And director Gerasimov also felt sorry for the audience - the film does not show all the torture that the guys endured. They were almost children, the youngest was barely 16. It’s scary to read these lines.
It’s scary to think about the inhuman suffering they endured. But we must know and remember what fascism is. The worst thing is that among those who mockingly killed the Young Guard, there were mainly policemen from the local population (the city of Krasnodon, where the tragedy occurred, is located in the Lugansk region). It is all the more terrible to watch now the revival of Nazism in Ukraine, the torchlight processions, and the slogans “Bandera is a hero!”
There is no doubt that today's twenty-year-old neo-fascists, the same age as their brutally tortured fellow countrymen, have not read this book or seen these photographs.
“They beat her and hung her by her braids. They lifted Anya out of the pit with one scythe - the other was broken.
Crimea, Feodosia, August 1940. Happy young girls. The most beautiful, with dark braids, is Anya Sopova.
January 31, 1943 after brutal torture Anya was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
She was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon.
Soviet people dreamed of being like the brave Krasnodon residents... They swore to avenge their death.
What can I say, tragic and beautiful story The Young Guards were shocked by the whole world, and not just the fragile minds of children.
The film became the box office leader in 1948, and the leading actors, unknown students of VGIK, immediately received the title of Laureate Stalin Prize- an exceptional case. “Woke up famous” is about them.
Ivanov, Mordyukova, Makarova, Gurzo, Shagalova - letters from all over the world came to them in bags.
Gerasimov, of course, felt sorry for the audience. Fadeev - readers.
Neither paper nor film could convey what really happened that winter in Krasnodon.
But what is happening now in Ukraine.
Is it a myth or reality on the pages of history? Soviet Union? Many still believe that this is a fiction. But unfortunately, this whole story is the true and bitter truth. February...
Is it a myth or reality on the pages of the history of the Soviet Union? Many still believe that this is a fiction. But unfortunately, this whole story is the true and bitter truth.
February 1943 liberation of the town of Krasnodon from the German occupiers Donetsk region. Soviet soldiers from mine No5 near settlement They retrieved dozens of brutally mutilated bodies. These were the bodies of teenagers from a local town who, while in the occupied territory, were active participants in the illegal association “Young Guard”. Near the forgotten mine, most of the members of the illegal organization of Komsomol members "Young Guard" in last time saw the sunshine. They were killed.
Young Komsomol members, starting in 1942, resisted the fascists in the small town of Krasnodon, which is located on the territory of Ukraine. Previously, there was very little information about such organizations. And “Young Guard” is the first youth society about which we managed to find a lot of detailed data. The Young Guards, as they were called from now on, were true patriots who, at the cost of their lives, fought for the freedom of their homeland. Just recently, everyone knew about these guys without exception.
The feat of these guys is captured in the book by A. Fadeev, in the film by S. Gerasimov, ships, schools, pioneer detachments, and so on were named in their honor. Who are these heroic guys?
The Komsomol youth organization of Krasnodon included 71 participants: 47 of them were boys and 24 girls. The youngest of them was 14 years old, and most of them never celebrated their nineteenth birthday. These were simple guys of their country, they were characterized by the most ordinary human feelings, they lived the most ordinary life Soviet person.
The organization did not know national boundaries, they did not divide into their own and not very much. Each of them was ready to come to the aid of the other even at the cost of his life.
The capture of Krasnodon took place on July 20, 1942. The Germans immediately encountered partisan activity. Sergei Tyulenin, a seventeen-year-old boy, began the underground struggle alone. Sergei was the first to unite young people to fight the Germans.
At the beginning there were only 8 of them. September 30 became the day from which the date of creation of the organization should be considered. A project for the formation of a society was established, certain actions were planned, and a headquarters was founded. Everyone unanimously agreed to name the organization “Young Guard”.
Already in October, small autonomous illegal groups united into one organization. Ivan Zemnukhov was appointed chief of staff, Vasily Levashov - commander of the central group, Georgy Arutyunyants and Sergey Tyulenin became members of the headquarters. Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissioner.
Today you can often hear that these guys did absolutely nothing heroic. Leaflets, collecting weapons, arson - all this did not solve anything in the fight against the fascists. But those who say this don’t know what it’s like to first print leaflets, and then go paste them in the night, when for this they can be shot on the spot, or carry a couple of grenades in a bag, for which death is also inevitable. They set fires, hung red flags, freed prisoners, and took away livestock. The guys did all this clearly realizing that any of these actions would result in death.
