Elizaveta Starichenkova, Ruzanna Arushanyan, 9th grade students
The presentation is dedicated to the 70th anniversary of the creation of the underground organization “Young Guard” in the city of Krasnodon. It tells about the activities of the Young Guards during the Great Patriotic War, about the heroes of Krasnodon, about how we now preserve the memory of them...
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Dedicated to the heroes of Krasnodon... Completed by: Starichenkova E., Arushanyan R., 9th grade students of school 594, St. Petersburg
Let you die... But in the song of the brave and strong in spirit you will always be a living example, a proud call to freedom, to light! We sing a song to the madness of the brave!
“Young Guard” is an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization that operated during the Great Patriotic War, mainly in the city of Krasnodon, Lugansk (Voroshilovgrad) region (Ukrainian SSR). It consisted of about 110 participants. Many of them have just finished school. The youngest was 14 years old. The members of the organization are called Young Guards.
Underground youth groups arose in Krasnodon immediately after its occupation by German troops. At the end of September 1942, underground youth groups united into the “Young Guard”, the name was proposed by Sergei Tyulenin. Ivan Turkenich became the commander of the organization.
"...I swear to take merciless revenge for the devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people. If this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment of hesitation." Oath of the Young Guards
Activities of the Young Guard The Young Guard issued and distributed more than 5 thousand anti-fascist leaflets. Members of the organization destroyed enemy vehicles with soldiers, ammunition and fuel.
They set fire to the labor exchange building, where lists of people destined for deportation to Germany were kept, thereby saving about 2,000 people from being deported to Germany. They were preparing to stage an armed uprising in Krasnodon in order to defeat the German garrison and join the advancing units of the Soviet army.
Disclosure of the "Young Guard" The search for partisans intensified after the Young Guard carried out a daring raid on German cars with New Year's gifts that the underground wanted to use for their needs. G. Pocheptsov, who was a member of the Young Guard, and his stepfather V. Gromov reported on Komsomol members and communists known to them, while G. Pocheptsov reported the names of members of the Young Guard known to him. On January 5, 1943, the police began mass arrests, which continued until January 11.
The fate of the Young Guards In the fascist dungeons, the Young Guards courageously and steadfastly withstood the most severe torture. On January 15, 16 and 31, 1943, the Nazis dropped 71 people, some alive, some shot. into the pit of mine No. 5, 53 m deep.
E.N. Koshevaya with the surviving Young Guard members - Nina Ivantsova, Anatoly Lopukhov, Georgy Arutyunyants. 1947
Still from the film “Young Guard” Director Sergei Gerasimov
Young Guard members All were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War”, 1st degree. They were awarded the title of Heroes Soviet Union posthumously.
Ivan Turkenich (1920-1944) In May-July 1942 he was at the front. Having been captured in one of the battles on the Don, he escaped, returned to Krasnodon and became the commander of the Young Guard. On August 13, 1944, during the battle for the Polish town of Glogow, Captain Ivan Turkenich was mortally wounded and died a day later. He was buried in the Polish city of Rzeszow at the cemetery of Soviet soldiers.
Ivan Zemnukhov (1923-1943) He played an important role in the creation of an underground printing house. In December 1942, he became the administrator of the amateur artistic circle named after. A. Gorky. This club essentially became the headquarters of the Young Guards. On the night of January 15-16, 1943, after terrible torture, he and his comrades were thrown alive into the pit of mine No. 5. He was buried in a mass grave in the city of Krasnodon.
Oleg Koshevoy (1926-1943) In 1940, Oleg began studying at the school named after A. Gorky, where he met the future Young Guards and became one of them. Koshevoy tried to cross the front line, but was captured at the Kartushino station - during a routine search at the checkpoint, he was found to have a pistol, blank forms of an underground participant and a Komsomol card sewn into his clothes, which he refused to leave, contrary to the requirements of conspiracy. After torture he was shot on February 9, 1943.
Ulyana Gromova (1924-1943) Gromova was elected a member of the headquarters of the underground Komsomol organization. She took part in the preparation of military operations, distributed leaflets, and collected. On the eve of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, together with Anatoly Popov, Ulyana hung a red flag on the mine chimney. In January 1943, she was arrested by the Gestapo. A five-pointed star was carved on her back, and her right arm was broken.
Lyubov Shevtsova (1924-1943) In February 1942 she joined the Komsomol. In the summer of 1942, she graduated from the intelligence school of the State Security Administration and was left to work in occupied Voroshilovgrad. For various reasons, she was left without leadership and independently contacted the Krasnodon underground. As a result of betrayal, she was arrested by the Krasnodon police on January 8, 1943 and, after brutal torture, on February 9, she was shot in the Thunderous Forest on the outskirts of the city of Rovenki.
Sergei Tyulenin (1925-1943) Successfully carried out combat missions of the organization’s headquarters: participated in distributing leaflets, collecting weapons, ammunition, and explosives. On the night of December 6, 1942, he participated in the arson of the labor exchange. On January 27, 1943, Sergei Tyulenin was arrested by the occupation authorities and, after severe torture, on January 31, he was shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
Eternal memory to the Young Guards... How scary it is to die at 16, How you want to fucking live. Don't shed tears, but smile, fall in love and raise children. But the sun is setting. They won't be able to meet the dawn anymore. The boys went into immortality, In the prime of their youth...
The feat of the heroes of the “Young Guard” is captured in the novel of the same name by A.A. Fadeev. “This heroic theme captivated me. I wrote with enormous intensity and passion. I write about everything as it really happened.” - A.A. Fadeev. Eternal memory to the Young Guards...
The hero’s mother, Elena Koshevaya, talks about the life of Oleg Koshevoy and his selfless struggle in her book. The book is imbued with unspent maternal love and affection. Eternal memory to the Young Guards...
A museum in Krasnodon dedicated to the heroes of the Young Guard. The largest repository of documents on the organization's activities. A fragment of the exhibition of the museum Eternal Memory of the Young Guards...
Monuments to Oleg Koshevoy and Lyuba Shevtsova in the city of Kharkov. Eternal memory to the Young Guards...
Monument “Oath” in Krasnodon Monument to Ulyana Gromova in Togliatti Eternal memory to the Young Guards...
Eternal memory to the Young Guard... In 1956, a monument was erected in the Ekateringofsky Park of Leningrad to the members of the underground organization “Young Guard” who died in 1943. The monument is the author’s repetition of the monument built in Krasnodon. Since then, the two cities have been connected by the memory of the heroic deeds of the Young Guard.
On September 13, 1943, the honorary title of Heroes of the Soviet Union was posthumously awarded to young defenders of the Motherland, members of the underground organization "Young guard", which launched its activities in the German-occupied city of Krasnodon. Later, after the War, streets, organizations, ships will be named after them, many books will be written about them, and films will be made.
They were not even 20 years old, the youngest of them - Oleg Koshevoy - was only 16, when they began their fight against the German conquerors of their hometown. In the fall of 1942, the children of miners united into an underground Komsomol organization called the Young Guard.
Oleg Koshevoy’s poem, written during the occupation, can be called his personal manifesto:
It’s hard for me!.. Everywhere you look
Everywhere I see Hitler's rubbish
Everywhere the hated form is before me,
Esses badge with a death's head.
I decided that it was impossible to live like that!
Look at the torment and suffer yourself.
We must hurry, before it’s too late,
Destroy the enemy behind lines.
I decided so and I will do it!
I will give my whole life for my Motherland,
For our people, for our dear
A beautiful Soviet country.
Heroes of the Young Guard
Today, the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and awarding orders to members of the Komsomol organization “Young Guard”, which operated during the German occupation in the Voroshilovgrad region, are being published. The miners' children - members of the underground organization "Young Guard" - showed themselves to be selfless patriots of the fatherland, forever inscribing their names in the history of the sacred struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazi occupiers.
Neither cruel terror nor inhuman torture could stop young patriots in their desire to fight with all their might for the liberation of the Motherland from the yoke of hated foreigners. They decided to fully fulfill their duty to their homeland. In the name of fulfilling their duty, most of them died the death of heroes.
In the dark autumn nights of 1942, the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was created. It was headed by a 16-year-old boy Oleg Koshevoy. His immediate assistants in organizing the underground struggle against the Germans were 17-year-old Sergei Tyulenin, 19-year-old Ivan Zemnukhov, 18-year-old Ulyana Gromova and 18-year-old Lyubov Shevtsova. They united around themselves the best representatives of the mining youth. Acting boldly, courageously, and cunningly, members of the Young Guard soon became a threat to the Germans. Leaflets and slogans appeared at the doors of the German commandant's office. On the anniversary of the October Revolution in the city of Krasnodon, red flags made from the Nazi banner stolen from the German club were raised on the building of the Voroshilov school, on the highest tree in the park, on the hospital building. Several dozen German soldiers and officers were killed by members of the underground organization led by Oleg Koshev. Through their efforts, the escape of Soviet prisoners of war was organized. When the Germans tried to send the city's youth to forced labor in Germany, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades set fire to the labor exchange building and thereby disrupted the German event. Each of these feats required enormous courage, perseverance, endurance, and composure. However, the glorious representatives of the Soviet youth found enough strength in themselves to skillfully and prudently resist the enemy and inflict cruel, devastating blows on him.
When the Germans managed to uncover the underground organization and arrest its participants, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades endured inhuman torture, but did not give up, did not lose heart, and with the great fearlessness of true patriots accepted martyrdom. They fought and struggled like heroes, and went to their graves as heroes!
Before joining the underground organization “Young Guard,” each of the young people took a sacred oath: “I swear to take merciless revenge for the burned and devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of 30 miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment’s hesitation. If I break this sacred oath under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name and my family be cursed forever, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades. Blood for blood, death for death!
Oleg Koshevoy and his friends fulfilled their oath to the end. They died, but their names will shine in eternal glory. The youth of our country will learn from them the great and noble art of fighting for the holy ideals of freedom, for the happiness of the fatherland. The youth of all countries enslaved by the German occupiers will learn about their immortal feat, and this will give them new strength to accomplish feats in the name of liberation from oppression.
The people that give birth to such sons and daughters as Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova are invincible. All the strength of our people was reflected in these young people, who absorbed the heroic traditions of their Motherland and did not disgrace their native land in times of difficult trials. Glory to them!
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya, the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. She raised a hero, she blessed him to accomplish high and noble deeds - glory to her!
The Germans came to our land as uninvited guests, but here they encountered a great people, filled with unshakable courage and readiness to defend their fatherland with boundless fury and anger. Young Oleg Koshevoy is a vivid symbol of the patriotism of our people.
The blood of heroes was not shed in vain. They contributed their share to the common great cause of defeating the Nazi occupiers. The Red Army is driving the Germans to the west, liberating Ukraine from them.
Sleep well, Oleg Koshevoy! We will bring the victory that you and your comrades fought for to the end. We will mark the road to our victory with enemy corpses. We will avenge your martyrdom to the full extent of our wrath. And the sun will forever shine over our Motherland and our people will live in glory and greatness, being an example of courage, courage, valor and devotion to duty for all humanity!
During the six months that the organization existed, the boys and girls managed to do a lot in the fight against the Nazis. Komsomol members on their own were able to assemble a primitive printing house, where they printed not only leaflets and small posters, but also temporary Komsomol tickets.
The occupiers felt like they were on a powder keg in the occupied city. Soviet leaflets appeared again and again on the walls of houses and at the doors of the German commandant’s office.
The children received information for the leaflets by listening to a tube radio at Oleg Koshevoy’s home, which, due to the lack of electricity, was connected to a special device. The latest news was briefly recorded and then leaflets were compiled, which informed the population weekly about events at the front, in the Soviet rear and in the world, and reports from the Sovinformburo. Even rumors were used to spread information.
Other sources were also used as leaflets. So one night Lyuba Shevtsova made her way into the post office building and, destroying letters from German soldiers and officers, stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were in Germany. The letters, which had not yet been censored, were distributed throughout the city as leaflets telling about the horrors of German penal servitude. As a result, the recruitment of those wishing to go to Germany carried out by the Nazi authorities was disrupted.
