavy
face shape oval round oval
width average more than average average
degree of completeness average average average
eyebrow shape arched slightly arched arched
position:
relative to the horizontal slightly oblique internal horizontal slightly oblique internal
relative to each other distant average distant
forehead height average low average
width average more than average average
nose bridge width average average average
nasal septum slightly protruding slightly protruding
nasolabial
hole width wide medium wide
mouth size average average average
position of the corners of the mouth horizontal horizontal horizontal
chin height average more than average average
ear tragus shape slightly protruding protruding slightly protruding
form
auditory
comma-shaped holes rounded comma-shaped

It is necessary to establish whether Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Lilya Azolina or another person is depicted in the presented photographs of the corpse of a hanged girl?
The research was entrusted to candidate of legal sciences Alexander Aleksandrovich Gusev, who has specialized in the field of forensic portrait examination since 1948.
After the research, the submitted photographs were marked with the stamp “All-Union NIISE”.
All received photographs are produced on glossy photo paper. The face in the photographs of 3. Kosmodemyanskaya is captured with a turn to the left, in two photographs by L. Azolina - with a turn to the right, and in one - to the left, in the photograph of a girl among German soldiers, as well as in post-mortem photographs, - with a turn to the left. In seven photographs the image is full-length, and in two it is full-length.
For the convenience of writing the conclusion, photographs of Z. Kosmodemyanskaya are conventionally designated “Object 1”, L. Azolina - “Object 2”, and the corpse of the hanged girl - “Object 3”.
The study was carried out using methods: microscopic, measuring and comparison. At the same time, it was found that the persons in the specified compared objects are characterized by the following signs of appearance (see the summary table in the text).

The listed features in their totality for each object of study are unique and in their totality are sufficient to conclude that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya is depicted in the photographs of the corpse of the hanged girl.
Specialist A.A. Gusev
RGASPI. F. M-7. D. 649. Part 1. L. 4a - 4a vol.
Typewritten text autographed in black ink by Gusev.
Publ.: Front-line Moscow. 1941 - 1942:
archival documents and materials. M., 2001. P. 581.

So finally, the issue of identifying Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was put to rest.

On this I also want to assure this work.
I believe that the dear reader, having familiarized himself with all parts of this work, can now accurately answer the main question:
"Is Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya a hero of the Great Patriotic War or one of its countless martyrs"?

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

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

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Years of life 1923 - 1941

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

“They hang her, and she threatens them.”

Short life

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

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

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

In a partisan detachment

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

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

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

Torture

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

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

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

- Where is Stalin?

“At the post,” the brave partisan answered briefly.

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

Execution

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

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

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

Memory

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

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

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

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

Family

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya was born on September 13, 1923 in the village of Osino-Gai (the village in various sources is also called Osinov Gai or Osinovye Gai, which means “aspen grove”), Gavrilovsky district, Tambov region, in a family of hereditary local priests.

Zoya's grandfather, the priest of the Znamenskaya Church in the village of Osino-Gai Pyotr Ioannovich Kozmodemyansky, was captured by the Bolsheviks on the night of August 27, 1918 and, after cruel torture, was drowned in the Sosulinsky pond. His corpse was discovered only in the spring of 1919; the priest was buried next to the church, which was closed by the communists, despite complaints from believers and their letters to the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in 1927

Zoya's father Anatoly studied at the theological seminary, but did not graduate from it; married local teacher Lyubov Churikova.

Captivity, torture and execution

Execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya

Zoya’s fighting friend Klavdiya Miloradova recalls that during the identification of the corpse, there was dried blood on Zoya’s hands and there were no nails. A dead body does not bleed, which means Zoya’s nails were also torn out during torture.

At 10:30 the next morning, Kosmodemyanskaya was taken out into the street, where a gallows had already been erected; a sign was hung on her chest that read “House Arsonist.” When Kosmodemyanskaya was brought to the gallows, Smirnova hit her legs with a stick, shouting: “Who did you harm? She burned my house, but did nothing to the Germans...”

One of the witnesses describes the execution itself as follows:

They led her by the arms all the way to the gallows. She walked straight, with her head raised, silently, proudly. They brought him to the gallows. There were many Germans and civilians around the gallows. They brought her to the gallows, ordered her to expand the circle around the gallows and began to photograph her... She had a bag with bottles with her. She shouted: “Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look, but we need to help fight! This death of mine is my achievement.” After that, one officer swung his arms, and others shouted at her. Then she said: “Comrades, victory will be ours. German soldiers, before it’s too late, surrender.” The officer shouted angrily: “Rus!” “The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated,” she said all this at the moment when she was photographed... Then they framed the box. She stood on the box herself without any command. A German came up and began to put on the noose. At that time she shouted: “No matter how much you hang us, you won’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us. But our comrades will avenge you for me.” She said this with a noose around her neck. She wanted to say something else, but at that moment the box was removed from under her feet, and she hung. She grabbed the rope with her hand, but the German hit her hands. After that everyone dispersed.