Alas, December was marked by the first infighting. It was because of them that in the future Oleg Koshevoy was considered the commissar of the Young Guards. And this happened because Koshevoy wanted one and a half to two dozen people to be singled out from among the members of the underground who would act autonomously from everyone else, and Koshevoy himself would be their commissar. He was not supported. But Koshevoy did not calm down and signed temporary Komsomol cards for the newly admitted guys, instead of Tretyakevich.
On the very first day of 1943, E. Moshkov, V. Tretyakevich and I. Zemnukhov were arrested. The remaining members of the underground, having learned about the arrest, decided to leave the city. But the notorious human factor. One of the Young Guards, G. Pocheptsov, having heard about the arrests, behaved like a coward and made a denunciation to the police about the underground.
The punitive forces are on the move. Arrests followed one after another. Many of those who were not arrested were hesitant to leave the city. In fact, they violated the decision of the headquarters to leave Krasnodon. Only 12 guys took the plunge and disappeared. However, this did not save Tyulenin and Koshevoy; they were captured anyway.
Mass monstrous and inhuman torture of captured Young Guards began. The fascists, having learned that Tretyakevich was the leader of the Young Guard, tortured him with particular cruelty; they needed his testimony, but this did not help. They spread gossip around the city that Victor had told everything. Everyone who knew him did not believe it.
On January 15, 1943, the first Young Guards were executed, including Tretyakevich. They were thrown into an old mine.
January 31 - the third group was shot. Allegedly, A. Kovalev was lucky enough to escape, but then there was no information about him.
Only four of the underground guys remained, among them Koshevoy. On February 9 in Rovenki they were killed and shot.
On February 14, soldiers of the Soviet Union army came to the city. From now on, February 17 will forever be mournful and filled with grief. On this day, the bodies of the Young Guards were taken out. A monument was erected at the grave with the names of those killed; Tretyakevich’s name is not on it. His mother spent the rest of her life in mourning. Many refused to believe in the betrayal of the head of the organization, but the commission did not confirm her innocence.
After 16 years, it was possible to detain the most brutal executioner; it was he who subjected the young guys, V. Podtynny, to sophisticated torture. During interrogations they finally found out that Tretyakevich had been slandered.
It took 17 long years for his good name to be restored, to be rewarded, his mother waited until her son’s name was cleared. As a result, the label of a traitor was removed from V. Tretyakevich, but the title of commissar was not returned and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, like the others, was not awarded.
What was the fate of the surviving Young Guards? What do we know about them? Only eight members of the Young Guard survived the Great Patriotic War.
Arutyunyants Georgy
During the arrests of underground members in January 1943, Georgy managed to leave the city. In the ranks of the Red Army, he took part in battles with the Nazi invaders.
In 1957, Harutyunyants graduated from the Military-Political Academy named after V.I. Lenin, served in the ranks Soviet army. He was an unusually modest and sympathetic person. IN last years During his life, Colonel Harutyunyants worked at the V.I. Lenin Academy as a teacher. Graduated from graduate school. In 1969 he was awarded the academic degree of Candidate of Historical Sciences.
Awarded the Order of the Red Star, Order Patriotic War 1st degree and medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War” 1st degree
G. M. Harutyunyants died on April 26, 1973 after a serious and long illness. He was buried in Moscow at the Novodevichy cemetery.
Borts Valeria
After the liberation of Krasnodon, Valeria Borts continued her studies: she passed the exams for high school and in August 1943 she entered the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages.
After graduating from the institute, she worked as a translator and referent for Spanish and English languages at the Bureau of Foreign Literature at the Military Technical Publishing House. In 1963, Valeria Davydovna was sent to Cuba as an editor of technical literature on Spanish, and in 1971 she was sent to Poland, where she continued to serve in the ranks of the Soviet Army. In 1953 she joined the CPSU. But at the end of her life - in 1994 - she left the Communist Party.
She was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, the Order of the Red Star and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree, as well as many medals for impeccable service in the ranks of the Soviet Army.