Before the printing house was organized, leaflets were written by hand and distributed by all participants in the youth underground. The city was conditionally divided into sections, which were assigned to specific members of the organization. According to an unspoken rule, leaflets were placed in places where they would be read by as many people as possible: a market, a water supply system, a hand mill. The guys usually went in groups of two - a guy and a girl, so as not to arouse suspicion. Sometimes they gathered in groups and, pretending to be young people having fun, scattered leaflets. And Oleg Koshevoy, having tied a white bandage on his sleeve ( distinctive sign policemen), scattered leaflets in the park at night.
Also, thanks to the underground workers, loaded vehicles kept disappearing in the city, and machine guns, pistols and cartridges were disappearing from German soldiers.
The Young Guards did not forget about the arrested communists. Using the money from a financial fund formed from Komsomol membership fees, food was purchased and secretly transported to Gestapo dungeons.
The Young Guards freed more than 90 of our soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp and organized the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital. Also, about 2,000 people were rescued after Komsomol members set fire to the labor exchange building, where lists of citizens intended to be sent to Germany were kept.
Along with subversive activities, Komsomol members also prepared for the celebration of the next anniversary of the October Revolution: red flags were sewn from white pillowcases painted red, red scarves, and even from the German banner. On the night of November 7, when a strong wind was blowing and raining, forcing police patrols to hide, the Young Guards were able to freely attach flags with ropes to the pipes on all buildings. On the building of the regional consumer union, Lyuba Shevtsova and Tosya Mashchenko attached a pole to the ceiling, dismantling the tiles, and Georgy Shcherbakov and Alexander Shishchenko were able to hang flags on the hospital and on the highest tree in the park.
The German traps cunningly placed to catch the underground fighters remained empty. Police found proclamations in their own pockets. Then the police themselves were found hanged in abandoned mine adits.
The organization was preparing for a decisive armed attack.
Despite the intelligence network organized by the Young Guard, the Germans still managed to uncover the underground. Arrests began. Only a few managed to get to the Red Army units. The rest were imprisoned by the occupation authorities. The Young Guards had to endure inhuman torture in last days life. Those of them who did not die after torture were thrown alive by the Germans into the pit of an abandoned mine.
District police investigator M.E. Kuleshov, who was in charge of the Young Guard case and was arrested after the liberation of Donbass, said during interrogations that during torture, the eyes of the arrested Young Guard members were gouged out, their breasts and genitals were cut out, and they were beaten half to death with whips.
From the memoirs of Vera Alexandrovna Ivanikhin, sister of Lily and Tony Ivanikhin: |
“... In December 1942, Seryozha Tyulenev, Valya Borts, Vitya Tretyakevich, Zhenya Moshkov, Oleg Koshevoy, Vanya Zimnukhov and other guys took everything out of a German car that was parked “... They tortured me terribly - they put me on the stove, they forced me under my nails needles, carved stars into the skin. And, in the end, they executed them - they threw them alive into shaft No. 5. Behind them, dynamite, sleepers, and trolleys flew into the mine. My older sister Nina, a physician by training, subsequently treated the sisters’ bodies herself and saw with her own eyes that there were no bullet holes, but only the hair remained alive. Relatives recognized the heroes only by special signs and clothing. It was all creepy." |
Brave underground fighters
In the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, the Germans felt like they were on a volcano. Everything was seething around. Soviet leaflets appeared on the walls of houses every now and then, and red flags fluttered on the roofs. Loaded vehicles disappeared, as if grain warehouses were catching fire like gunpowder. Soldiers and officers lost machine guns, revolvers, and cartridges.
Someone acted very boldly, smartly and deftly. The cleverly placed German traps remained empty. There was no end to the German fury. They scoured the alleys, houses, and attics in vain. And the grain warehouses caught fire again. The police found the proclamations in their own pockets. Then the police themselves were found murdered in abandoned mine adits.
On the night of December 5-6, the labor exchange building caught fire. The lists of people to be sent to Germany were lost in the fire. Thousands of residents, who were awaiting with horror the black day when they would be taken into captivity, took heart. The fire infuriated the occupiers. Special agents were called from Voroshilovgrad. But the traces were mysteriously lost in the crooked streets of the mining town. In which house do those who set fire to the labor exchange live? There was hatred under every roof. The special agents spent a lot of effort, but they left with nothing.
The underground Komsomol organization acted more widely and boldly. Insolence has become a habit. The experience of conspiracy accumulated, combat skills became a profession.
Very little time has passed since that memorable September day when in house no. Sadovaya street The first organizational meeting took place in Oleg Koshevoy’s apartment. There were thirty young people here who knew each other from their school years, from working together in the Komsomol, and from fighting the Germans. They decided to call the organization “Young Guard”. The headquarters included: Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova and others. Oleg was appointed commissar and elected secretary of the Komsomol organization.
There was no experience of underground work, there was no knowledge, there was only an ineradicable, burning hatred of the occupiers and a passionate love for the Motherland. Despite the danger that threatened the Komsomol members, the organization grew quickly. More than a hundred people joined the Young Guard. Each took an oath of allegiance to the common cause, the text of which was written by Vanya Zemnukhov and Oleg Koshevoy.
We started with leaflets. At this time, the Germans began recruiting those who wanted to go to Germany. Leaflets appeared on telegraph poles and fences, exposing the horrors of fascist hard labor. The recruitment failed. Only three people agreed to go to Germany.
They installed a primitive radio at Oleg’s house and listened to the “latest news.” A short record of the latest news was distributed in the form of leaflets.
With the expansion of the underground organization, its “five”, created for conspiracy, appeared in nearby villages. They published their own leaflets there. Now the underground fighters had four radios.
Komsomol members also created their own primitive printing house. They collected letters from the fire of the district newspaper building. We made the frame for selecting the font ourselves. The printing house printed not only leaflets. Temporary Komsomol tickets were also issued there, on which it was written: “Valid for the duration of the Patriotic War.” Komsomol tickets were issued to newly admitted members of the organization.
The Komsomol organization disrupted literally all the activities of the occupation authorities. The Germans failed neither the first, so-called “voluntary” recruitment, nor the second, when they wanted to forcibly take all the residents of Krasnodon they selected to Germany.
As soon as the Germans began to prepare to export grain to Germany, the underground, on instructions from the headquarters, set fire to grain stacks and warehouses, and infected some of the grain with mites.
The Germans requisitioned livestock from the surrounding population and drove it in a large herd of 500 heads to their rear. Komsomol members attacked the guards, killed them, and drove the cattle into the steppe.
So every initiative of the Germans was thwarted by someone’s invisible, powerful hand.
The most senior among the staff members was Ivan Zemnukhov. He was nineteen years old. The youngest was the commissar. Oleg Koshevoy was born in 1926. But both of them acted like mature, experienced people, seasoned in secret work.
Oleg Koshevoy was the brains of the entire organization. He acted wisely and slowly. True, sometimes youthful enthusiasm took over, and then he participated, despite the prohibition of the headquarters, in the most risky and daring operations. Either with a box of matches in his pocket, he sets huge stacks on fire under the very noses of the police, then, wearing a policeman’s bandage or taking advantage of the darkness of the night, he pastes leaflets on gendarmerie and police buildings.
But these enterprises are not reckless. Having put on a policeman's bandage and going out at night, Oleg knew the password. Oleg planted his agents in the villages and villages of the region. Which carried out only his personal instructions. He received regular information about everything that was happening in the area. Moreover, Oleg also had his own people in the police. Two members of the organization worked there as police officers.
In this way, the plans and intentions of the police authorities became known to the headquarters in advance, and the underground could quickly take their countermeasures.
Oleg also created the organization’s monetary fund. It was compiled using monthly 15-ruble membership fees. In addition, if necessary, members of the organization paid one-time contributions. This money was used to provide assistance to the needy families of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. These funds were used to purchase food to send parcels to Soviet people languishing in a German prison. Products were also given to prisoners of war who were in the concentration camp.
Each operation, be it an attack on a passenger car, when the Young Guards exterminated three German officers, or the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital, was developed by the headquarters under the leadership of Oleg Koshevoy in every detail and detail.
Sergei Tyulenin conducted all dangerous combat operations. He carried out the most risky missions and was known as a fearless fighter. He personally killed ten fascists. It was he who set fire to the labor exchange building, hung red flags, and led a group of guys who attacked the guards of the herd that the Germans were driving away to Germany. The Young Guard was preparing for an open armed offensive, and Sergei Tyulenin led the group to collect weapons and ammunition. Over the course of three months, they collected and stole 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, more than 15 thousand cartridges, pistols, and explosives from the Germans and Romanians on the former battlefields.
On instructions from the headquarters, Lyuba Shevtsova traveled to Voroshilovgrad to establish contact with the underground. She's been there several times. At the same time, she showed exceptional resourcefulness and courage. She told German officers that she was the daughter of a major industrialist. Lyuba stole important documents and obtained secret information.
One night, on instructions from headquarters, Lyuba snuck into the post office building, destroyed all the letters from German soldiers and officers, and stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were at work in Germany. These letters, not yet censored, were distributed throughout the city like leaflets on the second day.
In the hands of Ivan Zemnukhov, appearances, passwords, and direct communication with agents were concentrated. Thanks to the skilful methods of conspiracy of the Komsomol members, the Germans were unable to pick up the trail of the organization for more than five months.
Ulyana Gromova participated in the development of all operations. She got her girls jobs in various German institutions. Through them she carried out numerous acts of sabotage.
She also organized assistance to the families of Red Army soldiers and tortured miners, the transfer of parcels to prison, and the escape of Soviet prisoners of war. The Young Guards liberated more than 90 of our soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp.
The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the organization. In the dungeons of the Gestapo, young men and women were tortured in the most brutal ways. The executioners repeatedly threw a noose around Lyuba Shevtsova’s neck and hung her from the ceiling. She was beaten until she lost consciousness. But the brutal torture of the executioners did not break the will of the young patriot. Having achieved nothing, the city police sent her to the district gendarmerie department. There Lyuba was tortured using more sophisticated methods: they drove needles under her nails, cut a star on her back, and burned her with a hot iron.
The Germans subjected other young patriots to the same terrible torture and inhuman torment. But they did not extract a single word of recognition from the lips of the Komsomol members. The Germans threw the tortured, bloodied, half-dead Komsomol members into the shaft of an old mine.
Immortal is the feat of the Young Guards! Their fearless and irreconcilable struggle against the German occupiers, their legendary courage will shine for centuries as a symbol of love for their motherland!
A. Erivansky
Glory to the sons of the Komsomol!
You see, comrade, the affairs of the Krasnodon residents
As soon as the light is illuminated by rays of glory.
In the deep darkness the Soviet sun
stood behind their young shoulders.
For the happiness of Donbass they endured
and hunger, and torture, and cold, and torment,
and they pronounced sentence on the Germans
and lowered their stern hand.
Neither the rattle of torture, nor the cunning of detection
The enemies failed to break the Komsomol members!
An immortal spark appeared in the darkness,
and explosions thundered across Donbass again.
And they parted with life fearlessly,
they died with simple words,
they remained deep underground
captured city by its owners.
No one saw their fire and overnight stay
in the gloomy darkness of the German rear,
but the feat of Ulyana, the heroism of Oleg
Motherland saw and illuminated.
You see, comrade, the affairs of the Krasnodon residents,
they will never be forgotten by us,
immortal glory, like the eternal sun,
rises, shining, over their names.
Semyon Kirsanov
This is how heroes die
The “Young Guard” was preparing to realize its cherished dream - a decisive armed attack on the Krasnodon garrison of the Germans.
The vile betrayal interrupted the combat activities of the youth.
As soon as the arrests of the Young Guard began, the headquarters gave the order to all members of the Young Guard to leave and make their way to the Red Army units. But, unfortunately, it was already too late. Only 7 people managed to escape and stay alive - Ivan Turkevich, Georgy Arutyunyants, Valeria Borts, Radiy Yurkin, Olya Ivantsova, Nina Ivantsova and Mikhail Shishchenko. The remaining members of the Young Guard were captured by the Nazis and imprisoned.
Young underground fighters were subjected to terrible torture, but none of them deviated from their oath. The German executioners went crazy, beating and torturing the Young Guards for 3, 3 hours straight. But the executioners could not break the spirit and iron will of the young patriots.