In the “Corpse Identification Act” dated February 4, 1942, carried out by a commission consisting of representatives of the Komsomol, officers of the Red Army, a representative of the RK CPSU (b), the village council and village residents, on the circumstances of the death, based on the testimony of eyewitnesses of the search, interrogation and execution, it was established that Komsomol member Z. A. Kosmodemyanskaya before her execution uttered the words of appeal: “Citizens! Don't stand there, don't look. We must help the Red Army fight, and for my death our comrades will take revenge on the German fascists. The Soviet Union is invincible and will not be defeated." Addressing the German soldiers, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya said: “German soldiers! Before it's too late, surrender. No matter how much you hang us, you can’t hang us all, there are 170 million of us.”

Kosmodemyanskaya’s body hung on the gallows for about a month, repeatedly being abused by German soldiers passing through the village. On New Year's Day 1942, drunken Germans tore off the hanged woman's clothes and once again violated the body, stabbing it with knives and cutting off her chest. The next day, the Germans gave the order to remove the gallows, and the body was buried by local residents outside the village.

Subsequently, Kosmodemyanskaya was reburied at the Novodevichy cemetery in Moscow.

There is a widespread version (in particular, it was mentioned in the film “The Battle of Moscow”), according to which, having learned about the execution of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, I. Stalin ordered the soldiers and officers of the 332nd Wehrmacht Infantry Regiment not to be taken prisoner, but only to be shot. The regiment commander, Lieutenant Colonel Rüderer, was captured by front-line security officers, convicted and later executed by court verdict. .

Posthumous recognition of the feat

Zoya’s fate became widely known from the article “Tanya” by Pyotr Lidov, published in the newspaper “Pravda” on January 27, 1942. The author accidentally heard about the execution in Petrishchevo from a witness - an elderly peasant who was shocked by the courage of the unknown girl: “They hanged her, and she spoke a speech. They hanged her, and she kept threatening them...” Lidov went to Petrishchevo, questioned the residents in detail and published an article based on their questions. Her identity was soon established, as reported by Pravda in Lidov’s February 18 article “Who Was Tanya”; even earlier, on February 16, a decree was signed awarding her the title of Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously).

During and after perestroika, in the wake of anti-communist criticism, new information about Zoya appeared in the press. As a rule, it was based on rumors, not always accurate memories of eyewitnesses, and in some cases - on speculation, which, however, was inevitable in a situation where documentary information contradicting the official “myth” continued to be kept secret or was just was declassified. M. M. Gorinov wrote about these publications that in them “some facts of the biography of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya were reflected, which were hushed up during Soviet times, but were reflected, as in a distorting mirror, in a monstrously distorted form”.

Researcher M. M. Gorinov, who published an article about Zoya in the academic journal “Domestic History,” is skeptical about the version of schizophrenia, but does not reject the newspaper’s reports, but only draws attention to the fact that their statement about suspicion of schizophrenia is expressed in a “streamlined” way. form.

Version about the betrayal of Vasily Klubkov

In recent years, there has been a version that Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was betrayed by her squadmate, Komsomol organizer Vasily Klubkov. It is based on materials from the Klubkov case, declassified and published in the Izvestia newspaper in 2000. Klubkov, who reported to his unit at the beginning of 1942, stated that he was captured by the Germans, escaped, was captured again, escaped again and managed to get to his own. However, during interrogations he changed his testimony and stated that he was captured along with Zoya and handed her over, after which he agreed to cooperate with the Germans, was trained at an intelligence school and was sent on an intelligence mission.

Could you please clarify the circumstances under which you were captured? - Approaching the house I had identified, I broke the bottle with “KS” and threw it, but it did not catch fire. At this time, I saw two German sentries not far from me and, showing cowardice, ran away into the forest, located 300 meters from the village. As soon as I ran into the forest, two German soldiers pounced on me, took away my revolver with cartridges, bags with five bottles of “KS” and a bag with food supplies, among which was also a liter of vodka. - What evidence did you give to the German army officer? “As soon as I was handed over to the officer, I showed cowardice and said that there were three of us in total, naming the names of Krainev and Kosmodemyanskaya. The officer gave some order in German to the German soldiers; they quickly left the house and a few minutes later brought Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. I don’t know whether they detained Krainev. - Were you present during the interrogation of Kosmodemyanskaya? - Yes, I was present. The officer asked her how she set the village on fire. She replied that she did not set the village on fire. After this, the officer began beating Zoya and demanded testimony, but she categorically refused to give one. In her presence, I showed the officer that it was indeed Kosmodemyanskaya Zoya, who arrived with me in the village to carry out acts of sabotage, and that she set fire to the southern outskirts of the village. Kosmodemyanskaya did not answer the officer’s questions after that. Seeing that Zoya was silent, several officers stripped her naked and severely beat her with rubber truncheons for 2-3 hours, extracting her testimony. Kosmodemyanskaya told the officers: “Kill me, I won’t tell you anything.” After which she was taken away, and I never saw her again.