Valeria Borts - Master of Sports of the USSR in motor sports (1960). In 1957, she and her husband first took part in official rally competitions. At the end of her life, Valeria Davydovna, a reserve lieutenant colonel, lived in Moscow. She died on January 14, 1996; her ashes, according to her will, were scattered over pit No. 5 in Krasnodon.
In 1948, Nina Mikhailovna graduated from the Donetsk Party School, and in 1953 from the Voroshilovgrad Pedagogical Institute. She worked in the apparatus of the Voroshilovgrad Regional Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.
At the end of her life she was retired; she died on January 1, 1982, and was buried in Lugansk.
She was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, medals “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree, “For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945” and others.
Ivantsova Olga
At the beginning of January 1943, after the first arrests of underground workers, Olga and her sister left the city. In February, together with units of the Red Army, they returned to Krasnodon.
Upon returning to Krasnodon, she became a Komsomol worker. Working as the second secretary of the Komsomol district committee, Olga Ivantsova raised funds for the Young Guard tank column and the Heroes of Krasnodon air squadron, and took an active part in the creation of the Young Guard museum and in collecting exhibits for it. Olga Ivantsova was the first tour guide of the museum.
In 1947, Olga Ivantsova was elected deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the Ukrainian SSR of the 2nd convocation. In 1948, she joined the ranks of the CPSU. In 1954 she graduated from the Lviv Higher Trade School. I was at party work in the city of Krivoy Rog, Dnepropetrovsk region, and worked in trade. She was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree.
Olga Ivanovna died on June 16, 2001, and was buried in Krivoy Rog.
Levashov Vasily
In August 1945, Vasily Ivanovich Levashov, lieutenant of the 1038th Infantry Regiment of the 295th Infantry Division, was sent to courses at the Engels Leningrad Political School, and in 1947, after graduation, to Navy. Until 1949, Vasily Ivanovich served on the Black Sea, on the cruiser Voroshilov, and from 1949 to 1953 he studied at the Lenin Military-Political Academy. After graduation he served on warships
Red Banner Baltic Fleet: was deputy commander of the destroyer "Stoikiy" and the cruiser "Sverdlov".
Since 1973, he worked as a senior lecturer at the department of party political work (associate professor) of the Higher naval school radio electronics named after A. S. Popov in Leningrad. He graduated from service with the rank of captain 1st rank. From 1991 until the end of his life, he was a member of the RCRP.
On June 22, 2001, he compiled the “Address of the last Young Guard member to the youth.” He died on July 10, 2001, and was buried on July 13 at the Old Peterhof military cemetery in St. Petersburg.
Family: wife Ninel Dmitrievna, daughter Maria and granddaughter Nellie, named after her grandmother.
Orders:
Red Star - for participation in the liberation of Kherson.
Patriotic War, 2nd degree - for the liberation of Warsaw.
Patriotic War, 2nd degree - for participation in the capture of Küstrin.
Patriotic War 1st degree - for the capture of Berlin.
Medals:
"For the liberation of Warsaw."
"For the capture of Berlin."
"For the victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."
"Partisan of the Patriotic War" 2nd degree.
"For military merits."
Lopukhov Anatoly
In January 1943, Anatoly Lopukhov managed to avoid arrest. He left Krasnodon and hid for a long time in mining villages. In the Aleksandrovka area, not far from Voroshilovgrad, he crossed the front line and voluntarily joined the ranks of the Red Army. He took part in the battles for the liberation of Ukraine. On October 10, 1943 he was wounded.
After the hospital, he came to his native Krasnodon. Here he took an active part in the creation of the “Young Guard” museum, was its first director, and carried out extensive educational work among young people. In September 1944, Anatoly Lopukhov entered the Leningrad Anti-Aircraft Artillery School. After graduation, he was a platoon commander and secretary of the Komsomol bureau of the unit, then assistant to the head of the school’s political department for work among Komsomol members. In 1948, Anatoly Vladimirovich became a member of the Communist Party. In 1955, Captain Lopukhov was admitted to the Military-Political Academy named after V.I. Lenin. After graduation, he served as a political worker in military units Air defense of the Soviet Army. In subsequent years, he worked in many regions of the Soviet Union, and was repeatedly elected as a deputy of city and regional Soviets of Working People's Deputies.
Awarded the Order of the Red Star, medals “Partisan of the Patriotic War” 1st degree, “For Courage” and others.
He died on October 5, 1990 in Dnepropetrovsk, where he lived after military service.