Sergei Tyulenin was beaten by the Gestapo several times a day with whips made from electrical wires, broke fingers, drove a hot ramrod into the wound. When this did not help, the executioners brought the mother, a 58-year-old woman. In front of Sergei, they stripped her and began to torture her.
The executioners demanded that he tell about his connections in Kamensk and Izvarino. Sergei was silent. Then the Gestapo, in the presence of his mother, hung Sergei in a noose from the ceiling three times, and then gouged out his eye with a hot needle.
The Young Guards knew that the time for execution was coming. In your last hour they were also strong in spirit. A member of the Young Guard headquarters, Ulyana Gromova, transmitted in Morse code to all cells:
- The last order from headquarters... The last order... we will be taken to execution. We will be led through the city streets. We will sing Ilyich’s favorite song...
Exhausted and mutilated, young heroes left prison on their final journey. Ulyana Gromova walked with a star carved on her back. Shura Bondareva - with cut off breasts. Volodya Osmukhin's right hand was cut off.
The Young Guards walked on their last journey with their heads held high. Their song sang solemnly and sadly:
“Tortured by heavy bondage,
You died a glorious death,
In the fight for the workers' cause
You put your head down honestly..."
The executioners threw them alive into a fifty-meter pit in the mine.
In February 1943, our troops entered Krasnodon. A red flag hoisted over the city. And watching him rinse in the wind, the residents again remembered the Young Guards. Hundreds of people headed to the prison building. They saw bloody clothes in the cells, traces of unheard-of torture. The walls were covered with inscriptions. Above one of the walls is a heart pierced by an arrow. There are four surnames in the heart: “Shura Bondareva, Nina Minaeva, Ulya Gromova, Angela Samoshina.” And above all the inscriptions, across the entire width of the bloody wall, there is an inscription: “Death to the German occupiers!”
This is how the glorious students of the Komsomol, young heroes whose feat will survive centuries, lived, fought and died for their fatherland.
“Long live our liberator - the Red Army!”
One of the Young Guard leaflets
“Read it and pass it on to your friend.
Comrades Krasnodon residents!
The long-awaited hour of our liberation from the yoke of Hitler's bandits is approaching. The troops of the Southwestern Front have broken through the defense line. On November 25, our units, having taken the capital Morozovskaya, advanced 45 kilometers.
The movement of our troops to the west continues rapidly. The Germans are running in panic, throwing down their weapons! The enemy, retreating, robs the population, taking food and clothing.
Comrades! Hide everything you can so that Hitler’s robbers don’t get it. Sabotage the orders of the German command, do not succumb to false German propaganda.
Death to the German occupiers!
Long live our liberator - the Red Army!
Long live the free Soviet homeland!
"Young guard".
Over the course of 6 months, the Young Guard issued more than 30 leaflets in Krasnodon alone, with a circulation of over 5,000 copies.
After the liberation, city residents preserved the memory of the brave young men and women who fought the German regime, and the domestic press made their feat known to all Soviet citizens. Sergey Tyulenin, Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova became symbols of youth patriotism.
Komsomol members of Krasnodon
No! Our youth cannot be killed
And don't put him on his knees!
She lives and will live
Just as the great Lenin taught.
For honor, for truth, for the people,
Who is more honest than anyone in the world,
She will go to the scaffold
He will proudly meet any torture.
And even death will not win
Her daring living, -
It will shine brightly over the world
Star of Oleg Koshevoy.
And will be pure beauty
Call for a feat from the best of the best
For the cause of the Holy Motherland.
For what Stalin teaches us.
No! Torture will not make us tremble!
Scarlet banners are immortal,
Where are such youth?
Like Komsomol members of Krasnodon!
The Young Guard arose under the leadership of the party underground, headed by F. P. Lyutikov. After the Nazi occupation of Krasnodon (July 20, 1942), several anti-fascist youth groups were formed: I. A. Zemnukhov, O. V. Koshevoy, V. I. Levashov, S. G. Tyulenina, A. Z. Eliseenko, V. A. Zhdanova , N. S. Sumsky, U. M. Gromova, A. V. Popov, M. K. Peglivanova.
On October 2, 1942, communist E. Ya. Moshkov held the first organizational meeting of the leaders of youth groups in the city and nearby villages. The created underground organization was called "M.G." Its headquarters included: Gromova, Zemnukhov, Koshevoy (commissar of the “M. G.”), Levashov, V. I. Tretyakevich, I. V. Turkenich (commander of the “M. G.”), Tyulenin, L. G. Shevtsova.
The Young Guard consisted of 91 people. (including 26 workers, 44 students and 14 employees), of which 15 were communists. the organization had 4 radios, an underground printing house, weapons and explosives. Issued and distributed 5 thousand anti-fascist leaflets of 30 titles; on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, she hung 8 Soviet flags in the city. Members of the organization destroyed enemy vehicles with soldiers, ammunition and fuel. On November 15, 1942, Young Guards liberated 70 Soviet prisoners of war from a fascist concentration camp, and 20 Soviet prisoners of war who were in the hospital were also released.
As a result of the arson on the night of December 6, 1942, of the building of the fascist labor exchange, where lists of people intended for export to Germany were kept, about 2 thousand Krasnodon residents were saved from being taken into fascist slavery.
The underground party organization of the city and the Young Guard were preparing an armed uprising with the aim of destroying the fascist garrison and moving towards Soviet army. The betrayal of the provocateur Pocheptsov interrupted this preparation.
In the fascist dungeons, the Young Guard bravely and steadfastly withstood the most severe torture. On January 15, 16 and 31, 1943, the Nazis dropped 71 people, some alive, some shot. into the pit of mine No. 5, 53 m deep. Koshevoy, Shevtsova, S. M. Ostapenko, D. U. Ogurtsov, V. F. Subbotin, after brutal torture, were shot in the Thunderous Forest near the city of Rovenki on February 9, 1943. 4 people. shot in other areas. 11 people escaped police pursuit: A.V. Kovalev went missing, Turkenich and S.S. Safonov died at the front, G.M. Arutyunyants, V.D. Borts, A.V. Lopukhov, O.I. Ivantsova, N.M. Ivantsova, Levashov, M.T. Shishchenko and R.P. Yurkin remained alive. By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated September 13, 1943, Gromova, Zemnukhov, Koshevoy, Tyulenin, Shevtsova were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union, 3 participants in the "M. g." awarded the Order of the Red Banner, 35 - the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, 6 - the Order of the Red Star, 66 - the medal "Partisan of the Patriotic War" 1st degree. The feat of the heroes "M. g." depicted in A. A. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard”. Named in memory of the organization new town Voroshilovgrad region - Molodogvardeysk (1961); Settlements, state farms, collective farms, ships, etc. are named after the heroes.
Lit.: Young Guard. Sat. documents and memoirs, 3rd ed., Donetsk, 1972.
Materials provided by the Rubricon project
Military affairs of the Krasnodon underground fighters
MINISTRY OF CULTURE OF THE USSR
Krasnodon State Order of Peoples' Friendship Museum "Young Guard"
Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, pl. them. Young Guard, tel. No. 2-33-73
The Nazis occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942. About this time, the commander of the “Young Guard” Ivan Turkenich wrote in his report “Days of the Underground”: “A government, a labor exchange were created, the police were introduced, the Gestapo arrived. Mass arrests of communists, Komsomol members, order bearers, old red partisans began. They were all shot. .. In the days of the bloody fascist revelry, our “Young Guard” was born. A headquarters was created, which included Ivan Turkenich (commander), Oleg Koshevoy (commissar), Ulyana Gromova, Ivan Zemnukhov, Vasily Levashov, Viktor Tretyakevich, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova.
All combat activities of the youth organization took place under the direct leadership of the party underground, which was carried out through the headquarters of the Young Guard. The communists set the young underground workers the task of debunking the lies of Hitler's propaganda and instilling faith in the inevitable defeat of the enemy. The Young Guards considered it their duty to rouse the youth and population of the Krasnodon region to actively fight the fascists, provide themselves with weapons and, at a convenient moment, move on to open armed struggle.
From the first days of their rule, the Nazis tried to organize the work of the mines. Therefore, following the occupied troops, the so-called Directorate No. 10 arrived in Krasnodon, part of the system of the “Eastern Society for the Operation of Coal and Metallurgical Enterprises”, designed to pump Krasnodon coal. The work of the Central Electromechanical Workshops was resumed, where the leaders of the underground communists, Filipp Petrovich Lyutikov and Nikolai Petrovich Barakov, took a job, risking their lives. Using their official position, they accept underground workers into the workshops and from here they lead the Young Guard. Everything necessary is being done to ensure that the enterprise, which, according to the occupiers’ plan, was to restore the Krasnodon mines, does not operate at full capacity. Young heroes damaged equipment, slowed down work, destroying individual parts of machines, and committed sabotage. So, on the eve of the launch of mine No. 1 “Sorokino”, Yuri Vitsenovsky cut the rope with which the cage was lowered into the shaft. The multi-ton cage broke, destroying in its path everything that had been so laboriously restored by the invaders. Thanks to the active work of the people's avengers, the fascists did not manage to remove a single ton of coal from the Krasnodon mines.
The Young Guards attached great importance to distributing leaflets among the population. Radio receivers were installed in the apartments of Nikolai Petrovich Barakov, Oleg Koshevoy, Nikolai Sumsky, and Sergei Levashov. The underground members listened to the reports of the Sovinformburo, based on their texts they compiled leaflets, with the help of which they conveyed to the residents of the city and region the truth about the Red Army, about our Soviet power. At first, proclamations were written by hand on pieces of paper in school notebooks. This took a lot of time, so the Young Guard headquarters decided to create an underground printing house. She was located in the house of Georgy Harutyunyants on the outskirts of the city. Having closed the windows with shutters, Ivan Zemnukhov, Viktor Tretyakevich, Vasily Levashov, Vladimir Osmukhin, Georgy Arutyunyants and other guys sat at night at a primitive press, printing leaflets.
The first printed leaflets appeared in the city on November 7, 1942. When distributing them, underground members showed initiative and ingenuity. Oleg Koshevoy, for example, put on a police uniform at night and, moving freely on the street after curfew, posted leaflets; Vasily Pirozhok managed to stuff leaflets into the pockets of Krasnodon residents at the market, even attaching them to the backs of policemen; Sergei Tyulenin "patronized" the cinema. He appeared here before the start of the session. At the most convenient moment, when the projectionist turned off the lights in the hall, Sergei threw leaflets into the auditorium.
Many leaflets went outside the city - to the Sverdlovsk, Rovenkovsky, Novosvetlovsky districts, and to the Rostov region. In total, during the occupation, the Young Guards distributed more than 5,000 copies of leaflets of 30 titles.
The headquarters constantly worked to involve young people in the ranks of the Young Guard. If in September there were 35 people in the underground, then in December there were 92 underground members in the organization. On the recommendation of the communists, all members of the Young Guard were divided into fives, with whom the headquarters maintained contacts through liaison officers.
At the end of September, Young Guards led by Ivan Turkenich hanged two traitors to the Motherland in the city park, who were especially zealous in reprisals against civilians. Youth strike groups carried out successful operations to destroy German vehicles on the roads leading from Krasnodon to Sverdlovsk, Voroshilovgrad, Izvarino.
The 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution was approaching. The communists instructed the Young Guard to hang red flags over the occupied city. On the night of November 7, eight groups of underground fighters set off to carry out a combat mission. The day before, the girls prepared the panels by sewing together pieces of fabric and dyeing them red. In the morning, Krasnodon residents saw red flags blazing in the autumn wind. This military operation of the underground made a huge impression on the city residents. “When I saw the flag at the school,” said an eyewitness to the events, M.A. Litvinova, “involuntary joy overwhelmed me. I woke up the children and quickly ran across the road to Mukhina. I found her standing in her underwear on the windowsill, tears crawling in streams down her thin face. cheeks. She said: “Maria Alekseevna, this was done for us, Soviet people. We are remembered, we are not forgotten by ours..."
On this unforgettable day, young underground fighters distributed leaflets throughout the city and region and provided financial assistance to the families of front-line soldiers. “...We prepared holiday gifts for the families of workers, especially those who suffered at the hands of the German executioners,” wrote Ivan Turkenich. “We allocated money for them from our Komsomol fund and purchased food. I remember, on the eve of the holiday, I went with a bundle under my arm to the outskirts of the city , where the family of my fellow front-line soldier lived. He, too, like me, was a Soviet officer. His wife, an old mother and four children remained in Krasnodon. And so I brought them a holiday gift. The hungry children unwrapped the paper and with a cry of joy discovered bread and a little cereal. How grateful the exhausted people were to us for these modest gifts."