Klubkov was shot for treason on April 16, 1942. His testimony, as well as the very fact of his presence in the village during Zoya’s interrogation, is not confirmed in other sources. In addition, Klubkov’s testimony is confused and contradictory: he either says that Zoya mentioned his name during interrogation by the Germans, or says that she did not; states that he did not know Zoya’s last name, and then claims that he called her by her first and last name, etc. He even calls the village where Zoya died not Petrishchevo, but “Ashes”.

Researcher M. M. Gorinov suggests that Klubkov was forced to incriminate himself either for career reasons (in order to receive his share of dividends from the unfolding propaganda campaign around Zoya), or for propaganda reasons (to “justify” Zoya’s capture, which was unworthy, according to the ideology of that time, Soviet fighter). However, the version of betrayal was never put into propaganda circulation.

Awards

• Medal "Gold Star" of the Hero of the Soviet Union (February 16, 1942) and the Order of Lenin (posthumously).

Memory

Monument at the Partizanskaya metro station

Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya's grave at Novodevichy Cemetery

Museums

Monumental art

Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya near school 201 in Moscow

Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in the courtyard of school number 54 in Donetsk

Monument to Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya in Tambov

• Monument in the village of Osino-Gai, Tambov region, in the birthplace of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Tambov sculptor Mikhail Salychev
• Monument in Tambov on Sovetskaya Street. Sculptor Matvey Manizer.
• Bust in the village of Shitkino
• Monument on the platform of the Partizanskaya metro station in Moscow.
• Monument on the Minsk highway near the village of Petrishchevo.
• Memorial plate in the village of Petrishchevo.
• Monument in St. Petersburg in Moscow Victory Park.
• Monument in Kyiv: square on the corner of the street. Olesya Gonchar and st. Bohdan Khmelnytsky
• Monument in Kharkov in “Victory Square” (behind the “Mirror Stream” fountain)
• Monument in Saratov on Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya Street, near school No. 72.
• Monument in Ishimbay near school No. 3
• Monument in Bryansk near school No. 35
• Bust in Bryansk near school No. 56
• Monument in Volgograd (on the territory of school No. 130)
• Monument in Chelyabinsk on Novorossiyskaya Street (in the courtyard of school No. 46).
• Monument in Rybinsk on Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya Street on the banks of the Volga.
• Monument in the city of Kherson near school No. 13.
• Bust near a school in the village of Barmino, Lyskovsky district, Nizhny Novgorod region.
• Bust in Izhevsk near school number 25
• Bust in Zheleznogorsk, Krasnoyarsk Territory, near gymnasium No. 91
• Monument in Berdsk (Novosibirsk region) near school No. 11
• Monument in the village of Bolshiye Vyazemy near the Bolshevyazemskaya gymnasium
• Monument in Donetsk in the courtyard of school number 54
• Monument in Khimki on Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya Street.
• Monument in Stavropol near gymnasium No. 12
• Monument in Barnaul near school No. 103
• Monument in the Rostov region, village. Tarasovsky, monument near school No. 1.
• Bust in the village of Ivankovo, Yasnogorsk district, Tula region, in the courtyard of the Ivankovo ​​secondary school
• Bust in the village Tarutino, Odessa region, near the primary secondary school
• Bust in Mariupol in the courtyard of school No. 34
• Bust in Novouzensk, Saratov region, near school No. 8

Fiction

• Margarita Aliger dedicated the poem “Zoe” to Zoya. In 1943, the poem was awarded the Stalin Prize.
• Lyubov Timofeevna Kosmodemyanskaya published “The Tale of Zoya and Shura”. Literary record of Frida Vigdorova.
• Soviet writer Vyacheslav Kovalevsky created a dilogy about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The first part, the story “Brother and Sister,” describes the school years of Zoya and Shura Kosmodemyansky. The story “Don't be afraid of death! "is dedicated to Zoya’s activities during the harsh years of the Great Patriotic War,
• The Turkish poet Nazim Hikmet and the Chinese poet Ai Qing dedicated poems to Zoya.
• A. L. Barto poems “Partisan Tanya”, “At the monument to Zoya”

Music

Painting

• Kukryniksy. “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya” (-)
• Dmitry Mochalsky “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya”
• K. N. Shchekotov “The Last Night (Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya).” 1948-1949. Canvas, oil. 182x170. OOMII named after. M. A. Vrubel. Omsk.