Shishchenko Mikhail
IN post-war years Mikhail Tarasovich worked as chairman of the Rovenkovsky district committee of the coal miners' trade union, assistant to the head of the Dzerzhinsky mine administration, secretary of the party organization of the Almaznyansky mine administration, and deputy manager of the Frunzeugol trust. In 1961 he graduated from the Rovenkovsky Mining College. In 1970, he was appointed deputy head of the logistics department of the Donbassantracite plant. In recent years, he worked as assistant director of the mine named after the XXIII Congress of the CPSU for personnel. Residents of the city of Rovenki repeatedly elected him as a deputy of the city council.
He was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the October Revolution, and the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree.
Died May 5, 1979. He was buried in the city cemetery in Rovenki.
Yurkin Radium
In October 1943, the Central Committee of the Komsomol sent Radiy to the pilot school for initial training, after which in January 1945 he received an appointment to Pacific Fleet. He took part in battles with Japanese militarists. Then he served in the Red Banner Baltic and Black Sea fleets.
In 1950, Radiy Yurkin graduated from the Yeisk Military Aviation School. During his studies, he was elected a member of the Krasnodar Regional Komsomol Committee and was a delegate to the XI Congress of the Komsomol. In 1951 he became a member of the CPSU. In 1957, due to health reasons, he was transferred to the reserve. Lived in the city of Krasnodon. He worked as a mechanic in the Krasnodon motorcade. He devoted a lot of time and effort to the military-patriotic education of youth, and was a passionate promoter of the unprecedented feat of his fellow Young Guards. Together with other surviving Young Guard members, Radiy Petrovich participated in the rehabilitation of Viktor Tretyakevich, who became a victim of a slander on the part of one of the policemen, who claimed that Viktor could not stand the torture and betrayed his comrades. Only in 1959 was it possible to restore his honest name.
“Young Guard”: but still young people were killed
The FSB Central Archive provided us with the opportunity to study Case No. 20056 - twenty-eight volumes of investigation materials on charges of police officers and German gendarmes in the massacre of the underground organization “Young Guard”, which operated in the Ukrainian city of Krasnodon in 1942. Let us recall that the novel “The Young Guard,” which we have not re-read for a long time, tells in detail about these events. The writer Alexander Fadeev made a special trip to Krasnodon after his release and wrote an essay for Pravda, and then a book. With the same name.
Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin and Lyubov Shevtsova were immediately awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
After this, not only the dead, but even the surviving “Young Guards” no longer belonged to themselves, but to Fadeev. In 1951, at the insistence of the Central Committee, he introduced communist mentors into his book. Here and in real life, kilometers of dissertations were written about their role in the leadership of the Krasnodon youth underground. And not the writer from eyewitnesses, but real participants in the events began to ask the writer: what was the Young Guard really doing? Who led it? Who betrayed her? Fadeev replied: “I wrote a novel, not a story.”
The investigation was hot on the trail when not all the witnesses and accused had yet read the novel, which quickly became a classic. This means that in their memory and testimony, the well-known underground book heroes have not yet managed to replace the completely real boys and girls executed by the Krasnodon police. So, after reviewing the facts, the author found...
One of the Young Guard leaflets
The “Young Guard” was invented twice. First at the Krasnodon police. Then Alexander Fadeev. Before a criminal case was opened regarding the theft of New Year's gifts at a local bazaar, SUCH an underground youth organization that we have known about since childhood did not exist in Krasnodon.
Or did it still exist? So, the facts.
From the materials of case No. 20056: Valya Borts:“I joined the Young Guard through my school friend Seryozha Safonov, who introduced me to Sergei Tyulenin in August 1942. At that time the organization was small and was called the “Hammer” detachment. Took the oath. The commander was Viktor Tretyakevich, the commissar was Oleg Koshevoy, and the members of the headquarters were Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin and Ulyana Gromova. Later the headquarters was expanded to include Lyuba Shevtsova.”
Korostylev, engineer of the Krasnougol trust:“One day at the beginning of October 1942, I handed over a radio receiver to the Young Guards. The reports they recorded were multiplied and then distributed throughout the city.”
Valya Borts:“...On November 7, red flags were hung on the buildings of the coal directorate and the club of mine No. 5-bis. The labor exchange was burned, in which lists of Soviet citizens subject to deportation to Germany were kept. Shevtsova, Lukyanchenko and Tyulenin set fire to the labor exchange.”