In December, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ivan Turkenich, Anatoly Popov, Demyan Fomin helped 20 prisoners of war, who were placed by the Nazis in the building of the Pervomaiskaya hospital, escape from captivity, and soon Evgeny Moshkov’s group freed more than 70 Soviet soldiers from a prisoner of war camp, which was located in the Volchensky village of the Rostov region.
The fame of the Young Guard grew. The Krasnodon underground did not limit itself to activities in the city and region. The communists believed that it was necessary to seek connections with partisans in other districts and regions. To establish contacts with the people's avengers operating in the Rostov region, the headquarters sent a liaison Oksana. Olga Ivantsova worked underground under this pseudonym. Oksana repeatedly visited the Kamensk partisans, met with liaison officers and the command of the detachment. It was about uniting the forces of partisans and underground fighters for a joint action against the fascists behind enemy lines.
The active activities of the underground workers caused impotent anger among the occupiers. The police are beginning to intensively search for the perpetrators of anti-fascist events. A harsh regime is being established in the city. To disguise the activities of the underground, Ivan Zemnukhov, Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich, Valeria Borts, Lyubov Shevtsova, Vladimir Zagoruiko, Vasily Levashov and others, on the advice of communists, get a job at the Gorky club. Three circles began to operate here, in which most of the participants were underground fighters. Young people, hiding behind study groups, could meet without arousing suspicion from the authorities. From here the guys went on combat missions.
One day Lyuba Shevtsova came excited to a headquarters meeting. She learned that the Nazis were going to take young people to work in Germany. Lists at the labor exchange have already been prepared. The headquarters decided to disrupt the recruitment. To this end, several leaflets were issued calling on the population to save their children from fascist slavery. And Lyuba Shevtsova, Viktor Lukyanchenko and Sergei Tyulenin on the night of December 5 carried out a brilliant operation to set fire to the labor exchange. Documents prepared by the Nazis for more than 2,000 Krasnodon residents burned in the fire. By morning, only charred walls remained of the ominous exchange building, which was popularly nicknamed the “black exchange”.
The headquarters attached great importance to arming the underground. The Young Guards used all means to obtain weapons and ammunition. They stole them from the Nazis, collected them in places of recent battles, and finished them off in armed clashes with the enemy. The weapons were stored in the basements of the destroyed city bathhouse building. Ivan Turkenich noted in his report that by the end of 1942, “in the warehouse there were 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15,000 cartridges, 10 pistols, 65 kg of explosives and several hundred meters fickford cord"The underground members were going to direct all these weapons against the fascists located on the territory of Krasnodon. The Young Guards were actively preparing for an armed uprising. Their plan was to destroy the enemy and thereby help the Red Army quickly liberate their hometown. But a vile betrayal interrupted the preparations for an armed uprising. The majority Young Guards were arrested and, after severe torture, in January 1943 they were thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
Directorate of the Museum "Young Guard"
Legends of the Great Patriotic War. "Young guard"
More than sixty years have passed since the world learned about the brutal massacre committed by the fascist occupiers against members of the Young Guard underground organization operating in the Ukrainian mining town of Krasnodon. However, to this day, despite the abundance of documented eyewitness accounts and court verdicts, it is not known for certain who was responsible for the defeat of the Krasnodon underground.
In mid-February 1943, after the liberation of Donetsk Krasnodon by Soviet troops, several dozen corpses of teenagers tortured by the Nazis, who were members of the underground organization “Young Guard” during the occupation, were recovered from the pit of the N5 mine located near the city.
And a few months later, Pravda published an article by Alexander Fadeev “Immortality”, on the basis of which a little later the novel “The Young Guard” was written, dedicated to the events that resulted in the death of the people discovered in the mine. Subsequently, it was from this work that the absolute majority of citizens, first of the Soviet Union, and then of Russia, formed an idea of the activities of the Krasnodon underground during the occupation. Until the end of the 80s, Fadeev’s novel was perceived as the canonized history of the organization, and any other interpretation of events was impossible by definition.
Meanwhile, it is no secret to anyone that the novel, which glorified its heroes - young underground fighters, had a rather difficult fate. The book was first published in 1946. However, after some time, Alexander Fadeev was sharply criticized for the fact that the “leading and guiding” role of the Communist Party was not clearly expressed in the novel. The writer took into account the wishes, and in 1951 the second edition of the novel “The Young Guard” was released. At the same time, Fadeev repeated more than once: “I was not writing the true history of the Young Guard, but a novel that not only allows, but even presupposes artistic fiction.”
These circumstances became fertile ground for the emergence of many speculations about the reality of the events described in the novel. Distrust at first official version manifested itself mainly at the level of quiet whispers in kitchens and vulgar children's jokes, and with the beginning of perestroika it poured out onto the pages of newspapers and magazines.
And for more than a decade and a half, there has been a fairly lively correspondence discussion between those who continue to adhere to the traditional version and those who do not give up attempts to separate facts from fiction of the author of the novel “The Young Guard,” the end of which is not yet in sight. Moreover, most copies break down around several key points: the reality of the events described by Fadeev, the names of the real organizers and leaders of the underground, as well as the true culprits in the death of the majority of the organization’s members.
Parade of "traitors"
To be fair, it is worth noting that there were not so many of those who tried to challenge the very fact of the existence of an underground youth organization in Krasnodon. Facts collected in the post-war years, memories of eyewitnesses, as well as surviving members of the Young Guard, indicated that an underground organization really existed. Moreover, it not only existed, but was also very active.
In 1993, a press conference of a special commission to study the history of the Young Guard was held in Lugansk. As Izvestia wrote then (05/12/1993), after two years of work, the commission gave its assessment of the versions that had excited the public for almost half a century. The researchers' conclusions boiled down to several fundamental points. In July-August 1942, after the Nazis captured the Luhansk region, many underground youth groups spontaneously arose in the mining town of Krasnodon and its surrounding villages. They, according to the memoirs of contemporaries, were called “Star”, “Sickle”, “Hammer”, etc. However, there is no need to talk about any party leadership of them. In October 1942, Viktor Tretyakevich united them into the Young Guard. It was he, and not Oleg Koshevoy, according to the commission’s findings, who became the commissioner of the underground organization. There were almost twice as many “Young Guard” participants as was later recognized by the competent authorities. The guys fought like a guerrilla, taking risks, suffering heavy losses, and this, as was noted at the press conference, ultimately led to the failure of the organization.
At the instigation of Alexander Fadeev, the image of the main culprit in the death of the “Young Guard” - Yevgeny Stakhovich, who under torture revealed the names of the majority of the underground fighters, has become firmly entrenched in the public consciousness. At the same time, although Fadeev himself repeatedly stated that the traitor Stakhovich is a collective image and the similarity with real Young Guards is accidental, many, and first of all the participants in those events who managed to survive, were deeply convinced that its prototype, paradoxically, was the already mentioned Viktor Tretyakevich. The debate about how the hero suddenly turned into a traitor continues to this day.
In 1998, the newspaper "Duel" (09/30/1998) published an article by A.F. Gordeev "Heroes and traitors". It described in sufficient detail the history of the emergence, activity and collapse of the Krasnodon underground, which differed significantly from that described by Fadeev in the novel “The Young Guard”.
According to Gordeev, the Young Guard (the real name of the Hammer organization) was created in early October 1942 on the initiative of Viktor Tretyakevich. Its core was the anti-fascist Komsomol youth groups of Ivan Zemnukhov, Evgeny Moshkov, Nikolai Sumsky, Boris Glavan, Sergei Tyulenin and others, which spontaneously arose and operated scatteredly in Krasnodon and its environs. On October 6, 1942, Gennady Pocheptsov, whose stepfather, was also accepted into the organization , V.G. Gromov, collaborated with the occupation authorities and subsequently played a fatal role in the history of the Young Guard.
"Duel", referring to archival documents, writes that having learned about the arrest of the underground leaders (Zemnukhov, Tretyakevich and Moshkov were captured on January 1, 1943) and not finding a way out of the current situation, Pocheptsov turned to his stepfather for advice. Gromov immediately suggested that his stepson immediately inform the police about the underground fighters. Gromov confirmed this treacherous parting word during interrogation on May 25, 1943: “I told him that he could be arrested and, in order to save his life, he must write a statement to the police and hand over the members of the organization. He listened to me.”
On January 3, 1943, Pocheptsov was taken to the police and interrogated first by V. Sulikovsky (chief of the Krasnodon regional police), and then by investigators Didyk and Kuleshov. The informant confirmed the authorship of the applicant and his affiliation with the underground Komsomol organization operating in Krasnodon, named the goals and objectives of its activities, indicated the storage location of weapons and ammunition hidden in the Gundorov mine No. 18. As Kuleshov later testified, “Pocheptsov said that he really belongs to "member of the underground Komsomol organization... named the leaders of this organization, or rather, the city headquarters, namely: Tretyakevich, Lukashov, Zemnukhov, Safonov, Koshevoy. Pocheptsov named Tretyakevich as the head of the citywide organization. He himself was a member of the May Day organization." The secret information that Pocheptsov possessed and which became the “property” of the police turned out to be quite enough to uncover the Komsomol youth underground and eliminate it. In total, more than 70 people were arrested for belonging to the underground in Krasnodon and its environs.
"Duel" cites the testimony of some participants in the brutal massacre of underground fighters.
During the interrogation on July 9, 1947, the head of the gendarmerie, Renatus, said: “... Translator Lina Artes asked to be released from work, since the gendarmes treat the arrested too harshly during interrogations. Guard Master Zons allegedly beat the arrested severely after lunch. I granted her request and spoke with Zons about this issue. He admitted that he really beat the arrested people, but for the reason that he could not get testimony from them in any other way."
Police investigator Cherenkov about Sergei Tyulenin: “He was mutilated beyond recognition, his face was covered with bruises and swollen, blood was oozing from open wounds. Three Germans immediately entered and after them came Burgardt (translator A.G.), called by Sulikovsky. One German asked Sulikovsky who was this man who was beaten like that. Sulikovsky explained. The German, like an angry tiger, knocked Sergei down with a blow of his fist and began to torment his body with forged German boots. He struck him with terrible force in the stomach, back, face, trampled and tore into pieces his clothes along with his body. At the beginning of this terrible execution, Tyulenin showed signs of life, but soon he fell silent and was dragged dead from the office."
Other Young Guards also held up courageously during interrogations. Ulyana Gromova was hung by her hair, a five-pointed star was cut out on her back, her breasts were cut off, her body was burned with a hot iron, her wounds were sprinkled with salt, and she was placed on a hot stove. However, she was silent, just as Bondareva, Ivanikhina, Zemnukhova and many others, who were subsequently dumped into the pit of the N5 mine, were silent.
Pocheptsov, according to Duel, after the arrival of Soviet troops managed to hide for some time, and he was arrested only on March 8, 1943. To mitigate his guilt, Pocheptsov, already at the first interrogation, cast a shadow of suspicion on Viktor Tretyakevich. Answering the question of the Soviet investigator about what prompted him to hand over the members of the underground organization, he referred to Ivan Zemnukhov, who allegedly told him on December 18, 1942 that Tretyakevich had betrayed the “Young Organization” and that the police had information about it. This news allegedly prompted Pocheptsov to file a statement with the police.
At the same time, in 1999, the newspaper "Top Secret" (03/17/1999), referring to the materials of Case N20056 on charges of policemen and German gendarmes in the reprisal of the underground organization "Young Guard", expressed the opinion that the "official traitor" Pocheptsov was not told investigators nothing new. Before him, Olga Lyadskaya, who was not an underground member and was arrested completely by accident, had allegedly already told the Germans in detail about the activities of the underground.