Movies

• “Zoe” is a 1944 film directed by Leo Arnstam.
• “In the Name of Life” is a 1946 film directed by Alexander Zarkhi and Joseph Kheifits. (There is an episode in this film where the actress plays the role of Zoya in the theater.)
• “The Great Patriotic War”, film 4. “Partisans. War behind enemy lines."
• “Battle for Moscow” is a 1985 film directed by Yuri Ozerov.

In philately

Other

Asteroid No. 1793 “Zoya” was named in honor of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, as well as asteroid No. 2072 “Kosmodemyanskaya” (according to the official version, it was named in honor of Lyubov Timofeevna Kosmodemyanskaya - the mother of Zoya and Sasha). Also the village of Kosmodemyansky in the Moscow region, Ruzsky district, and the Kosmodemyansk secondary school.

In Dnepropetrovsk, eight-year school No. 48 (now secondary school No. 48) was named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. Singer Joseph Kobzon, poets Igor Puppo and Oleg Klimov studied at this school.

The electric train ED2T-0041 (assigned to the Alexandrov depot) was named in honor of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

In Estonia, Ida Virumaa district, on the Kurtna lakes, a pioneer camp was named in honor of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

In Nizhny Novgorod, school No. 37 of the Avtozavodsky district, there is a children's association “Schools”, created in honor of Z. A. Kosmodemyanskaya. School students hold ceremonial celebrations on Zoya's birthday and death day.

In Novosibirsk there is a children's library named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

A tank regiment of the National People's Army of the GDR was named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

In Syktyvkar there is Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya Street.

In Penza there is a street named after Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya.

In the city of Kamensk-Shakhtinsky, on the Seversky Donets River, there is a children's camp named after Zoya Komodemyanskaya.

see also

• Kosmodemyansky, Alexander Anatolyevich - brother of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Hero of the Soviet Union
• Voloshina, Vera Danilovna - Soviet intelligence officer, hanged on the same day as Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
• Nazarova, Klavdiya Ivanovna - organizer and leader of the underground Komsomol organization

Literature

• Great Soviet Encyclopedia . In 30 volumes. Publisher: Soviet Encyclopedia, hardcover, 18,240 pp., circulation: 600,000 copies, 1970.
• Folk heroine. (Collection of materials about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya), M., 1943;
• Kosmodemyanskaya L. T., The Tale of Zoya and Shura. Publisher: LENIZDAT, 232 pp., circulation: 75,000 copies. 1951, Publisher: Children's Literature Publishing House, hardcover, 208 pp., circulation: 200,000 copies, 1956 M., 1966 Publisher: Children's Literature. Moscow, hardcover, 208 pp., circulation: 300,000 copies, 1976 Publisher: LENIZDAT, soft cover, 272 pp., circulation: 200,000 copies, 1974 Publisher: Narodnaya Asveta, hardcover, 206 pp., circulation: 300,000 copies ., 1978 Publisher: LENIZDAT, paperback, 256 pp., circulation: 200,000 copies, 1984
• Gorinov M. M. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya (1923-1941) // National history. - 2003.
• Savinov E. F. Zoya's comrades: Doc. feature article. Yaroslavl: Yaroslavl book. ed., 1958. 104 p.: ill. [About the combat work of the partisan detachment in which Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya fought.]
• You remained alive among the people...: A book about Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya / Compiled by: Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Valentina Dorozhkina, Honored Worker of Culture of the Russian Federation Ivan Ovsyannikov. Photos of Alexey and Boris Ladygin, Anatoly Alekseev, as well as from the collections of the Osinogaevsky and Borshchevsky museums.. - Collection of articles and essays. - Tambov: OGUP “Tambovpolygraphizdat”, 2003. - 180 p.

Documentary film

• “Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The truth about the feat" "Studio Third Rome" commissioned by State Television and Radio Broadcasting Company "Russia", 2005.

Notes

1. Some sources indicate the erroneous date of birth of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - September 8
2. Magazine "Rodina": Saint of Osinov Gai
3. Zoya changed her last name in 1930
4. M. M. Gorinov. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya // Domestic history
5. Closing of the church in the village of Osinovye Gai | History of the Tambov diocese: documents, research, persons
6. G. Naboishchikov. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya - Russian Maid of Orleans
7. Senyavskaya E. S."Heroic symbols: reality and mythology of war"
8. 1941-1942
9. ...The 197th Infantry Division and its 332nd Regiment found their death in two cauldrons near Vitebsk on June 26-27, 1944: between the villages of Gnezdilovo and Ostrovno and in the area of ​​Lake Moshno, north of the village of Zamoshenye
10. Mind Manipulation (book)
11. Library - PSYPORTAL
12. Vladimir Lota “About heroism and meanness”, “Red Star” February 16, 2002
13. Chapter 7. WHO BETRAYED ZOYA KOSMODEMYANSKAYA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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