Krasnodon police building where prisoners were kept
That's all, perhaps. Of course, it’s not for us to judge whether this is a lot or a little when we're talking about about life and death, but even the gendarmes and police officers involved in Case No. 20056, just three years after the Krasnodon events, had difficulty remembering the Young Guard. They were never able to say how many people it consisted of, or what it actually did. At first, they didn’t even understand why, out of everything they managed to do during the war, the investigation was interested in this short episode with teenagers.
In fact, only twenty-five gendarmes were left to support the Ordnung of the Germans in the entire area. Then five more were seconded. They were led by a fifty-year-old German - the head of the gendarmerie Renatus, a member of the NSDAP since 1933. And for every thirty Germans in the area there were four hundred police officers. And the competition for a position in the police was such that they hired only on recommendation.
“On the facts of arson at the labor exchange and hanging flags,” the police reported the next day: eight people were arrested. The head of the gendarmerie, without hesitation, ordered everyone to be shot.
In the Case there is a mention of only one victim of police reporting - the daughter of the collective farm manager Kaseev, who admitted to hanging the flags. It is absolutely known that Kaseeva was never a “Young Guard” and is not on the list of heroes.
The “culprit” of posting leaflets was also found immediately. The wife of a coal directorate engineer was just solving family problems. And, in order to get rid of her husband, she reported to the police: there was an engineer here who was in contact with the partisans. The "poster" was miraculously saved by his neighbor next door, burgomaster Statsenko.
Alexander Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard”
Where did the myth about a huge, branched underground organization that poses a terrible threat to the Germans come from?
On the night of December 25-26, 1942, a German car containing mail and New Year's gifts for German soldiers and officers. The driver of the car reported this to the Krasnodon gendarmerie.
The head of the Krasnodon police, Solikovsky, gathered all the police, showed a pack of cigarettes of the same brand as the stolen ones, and ordered them to immediately go to the local bazaar and bring to the police anyone who would sell such cigarettes.
Soon, the translator Burgart and a German in civilian clothes walking with him through the bazaar managed to detain twelve-year-old Alexander Grinev (aka Puzyrev). The boy admitted that Evgeny Moshkov gave him the cigarettes. Eight boxes of cigarettes and cookies were found in Moshkov’s apartment. So the head of the club, Moshkov, the head of the string circle, Tretyakevich, and some others were arrested.
And then they took Olga Lyadskaya. In fact, she was arrested completely by accident. They came to Tosa Mashchenko in search of the “robber” Valya Borts, who by that time was already walking towards the front line. The policeman liked Tosya's tablecloth and decided to take it with him. Under the tablecloth lay an unsent letter from Lyadskaya to her acquaintance Fyodor Izvarin. She wrote that she did not want to go to Germany for “SLAVERY”. That's right: in quotes and in capital letters.
Olga Lyadskaya (in the center) was also called a traitor, although she could not betray anyone
Investigator Zakharov promised to hang Lyadskaya at the market for her capital letters in quotation marks, unless he immediately names others who are dissatisfied with the new order. She asked: who is already in the police? The investigator cheated and named Tosya Mashchenko, who had been released by him by that time. Then Lyadskaya showed that Mashchenko was unreliable.
The investigator didn't expect anything more. But Lyadskaya was hooked and named a couple more names - those she remembered from active Komsomol work before the war, who had nothing to do with the Young Guard.
From the materials of case No. 20056: Lyadskaya:“I named the people whom I suspected of partisan activity: Kozyrev, Tretyakevich, Nikolaenko, because they once asked me if there were partisans on our farm and if I was helping them. And after Solikovsky threatened to beat me up, I betrayed Mashchenko’s friend Borts...” And eighty more people. Even according to post-war lists, there were about seventy members of the organization...
For a long time, in addition to Lyadskaya, the “Young Guard” Pocheptsov was considered an “official” traitor. Indeed, investigator Cherenkov recalls that Gennady Pocheptsov, nephew former boss Krasnodon police, handed over the group in writing to Solikovsky and Zakharov in the village of Pervomaisky. And he issued the MG headquarters in this order: Tretyakevich (chief), Lukashev, Zemnukhov, Safonov and Koshevoy. He also named the commander of his “five” - Popov.