After the arrest of Zemnukhov, Tretyakevich and Moshkova came to Tosa Mashchenko in search of Valya Borts, who by that time had already gone to 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. The investigator promised to hang Lyadskaya at the market for her capital letters in quotation marks, if he did not immediately name others dissatisfied with the new order. The publication further cites Lyadskaya’s testimony contained in Case N20056:
“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 Solikhovsky threatened to beat me up, I gave Mashchenko's friend, Borts... "
As for Pocheptsov, according to the “Top Secret” version, he actually surrendered the group in the village of Pervomaisky and the headquarters of the “Young Guard” in the following order: Tretyakevich (chief), Lukashev, Zemnukhov, Safonov and Koshevoy. In addition, Pocheptsov named the commander of his “five” - Popov. However, his testimony, according to the publication, was no longer so important, since Tretyakevich was betrayed by another underground participant, Tosya Mashchenko. After this, Tretyakevich himself “gave him over to Shevtsov and began calling the “Young Guards” entire villages.”
But “Top Secret” is not limited to this list of traitors and notes that in the documents a certain Chinese Yakov Ka Fu is also mentioned as a traitor to the “Young Guard”. He supposedly could have been offended by the Soviet regime, because before the war he was removed from work due to his poor knowledge of the Russian language.
...for lack of corpus delicti
For a long time, Zinaida Vyrikova was considered another culprit in the death of the Young Guard. She, like Lyadskaya, was one of the anti-heroines of the novel “Young Guard”. At the same time, Fadeev did not even change the girls’ surnames, which subsequently greatly complicated their lives. Both Vyrikova and Lyadskaya were convicted of treason and sent to camps for a long time. As Moskovsky Komsomolets notes (06/18/2003), the stigma of traitors from women was removed only in 1990, after their numerous complaints and strict checks by the prosecutor's office.
“MK” quotes the “certificate” that Olga Aleksandrovna Lyadskaya received after 47 years of shame (approximately the same document, according to the publication, was received by Zinaida Vyrikova): “Criminal case on charges of Lyadskaya O.A., born in 1926, revised by the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District on March 16, 1990. The resolution of the Special Meeting of the USSR Ministry of State Security dated October 29, 1949 in relation to Lyadskaya O.A. was canceled, and the criminal case was discontinued due to the lack of corpus delicti in her actions. Olga Aleksandrovna Lyadskaya in this case rehabilitated."
There is not a word in the Moskovsky Komsomolets material about whether Lyadskaya’s confession that it was she who betrayed Kozyrev, Tretyakevich, Nikolaenko, Mashchenko, Borts was taken into account when deciding on the issue of rehabilitation. At the same time, the article names two more new names of persons through whose fault the Young Guard could have been defeated.
"MK", just like the newspaper "Top Secret" four years earlier, refers to materials found in the archives of the FSB. Namely, a criminal case against 16 traitors to the Motherland who worked for the Germans in occupied Krasnodon. 14 of them openly collaborated with the German gendarmerie. And only two persons involved, according to the publication, stand out somewhat from the overall picture of absolute traitors - 20-year-old Georgy Statsenko and 23-year-old namesake of the author of the novel “Young Guard” Guriy Fadeev.
George's father, Vasily Statsenko, was the burgomaster of Krasnodon. That's why Georgiy ended up on the pencil list. In addition, he was a Komsomol member and knew the Young Guards: Zemnukhov, Koshevoy, Tretyakevich, Levashov, Osmukhin, Turkenich and others.
Moskovsky Komsomolets provides excerpts from the testimony of Statsenko, who was arrested on September 22, 1946:
“Being a Komsomol member, I enjoyed the trust of my comrades, since outwardly I showed myself to be devoted to Soviet power. I told my father about Levashov’s offer to me to join the underground Komsomol organization. I also said that Zemnukhov showed me a leaflet and read poems he had written against the Germans. And in general, I told my father, my school comrades: Zemnukhov, Arutyunyants, Koshevoy and Tretyakevich, are members of an underground organization and are actively working against the Germans.”
Guriy Fadeev, as MK writes, also knew members of the Young Guard, and was especially friendly with the family of Oleg Koshevoy. He became suspicious after he was caught by the police one night - at an inopportune hour, a German patrol caught him on the street and, during a search, found an anti-fascist leaflet in his pocket. However, for some reason, the gendarmerie quickly released him. And then, according to witnesses, he almost never left the police.
“After I was recruited by the police to identify persons distributing Young Guard leaflets, I met with deputy police chief Zakharov several times. During one of the interrogations, Zakharov asked: “Which of the partisans recruited your sister Alla?” I, knowing about this, from the words of my mother, I gave Vanya Zemnukhov to Zakharov, who actually made an offer to my sister to join the underground anti-fascist organization. I told him that in the apartment of Korostylev (Oleg Koshevoy’s uncle) Korostylev’s sister Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya and her son were listening to radio broadcasts from Moscow Oleg, who records messages from the Sovinform Bureau."
According to Fadeev, recorded in the interrogation protocol, it turned out that during the occupation he entered the service of the German directorate as a geologist and was engaged in redrawing geological maps, plans for mines and developments drawn up under the Soviet regime. At the same time, Fadeev signed a statement that he undertakes to help the police in identifying the partisans.
The most curious thing in this story is that neither Statsenko nor Fadeev were shot. On March 6, 1948, at a special meeting at the USSR Ministry of State Security, Guriy Fadeev was sentenced to 25 years in the camps for treason, and Georgy Statsenko to 15 years (the other 14 people involved in this case received 25 years in prison each). But the amazing adventures of Statsenko and Fadeev did not end there. In 1954, with Khrushchev coming to power, the “case of traitors” was revised: the sentence was left unchanged for everyone except Statsenko. His sentence was reduced by 5 years.
Moskovsky Komsomolets quotes the case materials, which shed light on the reasons for the unexpected commutation of the sentence:
“During interrogation on October 4, 1946, Statsenko admitted his guilt, but later retracted his testimony. He claimed that the arrests of the Young Guards began long before his conversation with his father. From the testimony of the father of the convicted Statsenko, it is not clear that the reason for the arrest of the Young Guards was the data reported his son... None of those convicted in this case testified that the son of the burgomaster would have provided any information that would have been used by the police in arresting the Young Guard members... Thus, the accusation of the convicted G.V. Statsenko of betraying members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" has not been proven by the investigation materials."
Fadeev also had a chance to be released ahead of time, for whom a large number of relatives, neighbors and acquaintances interceded. The Main Military Prosecutor's Office was not too lazy to re-interrogate everyone who testified against Fadeev ten years earlier. Military prosecutor Gorny even prepared a protest to the military tribunal of the Moscow Military District with a request that “the resolution of the Special Meeting of the Ministry of State Security of March 6, 1948 regarding Fadeev be canceled and the case dismissed due to lack of proof of the charges brought.” However, someone’s superior hand wrote on the same document in blue ink: “I find no grounds for filing a protest. Fadeev’s complaint must be left unsatisfied.”
However, Fadeev was still released early. According to MK, he served only 10 years out of 25. His conviction was cleared, but he was denied rehabilitation. So formally, he is still considered the main traitor of the Young Guards.
Truck with parcels
Meanwhile, the last of the eight Young Guards who survived the war, Vasily Ivanovich Levashov, shortly before his death (he died in 2001), gave an interview to the Komsomolskaya Pravda newspaper (06/30/1999) in which he stated that in fact there were no traitors, and “ The organization went down in flames because of stupidity."
The former underground worker said that after reading Fadeev’s book for the first time, he had the most contradictory feelings. On the one hand, he was delighted by how subtly the writer captured the moods and experiences of the Young Guards. On the other hand, Levashov was outraged by the free handling of some facts: the traitor Stakhovich appeared in the novel, and there was no person with that name in the organization, so there was a clear allusion to Viktor Tretyakevich, the Young Guard commissar.
“In fact, there were no traitors, the organization burned down due to stupidity,” said Vasily Ivanovich. “A truck with parcels for the Germans for Christmas arrived in Krasnodon, and we decided to capture them. We dragged everything at night to the barn of one of our guys, and the next morning they transported them to the club in torn bags. On the way, a box of cigarettes fell out. A boy of about twelve was hanging around nearby and grabbed it. Tretyakevich gave him the cigarettes for silence. And a day later the boy was captured by the Germans at the market."
According to Levashov, Tretyakevich was slandered by the police for his persistence during interrogations. Vasily Ivanovich’s father sat in the same cell with the Young Guard commissar and saw how he was taken away for interrogation and dragged back by his legs, beaten and barely alive. And the names of the underground workers, according to Levashov, the fascists could have learned from the lists of employees of the club, the director of which was the Young Guard member Moshkov. The latter compiled these lists for the labor exchange: hundreds of young people were taken to work in Germany, and “reservations” were given for club employees.
Viktor Tretyakevich was rehabilitated only in 1959. Before this, his relatives had to live with the stigma of being relatives of a traitor. According to Vasily Levashov, Victor’s rehabilitation was achieved by his middle brother Vladimir. Viktor Tretyakevich was posthumously awarded, but was never restored to the rank of Young Guard commissar.
In a conversation with a Komsomolskaya Pravda correspondent, Levashov touched upon the fate of another resident of Krasnodon, accused of treason, Georgy Statsenko:
“Statsenko served 15 years for betraying the Young Guard,” said Levashov. “He came out of prison and wrote a letter to the KGB asking them to remove the guilt from him, because he did not betray. And he asked to call me and Harutyunyants as witnesses. I was summoned for interrogation by the KGB, and I said that Statsenko had nothing to do with the Young Guard at all, and therefore could not know anything. We brought him into the organization, like many other outside guys, for conspiracy. The same thing was said by Arutyunyants. Statsenko was cleared of guilt."
At the same time, some facts indicate that not everything is as simple in the story of the rehabilitation of Viktor Tretyakevich, as Vasily Levashov told about it. And there are still many pitfalls in this matter...
"B E S S M E R T I E"Alexander Fadeev September 15, 1943
“I, joining the ranks of the Young Guard, in the face of my friends in arms, in the face of my native, long-suffering land, in the face of all the people, solemnly swear: to unquestioningly carry out any task given to me by my senior comrade; to keep everything that concerns my work in the Young Guard!
I swear to take revenge mercilessly for the burned, devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of thirty heroic miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment’s hesitation.
If I break this sacred oath under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name and my family be cursed forever, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades.
This oath of allegiance to the Motherland and the fight until the last breath for its liberation from the Nazi invaders was given by members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region. They gave it in the fall of 1942, standing opposite each other in a small mountain, when the piercing autumn wind howled over the enslaved and devastated land of Donbass. The small town lay hidden in the darkness, there were fascists in the miners' houses, only corrupt policemen and back-packers from the Gestapo on that dark night ransacked the citizens' apartments and committed atrocities in their dungeons.
The eldest of those who took the oath was nineteen years old, and the main organizer and inspirer Oleg Koshevoy was sixteen.
The open Donetsk steppe is harsh and inhospitable, especially in late autumn or winter, under the freezing wind, when the black earth freezes into clods. But this is our dear Soviet land, inhabited by a powerful and glorious coal tribe, giving energy, light and warmth to our great Motherland. For the freedom of this land civil war Her best sons, led by Klim Voroshilov and Alexander Parkhomenko, fought. It gave birth to the wonderful Stakhanov movement. The Soviet man penetrated deeply into the depths of the Donetsk land, and powerful factories grew across its inhospitable face - the pride of our technical thought, socialist cities flooded with light, our schools, clubs, theaters, where the great Soviet man flourished and revealed himself in all his spiritual power. And this land was trampled by the enemy. He walked through it like a tornado, like a plague, plunging cities into darkness, turning schools, hospitals, clubs, nurseries into barracks for soldiers, into stables, into Gestapo dungeons.
Fire, rope, bullet and ax - these terrible instruments of death became constant companions in the lives of Soviet people. The Soviet people were doomed to suffer unthinkable from the point of view of human reason and conscience. Suffice it to say that in the city park of Krasnodon, the Nazis buried thirty miners alive in the ground for refusing to appear for registration at the “labor exchange”. When the city was liberated by the Red Army and began to tear away the dead, they stood in the ground: first their heads were exposed, then their shoulders, torsos, and arms.
Innocent people were forced to leave their homes and hide. Families were destroyed. “I said goodbye to dad, and tears flowed from my eyes in streams,” says Valya Borts, a member of the Young Guard organization. “Some unknown voice seemed to whisper: “This is the last time you’ll see him.” He left, and I stood until he disappeared from sight. Today this man still had a family, a corner, a shelter, children, and now he, like a stray dog, must wander. And how many were tortured, shot! "
Young people who evaded registration by any means were seized by force and taken to slave labor in Germany. Truly heartbreaking scenes could be seen these days on the streets of the town. The rude shouts and curses of the police merged with the sobs of fathers and mothers, from whom their daughters and sons were forcibly torn away.
And with the terrible poison of lies spread by vile fascist newspapers and leaflets about the fall of Moscow and Leningrad, about the death of the Soviet system, the enemy sought to corrupt the soul of the Soviet people.
These were our youth - the same ones who are growing up, brought up in Soviet schools, pioneer detachments, and Komsomol organizations. The enemy sought to destroy in her the spirit of freedom, the joy of creativity and work instilled by the Soviet system. And in response to this, the young Soviet man proudly raised his head.
Free Soviet song! She became close to Soviet youth, it always rings in their souls.
“One time Volodya and I were going to Sverdlovka to see our grandfather. It was very warm. Airplanes were flying overhead. We were walking through the steppe. There was no one around. We sang: “The dark mounds are sleeping... A young guy went out into the Donetsk steppe.” Then Volodya says:
I know where our troops are.
He started telling me the summary. I rushed to Volodya and started hugging him."
These simple lines of the memoirs of Volodya Osmukhin’s sister cannot be read without excitement. The immediate leaders of the “Young Guard” were Oleg Vasilyevich Koshevoy, born in 1926, member of the Komsomol since 1940, Zemnukhov Ivan Aleksandrovich, born in 1923, member of the Komsomol since 1941. Soon the patriots attracted new members of the organization into their ranks - Ivan Turkenich, Stepan Safonov, Lyuba Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova, Anatoly Popov, Nikolai Sumsky, Volodya Osmukhin, Valya Borts and others. Oleg Koshevoy was elected commissioner. The headquarters approved Ivan Vasilyevich Turkenich, a member of the Komsomol since 1940, as commander.
And these youth, who did not know the old system and, naturally, did not undergo underground experience, for several months disrupted all the activities of the fascist enslavers and inspired the population of the city of Krasnodon and the surrounding villages - Izvarin, Pervomaika, Semeykin, to resist the enemy, where branches of the organization were created. The organization grows to seventy people, then has over a hundred - children of miners, peasants and office workers.
The "Young Guard" distributes leaflets in hundreds and thousands - at bazaars, in cinemas, in clubs. Leaflets are found on the police building, even in the pockets of police officers. The Young Guard installs four radios and informs the population daily about the Information Bureau's reports.
In underground conditions, new members are accepted into the ranks of the Komsomol, temporary certificates are issued, and membership fees are accepted. As Soviet troops approach, an armed uprising is being prepared and weapons are being obtained in a variety of ways.
At the same time, strike groups carry out acts of sabotage and terrorism.
On the night of November 7–8, Ivan Turkenich’s group hanged two policemen. Placards were left on the chests of the hanged: “Such a fate awaits every corrupt dog.”
On November 9, Anatoly Popov’s group on the Gundorovka-Gerasimovka road destroys a passenger car with three senior Nazi officers.
On November 15, Viktor Petrov’s group liberates 75 Red Army soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp in the village of Volchansk.
In early December, Moshkov’s group burned three cars with gasoline on the Krasnodon-Sverdlovsk road.
A few days after this operation, Tyulenin’s group carried out an armed attack on the Krasnodon-Rovenki road against the guards, who were driving 500 head of cattle taken from the residents. Destroys the guards, scatters the cattle across the steppe.
Members of the “Young Guard”, who, on instructions from the headquarters, settled in occupation institutions and enterprises, are slowing down their work with skillful maneuvers. Sergei Levashov, working as a driver in a garage, disables three cars one after another. Yuri Vitsenovsky causes several accidents at the mine.
On the night of December 5-6, a brave trio of Young Guards - Lyuba Shevtsova, Sergei Tyulenin and Viktor Lukyanchenko - carry out a brilliant operation to set fire to the labor exchange. By destroying the labor exchange with all documents, the Young Guards saved several thousand Soviet people from being deported to Nazi Germany.
On the night of November 6-7, members of the organization hang red flags on the buildings of the school, the former regional consumer union, the hospital and on the tallest tree in the city park. “When I saw the flag at the school,” says M. A. Litvinova, a resident of the city of Krasnodon, “involuntary joy and pride overwhelmed me. I woke up the children and quickly ran across the road to Mukhina. I found her standing in her underwear on the windowsill, tears flowing in streams on her thin cheeks. She said: “Marya Alekseevna, this was done for us, Soviet people. We are remembered, we are not forgotten."
The organization was discovered by the police because it attracted too wide a range of young people into its ranks, including less resilient people. But during the terrible torture to which brutal enemies subjected the members of the Young Guard, the moral image of the young patriots was revealed with unprecedented force, an image of such spiritual beauty that it will inspire many, many more generations.
Oleg Koshevoy. Despite his youth, he is an excellent organizer. Dreaminess was combined in him with exceptional practicality and efficiency. He was the inspirer and initiator of a number of heroic events. Tall, broad-shouldered, he exuded strength and health, and more than once he himself took part in bold forays against the enemy. Having been arrested, he infuriated the Gestapo with his unwavering contempt for them. They burned him with a hot iron, pierced his body with needles, but his stamina and will did not leave him. After each interrogation, gray strands appeared in his hair. He went to execution completely gray-haired.
Ivan Zemnukhov is one of the most educated, well-read members of the Young Guard, the author of a number of wonderful leaflets. Outwardly awkward, but strong in spirit, he enjoyed universal love and authority. He was famous as an orator, loved poetry and wrote them himself (as, incidentally, Oleg Koshevoy and many other members of the Young Guard wrote them). Ivan Zemnukhov was subjected to the most brutal tortures and tortures in the dungeons. He was suspended in a loop through a special block from the ceiling, doused with water when he lost consciousness, and suspended again. They beat me three times a day with electric wire whips. The police persistently sought testimony from him, but achieved nothing. On January 15, he, along with other comrades, was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5.
Sergei Tyulenin. He is a small, agile, impetuous teenage boy, hot-tempered, with a perky character, courageous to the point of despair. He participated in many of the most desperate enterprises and personally destroyed many enemies. “He was a man of action,” his surviving comrades characterize him. “He didn’t like braggarts, talkers and slackers. He said: “You better do it, and let people talk about your deeds.”
Sergei Tyulenin was not only subjected to cruel torture, but his old mother was tortured in his presence. But like his comrades, Sergei Tyulenin was persistent to the end.
This is how Maria Andreevna Borts, a teacher from Krasnodon, characterizes the fourth member of the Young Guard headquarters, Ulyana Gromova: “It was a girl tall, a slender brunette with curly hair and beautiful features. Her black, piercing eyes amazed with their seriousness and intelligence... She was a serious, intelligent, intelligent and developed girl. She did not get excited like others, and did not hurl curses at the torturers... “They think of maintaining their power through terror,” she said. “Stupid people! Is it possible to turn the wheel of history back…”
The girls asked her to read "The Demon". She said: “With pleasure! I love The Demon. What a wonderful work it is! Just think, he rebelled against God himself!” The cell became completely dark. She began to read in a pleasant, melodious voice... Suddenly the silence of the evening twilight was pierced by a wild scream. Gromova stopped reading and said: “It’s starting!” The moans and screams became more and more intense. There was deathly silence in the cell. This went on for several minutes. Gromova, turning to us, read in a firm voice:
Sons of the snows, sons of the Slavs.
Why did you lose courage?
For what? Your tyrant will perish,
How all tyrants died.
Ulyana Gromova was subjected to inhuman torture. They hung her up by her hair, cut a five-pointed star on her back, burned her body with a hot iron, sprinkled salt on her wounds, and sat her on a hot stove. But even before her death, she did not lose heart and, using the Young Guard code, tapped out encouraging words to her friends through the walls: “Guys! Don’t lose heart! Ours are coming. Be strong. The hour of liberation is near. Ours are coming. Ours are coming...”
Her friend Lyubov Shevtsova worked as an intelligence officer on instructions from the headquarters. She established contact with the Voroshilovgrad underground and visited this city several times every month, showing exceptional resourcefulness and courage. Dressed in her best dress, portraying a “hater” of Soviet power, the daughter of a major industrialist, she penetrated among enemy officers and stole important documents. Shevtsova was tortured the longest. Having achieved nothing, the city police sent her to the district gendarmerie office of Rovenek. There, needles were driven under her nails and a star was cut out on her back. A person of exceptional cheerfulness and fortitude, she, returning to her cell after torture, sang songs to spite the executioners. One day during torture, I heard a noise Soviet plane, she suddenly laughed and said: “Our voice is coming.”
So, having kept their oath to the end, most of the members of the Young Guard organization died, only a few people remained alive. They walked to their execution with Vladimir Ilyich’s favorite song, “Tortured by Heavy Captivity.”
The “Young Guard” is not an isolated, exceptional phenomenon in the territory captured by the fascist occupiers. Everywhere and everywhere a proud Soviet man is fighting. And although the members of the militant organization "Young Guard" died in the struggle, they are immortal, because their spiritual traits are the traits of a new Soviet man, features of the people of a socialist country.
Eternal memory and glory to the young Young Guards - the heroic sons of the immortal Soviet people!
IMMORTAL FEAT OF UNDERGROUND Komsomol Members
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" from 24.IX. 1943
ON JULY 20, 1942, the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, was occupied by Nazi troops. From the very first day of the occupation, the Nazi scoundrels began to introduce their “new order” in the city. With cold German cruelty and frenzy, they killed and tortured innocent Soviet people, drove young people away to hard labor, and carried out wholesale robberies.
The orders of the German command, which covered all the fences and walls of buildings, threatened the death penalty for the slightest disobedience. For evading registration - execution, for failure to appear at the labor exchange, which was in charge of sending slaves to Germany - a noose, for appearing on the street in the evening - execution on the spot. Life became an unbearable torture, the city seemed to have died out, as if a terrible pestilence had burst into its wide streets, into its bright houses.
In early August, the Germans began to commit even more atrocities. One day they drove the population into a city park and staged a public execution of 30 miners who refused to appear for registration. The occupiers buried the miners alive in the ground and watched with pleasure the death throes of the innocent victims.
These days, under the difficult conditions of occupation, an underground Komsomol organization arose in Krasnodon. The sons and daughters of the famous Donetsk miners, raised by the great Motherland, raised by the Bolshevik Party, rose up to fight to the death against the fierce enemy. The organizers and leaders of the underground cell were Komsomol members Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyuleniy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyuba Shevtsova, Ivan Turkenich. The oldest of them was barely 19 years old.
Young patriots, fearless fighters with selflessness devote themselves to the sacred struggle against the Germans, attracting new members of the organization into their ranks: Stepan Safonov, Anatoly Popov, Nikolai Sumsky, Volodya Osmukhin, Valeria Borts and many other brave and selfless young men and women.
At the beginning of September, the first meeting of young underground workers took place at Oleg Koshevoy’s apartment. At the suggestion of Sergei Tyulenin, they decided to call the organization “Young Guard”. At the meeting, a headquarters was created consisting of Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Ivan Turkenich and Sergei Tyulenin (later the headquarters also included Lyubov Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova), which was entrusted with all management of the combat and political activities of the underground. The meeting unanimously elected Oleg Koshevoy as secretary of the Komsomol organization. He also became a commissar of the Young Guard.
The young underground fighters of Krasnodon set their goals and objectives:
Strengthen the people's confidence in the inevitable defeat of the Nazi invaders;
To raise young people and the entire population of the Krasnodon region to actively fight the German occupiers;
Provide yourself with weapons and at a convenient moment move on to open armed struggle.
After the first meeting, the Young Guards began to act even more energetically, even more persistently. They create a simple printing house, install radios, establish connections with young people, rousing them to fight against the German occupiers. In September, the underground organization already numbered 30 people in its ranks. The headquarters decides to divide all members of the organization into fives. The bravest and most determined comrades were placed at the head of the fives. To communicate with headquarters, each five had a liaison officer.