Brought to the police, Tosya Mashchenko admitted that she had distributed leaflets. And she extradited Tretyakevich, who had been extradited for the third time since the New Year. Tretyakevich betrayed Shevtsov and began calling “Young Guards” entire villages.
Sergei Tyulenin is one of the most reckless “Young Guards”
The circle of suspects expanded so much that chief Solikovsky even managed to get the son of burgomaster Statsenko into the police force. And, judging by the post-war testimony of the pope, Zhora told everything he knew about his friends whispering behind their backs. His father rescued him, just like the engineer who had been arrested “for leaflets” before. By the way, he also came running and reported that Oleg Koshevoy’s radio was being listened to illegally in his apartment.
Indeed, the “Young Guard” Gennady Pocheptsov, who after the war was made “an official traitor to the Young Guard,” betrayed on his own initiative. But he no longer told Solikovsky anything new.
The documents mention the Chinese Yakov Ka-Fu as a traitor to the Young Guard. Investigator Zakharov told investigator Orlov already in Italy, at the very end of the war, that this Chinese man betrayed the organization. The post-war investigation could establish only one thing: Yakov could have been offended by Soviet power, because before the war he was removed from work due to poor knowledge of the Russian language.
Imagine how the offended Chinese Ka-Fu betrayed the underground organization. How he answered the investigators' questions in detail - probably on his fingers. It is strange that the list of “Young Guards” did not include, if not all of China, then at least the entire Krasnodon region “Shanghai”.
For decades there has been a debate about what real story“The Young Guard” differs from that written by Fadeev. It turns out that the argument was pointless. Case No. 20056 is about the fact that the book embellished not life, but a myth already created before the writer. At first, the exploits of the youth underground were multiplied by the Krasnodon police themselves.
Viktor Tretyakevich was first labeled a traitor
For what? Let's not forget that the Krasnodon police did not fall from the moon and did not come from the Third Reich. To report to your superiors, uncovering an ordinary robbery is much less significant than an entire underground organization. And once opened, it was not difficult for the former Soviets to believe in it. For former Soviets - on both sides of the front.
But all this was just the prehistory of the Young Guard. The story begins only now.
From the materials of case No. 20056: Maria Borts:“...When I entered the office, Solikovsky was sitting at the table. In front of him lay a set of whips: thick, thin, wide, belts with lead tips. Vanya Zemnukhov, mutilated beyond recognition, stood by the sofa. His eyes were red, his eyelids were very inflamed. There are abrasions and bruises on the face. All of Vanya’s clothes were covered in blood, the shirt on his back was stuck to his body, and blood was seeping through it.”
Nina Zemnukhova:“From a resident of Krasnodon, Lensky Rafail Vasilyevich, who was kept in the same cell with Vanya, I learned that the executioners took Vanya, naked, into the police yard and beat him in the snow until he lost consciousness.
Zhenya Moshkov was taken to the Kamenka River, frozen in an ice hole and then thawed in a nearby hut in an oven, after which they were again taken to the police for interrogation... Volodya Osmukhin had a bone broken in his arm, and every time during interrogation his broken arm was twisted...”
Ulyana Gromova
Tyulenina (Sergei's mother):“On the third day after my arrest, I was summoned for questioning where Seryozha was. Solikovsky, Zakharov and Cherenkov forced me to strip naked, and then beat me with whips until I lost consciousness. And when I woke up, they began to burn Seryozha’s wound with a hot rod in my presence. right hand. The fingers were placed under the doors and squeezed until they were completely dead. Needles were driven under the nails and hung on ropes. The air in the room where the torture was carried out was filled with the smell of burnt meat. ...In the cells, policeman Avsetsin did not give us water for whole days in order to at least slightly moisten the blood that had dried in our mouth and throat.”
Cherenkov (police investigator): “I conducted a confrontation between Gromova, Ivanikhina and Zemnukhov. At that moment, Solikovsky and his wife entered the office. Having laid Gromova and Ivanikhin on the floor, I began to beat them. Solikovsky, egged on by his wife, snatched the whip from my hands and began to deal with the arrested himself. ...Since the prison cells were filled with young people, many, like Olga Ivantsova’s mother, were simply lying around in the corridor.”