A little time passed, and the Young Guard established close contact with the youth of the surrounding villages - Izvarino, Pervomaika, Semeykino. On behalf of the headquarters, members of the organization Anatoly Popov, Nikolai Sumskoy, Ulyana Gromova create separate underground groups here and establish contacts with the villages of Gundorovka, Gerasimovka, Talovoe. Thus, the Young Guard extended its influence to the entire Krasnodon region. Despite the cruel, bloody terror of the Germans, the leaders and activists of the Young Guard created an extensive network of combat groups and cells, uniting over 100 young Soviet patriots.
Each member of the Young Guard took an oath of allegiance to the Motherland.
The surviving member of the Young Guard, Radiy Yurkin, recalls this solemn moment:
“In the evening we gathered at Victor’s apartment. Apart from him, there was no one at home - father and mother went to the village to get bread.
Oleg Koshevoy lined up everyone gathered and addressed us with a short speech. He spoke about the military traditions of Donbass, about the heroic exploits of the Donbass regiments led by Kliment Voroshilov and Alexander Parkhomenko, about the duty and honor of a Komsomol member. His words sounded quietly, but firmly, and touched the heart so much that everyone was ready to go through fire and water.
With mother’s milk we absorbed the love of freedom, fortunately, and the Germans will never bring us to our knees,” said Koshevoy. “We will fight like our fathers and grandfathers fought, until the last drop of blood, until the last breath.” We will endure torment and death, but we will fulfill our duty to the Fatherland with honor.
Then he called out one by one to take the oath. When Oleg said my last name, I was even more excited. I took two steps forward, turned to face my comrades and froze at attention. Koshevoy began to read the text of the oath in a low voice, but very clearly. I repeated after him.
Oleg came up to me, congratulated me on behalf of the headquarters on taking the oath and said:
From now on, your life, Radium, belongs to the Young Guard, its cause.”
In the merciless struggle against the German occupiers, the ranks of the Young Guard grew and strengthened. Each Young Guard member considered it an honor to join the Komsomol and carry near his heart a small book, printed in an underground printing house and replacing a Komsomol card during the Patriotic War. In their applications, the boys and girls wrote: “I ask to be accepted as members of the Komsomol. I will honestly carry out any tasks of the organization, and if necessary, I will give my life for the cause of the people, for the cause of the great party of Lenin - Stalin.”
These stingy and simple words, like a drop of water, reflect all the noble qualities of our youth.
From the first day of its existence, the Young Guard has been carrying out enormous political work among young people and the entire population, exposing false German propaganda, instilling confidence in the people in the victory of the Red Army, rousing them to fight the Germans, to disrupt and sabotage the activities of the fascist authorities.
The Young Guards, having installed radios, day after day inform the population of the city and region about all events at the front, in the Soviet rear, and abroad.
With the beginning of the offensive of Soviet troops in the Stalingrad area, the propaganda work of the Young Guard intensified even more. Almost every day leaflets appear on fences, houses, and pillars telling about the advance of Soviet troops, calling on the population to actively help our advancing regiments.
Over the course of 6 months, the Young Guard issued more than 30 leaflet titles in just one city, with a circulation of over 5,000 copies.
All members of the underground organization took part in distributing leaflets. At the same time, the Young Guards showed a lot of initiative, cunning and dexterity.
Oleg Koshevoy put on a police uniform at night and distributed leaflets among the population. Vasya Pirozhok managed to stick small posters on the backs of policemen on market days with short inscriptions: “Down with the German occupiers!”, “Death to corrupt skins!” Semyon Ostapenko pasted leaflets on the director’s car, on the police, gendarmerie and city government buildings.
Sergei Tyulenin "patronized" the cinema. He invariably appeared in the hall just before the start of the session. At that moment, when the mechanic turned off the lights in the hall, Sergei was scattering leaflets among the audience.
Fiery Bolshevik proclamations passed from house to house, from hand to hand. They were read to the gills, their contents became the property of the entire city that same day. Many of the leaflets went beyond Krasnodon to the Sverdlovsk, Rovenkovsky, and Novosvetlovsky districts.
The 25th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution was approaching. The “Young Guard” decided to adequately celebrate the national Soviet holiday and began to actively prepare for it. Members of the organization collected money and gifts for the families of commanders and soldiers of the Red Army, and prepared packages of food to be given to communist prisoners. The headquarters made a decision: to hang red flags in the city on the day of the holiday.
On the night of November 6–7, the Young Guards hoisted red banners at the school named after. Voroshilov, at the 1-bis mine, on the building of the former regional consumer union, on the hospital and on the highest tree in the city park. Slogans were posted everywhere: “Congratulations on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, comrades!”, “Death to the German occupiers!”
On a gloomy November morning, city residents saw the most tall buildings red banners dear to the heart. It seemed as if the clear sun had risen in the middle of the night - this picture was so majestic and exciting. People couldn’t believe their eyes and peered again and again at the banners fluttering in the wind.
The news about the flags was passed from mouth to mouth, from village to village, from village to village, raising the spirit of the population, inciting hatred of the German invaders.
Policemen, gendarmes, Gestapo detectives rushed through the streets like mad, but it was already too late. The banners could be torn down and hidden, but no force could kill the joyful excitement and pride that so inevitably flared up in the hearts of the Soviet people.
Comrade Stalin's report on the 25th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution and his order of November 7, 1942 inspired young underground fighters to new exploits and to intensify the struggle against the Nazis. Each Young Guard member vowed to inflict even more significant blows on the enemy, to fully carry out the historical order of the leader. Underground combat groups destroy staff vehicles with German officers, kill soldiers, traitors to the Motherland, police officers, commit acts of sabotage at enterprises, and steal weapons.
By the beginning of December, the Young Guards had at their disposal 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, 15,000 rounds of ammunition, 10 pistols, 65 kg of explosives, and several hundred meters of fuse.
Members of the Young Guard in every possible way disrupted the events that the Germans tried to hold. When the Nazis began intensive preparations for the export of grain to Germany, the headquarters made a bold decision - not to give the Germans grain. The Young Guards burn huge stacks of grain, and the already threshed grain is infested with mites.
A few days after this operation, Tyulenin’s group carried out an armed attack on the Krasnodon-Rovenki road against German guards who were driving 500 head of cattle taken from the residents. In a short battle, the young patriots destroyed the guards and drove the cattle into the steppe.
Members of the “Young Guard”, who, on instructions from the headquarters, settled in German institutions and enterprises, use skillful maneuvers to thwart their plans in every possible way. Sergei Levashov, working as a driver in a garage, disables 3 cars one after another; Yuri Vitsenovsky causes several accidents at the mine.
The organization carried out truly heroic work to disrupt the mobilization of youth in Germany.
On the night of December 5-6, 1942, a brave trio of Young Guards - Lyuba Shevtsova, Sergei Tyulenin and Viktor Lukyanchenko - carried out a difficult operation to set fire to the German labor exchange. By destroying the exchange with all the documents, the underground fighters saved several thousand Soviet people from being deported to German penal servitude. At the same time, the Young Guards freed 75 soldiers and commanders from the Volchansky prisoner of war camp and organized the escape of 20 prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital.
The Red Army stubbornly advanced towards Donbass. The "Young Guard" prepared day and night to realize their cherished dream - a decisive armed attack on the Krasnodon German garrison.
The commander of the Young Guard, Turkenich, developed a detailed plan for the capture of the city, deployed forces, collected intelligence materials, but a vile betrayal interrupted the combat activities of the glorious underground fighters.
As soon as the arrests began, the headquarters gave the order to all members of the Young Guard to leave and make their way to the Red Army units. But it was already too late. Only 7 Komsomol members managed to escape and stay alive - Ivan Turkenich, Georgy Arutyunyants, Valeria Borts, Radiy Yurkin, Olya Ivantsova, Nina Ivantsova and Mikhail Shishchenko. The remaining members of the Young Guard were captured by the Nazis and imprisoned.
Young underground fighters were subjected to terrible torture, but none of them backed down from their oath. The German executioners went berserk, beating and torturing the Young Guards for several hours in a row, and they remained silent, proudly and courageously enduring the torture. The Germans were unable to break the spirit and iron will of the young Soviet people and never achieved recognition.
The Gestapo beat Sergei Tyulenin several times a day with whips made of electrical wires, broke his fingers, and drove a hot ramrod into the wound. When this did not help, the executioners brought the mother, a 58-year-old woman. In front of Sergei, they stripped her and began to torture her.
The executioners demanded that he tell about his connections in Kamensk and Izvarin. Sergei was silent. Then the Gestapo, in the presence of his mother, hung Sergei in a noose from the ceiling three times, and then gouged out his eye with a hot needle.
The Young Guards knew that the time for execution was coming. And even in the last hour they remained strong in spirit, they were full of faith in our victory. A member of the Young Guard headquarters, Ulyana Gromova, transmitted in Morse code to all cells:
The last order from headquarters... The last order... we will be taken to execution. We will be led through the city streets. We will sing Ilyich’s favorite song.
Young fighters were taken out of prison exhausted and mutilated. Ulyana Gromova walked with a star carved on her back, Shura Bondareva - with her breasts cut off. Volodya Oemukhin's right hand was cut off.
The Young Guards walked on their last journey with their heads held high. Their song sang solemnly and sadly:
Tortured by heavy bondage,
You died a glorious death,
In the fight for the workers' cause
You put your head down honestly...
The executioners threw underground Komsomol members alive into the pit of the mine.
In February 1943, our troops entered Krasnodon. A red flag hoisted over the city. And, watching him rinse in the wind, the residents again remembered the Young Guards. Hundreds of people headed to the prison building. They saw bloody clothes in the cells, traces of unheard-of torture. The walls were covered with inscriptions. On one of the walls, not painted, but almost carved, is a heart pierced by an arrow. There are four surnames in the heart: “Shura Bondareva, Nina Minaeva, Ulya Gromova, Angela Samoshina.” And above all the inscriptions, all over the bloody wall, as a testament to his contemporaries, they cried out the words of revenge: “Death to the German occupiers!”
This is how the glorious students of the Komsomol lived and fought for their fatherland. And they died like true heroes. Their death is immortality.
Years will pass. Our great country will heal the severe wounds inflicted by the Nazi cannibals, new, bright cities and villages will grow from the ashes and ruins. A new generation of people will grow up, but the names of the young, fearless underground fighters from the Donetsk city of Krasnodon will never be forgotten. Their immortal deeds will forever burn as a bright ruby in the crown of our glory. Their life, struggle and death will serve as an example for our youth of selfless service to the Motherland, the great cause of the Lenin-Stalin party.
YOUNG GUARDS OF UKRAINE
V. KOSTENKO Secretary of the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Ukraine "Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated 14.IX. 1943
FOR OVER two years, the Ukrainian people have been fighting shoulder to shoulder with their Russian brother, together with the sons of all the peoples of the Soviet country, against the mortal enemy of our Motherland - the German occupiers. Every day of the struggle brings new news about the unparalleled heroism, courage and self-sacrifice of Ukrainian patriots, who vowed not to lay down their arms until the last Nazi was expelled from Soviet soil.
In the forefront of the fighting people are their pride and hope - the glorious youth of Ukraine. The sons and daughters of the Ukrainian people, carefully raised by the Soviet government and the Lenin-Stalin party, show examples of courage and fearlessness in the struggle for their homeland, for its honor and independence.
The feat of a group of young men and women in the small Donetsk city of Krasnodon, which the whole country now knows about, clearly reflects the high patriotic feelings of our youth, their nobility, courage, bravery, fiery love for the Motherland and burning hatred of the enemy.
On July 20, 1942, the German occupiers broke into the quiet green mining town of Krasnodon. Wild reprisals began against peaceful, innocent people. For failure to appear for registration, the Germans buried thirty miners alive in the city garden. People's faces darkened, life became unbearable. The population of Krasnodon, like the residents of all cities and villages occupied by the Germans, was doomed to death from hunger, disease, torture and abuse. With terrible terror, provocations and intimidation, the Germans tried here too to morally disarm people, break their will to resist, bring them to their knees, turn them into obedient slaves...
But could young people who grew up in the Soviet country come to terms with the slave fate prepared for them by the Germans?
The son of a worker, Oleg Koshevoy, perfectly answered this question in the simple lines of a poem written in the first days of the occupation of the city:
It's hard for me... Everywhere you look,
Everywhere I see Hitler's rubbish.