Maria Borts:“...Solikovsky, Zakharov, Davidenko forced the girls to strip naked, and then they began to mock them, accompanied by beatings. Sometimes this was done in the presence of Solikovsky’s wife, who usually sat on the sofa and burst into laughter. ...Ulya Gromova was hung up by her braids... Her chest was trampled under boots. ...Policeman Bautkin beat Popov with a whip and forced him to lick up the blood that splashed on the wall with his tongue.”
Suicide note from Uli Gromova
In 1948, Sergei Gerasimov filmed his film “The Young Guard”. The whole city gathered to film the scene of the execution of underground workers at the mine. And Krasnodon roared loudly when the actor playing Oleg Koshevoy, Alexander Ivanov, was the first to go to the pit... It is unlikely that, knowing that Koshevoy was not shot at the mine, they would have cried less.
The decision to execute at mine No. 5-bis was made by the police chief Solikovsky and burgomaster Statsenko. The place was checked, Krasnodon residents had already been shot there.
According to the Case, the “Young Guards” were taken to execution in four stages. The first time, on January 13, there were thirteen girls in a truck, with six Jews attached to them. First, the Jews were shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5-bis. And then the girls started shouting that they were not guilty of anything. The police began to lift and tie the girls' dresses over their heads. And some were thrown into the mine alive.
The next day, sixteen more people were taken to the mine on three carts, including Moshkov and Popov.
Tretyakevich was thrown into the mine alive because he managed to grab police investigator Zakharov and tried to drag him along with him. So decide for yourself what Viktor Tretyakevich really was like, about whom not a single writer wrote a single line for twenty years after his execution.
Place of execution of the “Young Guards”
The third time - on January 15 - seven girls and five boys were taken out on two carts. And for the last time, in early February, Tyulenin and four others were taken out on one cart. Then the execution almost fell through. Kovalev and Grigorenko managed to untie each other’s hands. Grigorenko was killed by the translator Burgart, and Kovalev was only wounded - then they found his coat, pierced by a bullet. The rest were hastily shot and thrown into the mine.
For almost a week, Oleg Koshevoy hid from persecution in the villages, dressed in a woman’s dress. Then he lay down for three days - under a bed in a relative’s apartment. Koshevoy thought that the Krasnodon police were looking for him as a commissar of the Young Guard. In fact, he was caught as a participant in the robbery of a car with New Year's gifts. But they took him for neither one nor the other - simply because in the front-line zone they grabbed and searched all the young people...
The executioners remembered the look of the gray-haired boy Oleg Koshevoy forever
...Koshevoy was taken to the Rivne district gendarmerie to investigator Orlov. Oleg knew: this is the same Ivan Orlov who once called in for questioning and raped the teacher. And the Germans even had to “meet the population halfway” and remove Orlov from Krasnodon here, to Rovenki.
Koshevoy shouted to Orlov: I am an underground commissar! But the investigator didn’t listen about the Young Guard: how could real partisans pretend to be so stupid? But the young man irritated the investigator so much that during six days of interrogation Oleg turned gray.
The Germans from the firing squad testified about how Koshevoy died. They hardly remembered how, during breakfast, the chief of the gendarmerie Fromme came into the dining room and said: hurry up, there is work. As usual, they took the prisoners into the forest, divided them into two parties, and placed them facing the pits...
But they clearly remembered that after the volley one gray-haired boy did not fall into the hole, but remained lying on the edge. He turned his head and simply looked in their direction. Gendarme Drewitz could not stand it, he came up and shot him in the back of the head with a rifle...
For the Germans, neither the name of Oleg Koshevoy nor the “Young Guard” existed. But even a few years after the war, they did not forget the look of the gray-haired boy lying on the edge of the pit...
After the liberation of Krasnodon, on March 1, 1943, forty-nine corpses of the dead were placed in coffins and transported to the park named after. Komsomol. It snowed, immediately turning into mud. The funeral lasted from morning until late evening...
Monument to the “Young Guards” in Krasnodon
In 1949, Lyadskaya asked to be given the opportunity to independently complete the 10th grade program, because she had been in prison since the age of seventeen. Olga Lyadskaya was rehabilitated in the mid-nineties on the grounds that she was not a member of the Young Guard youth Komsomol organization, and therefore could not extradite her.
In 1960, Viktor Tretyakevich was included in the lists of the Young Guard and awarded the order Patriotic War I degree posthumously...
The editors express their gratitude to the leadership of the Central Election Commission of the FSB.
Eric SHUR, "Top Secret"
First Soviet people I learned the history of the “Young Guard” in 1943, immediately after the liberation of Krasnodon by the Red Army. The underground organization “Young Guard” included seventy-one people: forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls, the youngest was 14 years old.
Krasnodon was occupied by the enemy on July 20, 1942. Sergei Tyulenin was the first to start underground activities. He acted boldly, scattered leaflets, began collecting weapons, and attracted a group of guys ready for an underground struggle. This is how the story of the Young Guard began.
On September 30, the detachment’s action plan was approved and headquarters was organized. Ivan Zemnukhov was appointed chief of staff, Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissar. Tyulenin came up with a name for the underground organization - “Young Guard”. By October, all the disparate groups united and the legendary Oleg Koshevoy and Ivan Turkenich, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova entered the headquarters of the Young Guard.
The Young Guards posted leaflets, collected weapons, burned grain and poisoned food intended for the occupiers. In a day October revolution They hung several flags, burned the Labor Exchange, and thereby saved more than 2,000 people sent to work in Germany. By December 1942, the Young Guards had a fair amount of weapons and explosives stored in their warehouse. They were preparing for open battle. In total, the underground organization “Young Guard” distributed more than five thousand leaflets - from them residents of occupied Krasnodon learned news from the fronts.
The underground organization “Young Guard” committed many desperately courageous acts, and the most active and courageous members of the “Young Guard”, such as Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Sergei Tyulenin, Ivan Zemnukhov, could not be restrained from recklessness. They wanted to completely “twist the hands of the enemy”, already before the arrival of the Victorious Red Army.
Their careless actions (seizure of the New Year's convoy with gifts for the Germans in December 1942) led to punitive actions.
On January 1, 1943, Young Guard members Viktor Tretyakevich, Ivan Zemnukhov, and Evgeniy Moshkov were arrested. The headquarters decided to immediately leave the city, and all Young Guards were ordered not to spend the night at home. Headquarters liaison officers conveyed the news to all underground fighters. Among the connections there was a traitor - Gennady Pocheptsov, when he learned about the arrests, he chickened out and reported to the police about the existence of an underground organization.
Mass arrests began. Many members of the underground organization “Young Guard” thought that leaving meant betraying their captured comrades. They did not realize that it was better to retreat to their own, save lives and fight until victory. Most didn't leave. Everyone was afraid for their parents. Only twelve Young Guards escaped. 10 survived, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless caught.
Youth, fearlessness, and courage helped the majority of the Young Guards to withstand with honor the cruel tortures to which they were subjected by a ruthless enemy. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” describes terrible episodes of torture.
Pocheptsov betrayed Tretyakevich as one of the leaders of the underground organization “Young Guard”. He was tortured with extreme cruelty. The young hero courageously remained silent, then a rumor was spread among those arrested and in the city that it was Tretyakevich who betrayed everyone.
Young Guard member Viktor Tretyakevich, accused of treason, was acquitted only in the 50s, when the trial of one of the executioners, Vasily Podtynny, took place, who admitted that it was not Tretyakevich, but Pocheptsov who betrayed everyone.
And only on December 13, 1960, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Viktor Tretyakevich was rehabilitated and posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.
When Viktor Tretyakevich’s mother was presented with the award, she asked not to show Sergei Gerasimov’s film “The Young Guard,” where her son appears as a traitor.
More than 50 young people died at the very beginning of their lives, after terrible suffering, without betraying their idea, their Motherland, or faith in Victory.
Executions of Young Guards took place from mid-January to February 1943; batches of exhausted Komsomol members were thrown into abandoned coal mines. Many could not be identified after their bodies were removed by relatives and friends, so they were mutilated beyond recognition.
Krasnodon entered on February 14 Soviet troops. On February 17, the city dressed in mourning. A wooden obelisk was erected at the mass grave with the names of the victims and the words:
And drops of your hot blood,
Like sparks, they will flash in the darkness of life
And many brave hearts will be lit!
The courage of the Young Guards instilled courage and dedication in future generations of Soviet youth. The names of the Young Guard are sacred to us, and it’s scary to think today that someone is trying to depersonalize and belittle their heroic lives, sacrificed to the common goal of the Great Victory.
Victoria Maltseva