Everywhere the hated form is before me,
SS badge with a death's head.
I decided that it was impossible to live like this,
Look at the torment and suffer yourself.
We must hurry, before it’s too late,
Behind enemy lines - destroy the enemy!
I decided so, and I will fulfill it, -
I will give my whole life for my Motherland,
For our people, for our dear,
The beautiful Soviet country.
That's what Oleg decided. The son of an old Kyiv worker, who moved in 1940 with his whole family to the city of Krasnodon, could not do otherwise. Image. the Kyiv arsenals, the immortal example of the Don miners, who more than once defended their native Donbass from the enemy with arms in their hands, lived in the minds of the young man and was a guiding star for him.
Like Oleg Koshevoy, hundreds and thousands of young men and women from the Donetsk basin, the oldest working center in Ukraine, decided to take the path of fighting the German enslavers. “Better death in battle than life in captivity,” became their motto.
An ardent patriot, seventeen-year-old Komsomol member Oleg Koshevoy quickly found comrades-in-arms and military friends. Together with Vanya Zemnukhov and Sergei Tyulenin, he creates an underground Komsomol organization. They called it “Young Guard”. The organization grew quickly, absorbing the best that was available among the young miners.
Here were Ivan Turkenich - a favorite of the youth and already a battle-hardened warrior, respected by the entire city for his valor in work and success in science, Komsomol member Lyuba Shevtsova, Anatoly Popov, Stepan Safonov, Nikolai Sumskoy, Vladimir Osmukhin, Viktor Lukyanchenko, Ulyana Gromova, Valya Borts and a lot others. In the fight against the enemy, yesterday's teenagers became stern and determined warriors and excellent organizers. They were not content with creating an organization in the city itself; they put together similar groups in workers' settlements. They intensively collected weapons, ammunition, explosives, and studied military affairs.
At underground meetings, Young Guards take the oath:
"..."I swear to take revenge mercilessly for the burned, devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of thirty heroic miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment’s hesitation.
If I break this sacred oath, either under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name and my family be cursed forever, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades.
Blood for blood! Death for death!"
In every word of this oath, in every military deed of the young Krasnodon patriots, the glorious, revolutionary traditions of the Donetsk miners, who never bowed their heads to the enemy, were reflected.
Group of Young Guards - Vladimir. Osmukhin, Anatoly Orlov, Georgy: Arutyunyants - created an underground printing house. Soon the city learns from numerous leaflets the truth about the situation at the fronts and reads fiery calls to fight. Mysterious postmen deliver leaflets to all houses, paste them on fences, on telegraph poles, in the most crowded places. The Young Guards warn Soviet citizens about the danger that threatens them - about the widespread deportation of our people to Hitler's penal servitude, and give advice on how to avoid this danger. And their voice reached the masses. In Krasnodon, the Germans failed to “recruit” a single person to work for Germany, and forced mobilizations also failed one after another.
Menacing slogans appeared on the walls of houses: “Death to the German occupiers!” In the church, people received notes: “As we lived, so we will live, as we were, so we will be, under the Stalinist banner.” On the backs of Nazi policemen walking around the bazaar, people happily read short - five or six words - leaflets pasted by the hand of a young patriot.
It is not difficult to understand and appreciate the significance of this underground work in conditions of ferocious terror, shameless lies and slander with which German propagandists tried to poison the consciousness of the Soviet people.
On the day of the great holiday, the 25th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution, red banners were hoisted on the highest buildings of the city by the hands of the Young Guard.
Worker M.A. Litvinova says:
When I saw the flag on the school, joy and pride overwhelmed me. I woke up the children and quickly ran across the road to Mukhina K.A., she was sitting on the windowsill. Tears flowed in streams down her sunken cheeks. “Maria Alekseevna,” said my neighbor, “after all, this was done for us, Soviet people. They remember us, we are not forgotten!”
“We are not forgotten, we are remembered, we will be rescued, we will be rescued from German captivity!” - these are the thoughts and feelings that the brave activity of the Young Guards generated in the hearts of suffering people. It was a ray of light that cut through the darkness of the fascist night, foreshadowing the onset of a bright day of liberation.
The Young Guards celebrated the great date of the 25th anniversary of October with touching concern for the Soviet people. Families of workers, especially those who suffered at the hands of the German occupiers, received gifts on this day. The orphan children had bread on this day. It is easy to imagine what a great holiday it was in the hard, joyless life of the townspeople. The matter, of course, is not only in these modest gifts, not in that piece of bread, which still could not satisfy the hunger of the exhausted children - it is impossible to overestimate the importance of the life-giving force that these gifts from the Young Guard breathed into the souls of people.
The vigorous fighting life of the “Young Guard” was felt every day in the city and inspired Soviet citizens. The youth underground organization became a threat to the invaders, sowing in their ranks an animal fear of imminent retribution.
The city did not submit to the invaders, did not obey their orders. The city openly rejoiced upon learning of the victories of our troops at Stalingrad; the city was preparing to welcome the Red Army with open arms. The murders and mass executions committed by the Nazis did not frighten people, but only incited their rage, hatred and contempt for the enemy. Almost every night the black heart of the enemy was struck by a well-aimed bullet from an invisible avenger, warehouses flew into the air.
The Germans hunted for the Young Guard for a long time. Finally, the Gestapo bloodhounds managed to grab the thread into their own hands. Arrests and torture began. The torture was indescribable in its cruelty and savagery, and, despite this, the executioners were unable to break the young patriots or wrest words of recognition and repentance from them.
17-year-old Lyuba Shevtsova, a fragile blond girl, in a cell where Soviet people doomed to death were sitting, said:
Lyubka is not afraid to die. Lyubka, she will be able to die honestly,
In her dying hours, Ulya Gromova inspiredly read Lermontov’s “Demon”,
What a wonderful work,” she said, “Just think, he rebelled against the strongest!”
Shura Dubrovina and Lyuba Shevtsova managed to pass encouraging notes to their friends.
When the Red Army cleared the city of Krasnodon from the Nazi scoundrels, the miners recovered the corpses of young men and women from the pit of the destroyed mine. Relatives and friends had difficulty recognizing their dear, dear sons and daughters, who were brutally tortured by German monsters.
The memory of young heroes will forever live in our hearts. She will live as an undying symbol of the love and devotion of Ukrainian youth to their native land, the great party of Lenin-Stalin, as a symbol of the all-conquering Stalinist friendship of peoples who vowed not to spare either their strength or life itself for the liberation of all their brothers and sisters from fascist captivity.
Now, when the Red Army is waging successful offensive battles, liberating its native Ukrainian land from captivity, the memory of the young heroes from Krasnodon, like a calling bell, will call the Red warriors forward. The noble images of young fighters will inspire the sons and daughters of Ukraine to new feats in battle, in the partisan rear, in work and study. Their example will show the way to the fastest liberation for hundreds and thousands of our brothers and sisters who are still languishing under Hitler’s yoke.
Glory to the Krasnodon heroes of the Young Guard, who immortalized their names and wrote new page into the history of the liberation war of the Soviet people!
WORD OF THE HERO'S MOTHER
Speech by Elena Nikolaevna Kosheva at a meeting of young Stakhanovites in the Oktyabrsky district of Moscow on September 14, 1943.
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated 15.IX 1943
I am the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, whom the Germans brutally tortured and executed. I want to tell you about how he lived, studied and fought, how passionately he hated the Germans.
My Oleg was born in 1926 in the city of Priluki, Chernigov region. He was a strong, very active boy. He, like all boys, loved all kinds of playful games, loved to sing, play, and listen to fairy tales. When Oleg got older and went to school, he became interested in sports. He was good at skating and good at skiing. Just like now, he stands before my eyes, rosy-cheeked from the frost, covered in snow, cheerful and content. When Oleg returned from the cinema - and he went to the cinema with his grandmother - he loved to shower her with snow. The grandmother did not remain in debt to her grandson. And this friendship of people of such different ages was truly touching. I was also surprised by how Oleg, despite his age, knew how to find limits to his pranks.
Oleg was a favorite in the family, perhaps because he was our only son. But we did not spoil him, although we denied him little. Everyone in the family tried to instill in Oleg a noble sense of love for the Motherland, for the Bolshevik Party, which provided him with both a happy childhood and a happy future.
Oleg studied well and always helped his comrades sincerely and with pleasure. Oleg was a social activist at school, a newspaper editor, and the teachers treated him with respect.
Oleg loved his comrades very much. Always, when we had a New Year's tree, he invited those friends whose parents could not host a Christmas tree. He told me: “Mom, those who have the opportunity to organize a holiday will not be offended by me, but I must invite my comrades who have difficult conditions at home.”
A sense of duty was one of the strong qualities of his character. When Oleg’s father died in 1940 and financial difficulties arose in the family, Oleg told me: “That’s it, mom, I’m not little anymore, I can work and study, and it will be easier for you.” I was touched by this concern, but I did not allow Oleg to work. Then he began to do everything he could at home to ease my situation.
Oleg's love for books was boundless. He read every single book in Valya Borts's library, and some of them several times. He really wanted to learn to play the piano and even during the days of occupation he haunted Valya Borts, demanding that she study with him.
This is how my Oleg grew up. He dreamed of becoming a design engineer. And it seemed that nothing could stop this. But something terrible happened: on July 20, 1942, the Germans entered our city. The very next day they began to establish the so-called “new order”. They started with robberies, arrests, violence against girls and women. The Germans executed communists, Komsomol members, and indeed all Soviet people who were innocent of anything. In August 1942, German cannibals buried 58 men, women and children in a hole in the Krasnodon city park. They were tied by the hands in groups of 5, placed side by side, and so, in a standing position, they were covered with earth alive.
The communist Valko, his wife and infant child, the engineer Udavinsky and many others were buried here. The Nazis forcibly deported young people to Germany. Moaning and crying were heard in almost every house.
One day Oleg came home very upset. I tried to get him to have a frank conversation. But he was silent for a long time. It was strange. Before this, Oleg always shared all his thoughts and experiences with me. I realized that something big was happening in the boy’s soul, that literally before our eyes he was becoming more and more mature with every minute. At night, when my grandmother was already asleep, Oleg, apparently, could not stand it and told me that during the day the Germans had led away a group of captured Red Army soldiers. He told how hard it was for him to look at our Russian people, whom the Nazis mocked.
Do you see, mom, what the Germans are doing to our people? Can we endure it any longer? If we all sit like this with our hands folded, we will all be shackled in chains. We must fight, fight and fight!
He spoke warmly, passionately, as if he was speaking at some kind of rally, and I felt that some kind of big decision was born in Oleg’s mind.
From that time on, Oleg began to come home late, became thoughtful and less talkative. I watched my son very carefully, and, as a mother, I, of course, really wanted to know his thoughts, his thoughts. One day Oleg told me that he decided to fight the Germans, to fight with all his might and means. I was proud of my son, but it was very important for me to convince him that the path he was taking was a dangerous one, that the consequences could be the most unexpected and severe, and that whoever decided to fight must be ready for anything - accept death, if necessary, and accept it courageously, as befits a fighter. And then Oleg told me:
Mommy! If I have to die, I can die the death of a warrior. Whoever does not want to betray the Motherland must take revenge on the enemy, at any moment go to mortal combat and in the struggle win the right to a happy life.
It became clear to me that Oleg was ready to fight, that, despite his 16 years, he was mature enough to understand the complexity and responsibility of the task he had taken on. No matter how painful it was for me to realize that from now on my son’s life was in danger, I decided with all my might, by all means, to help him and, so to speak, to inspire him.
I soon learned that an underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” had been created in the city of Krasnodon. The organizers of this underground group were: Oleg, Ulyana Gromova, Sergei Tyulenin, Ivan Zemnukhov, Lyuba Shevtsova. Then they were joined by Valya Borts, Vanya Turkenich, Volodya Osmukhin and others. Oleg was elected secretary of the Komsomol committee and commissar of the Young Guard detachment. Vanya Turkenich became commander. Later I learned that Tolya Popov and Volodya Osmukhin managed to organize an underground printing house in which temporary Komsomol tickets and leaflets were printed. The Young Guard grew quickly. Soon there were already 100 people in the organization. Mostly these were very young guys and girls - students in grades 8-9-10. Each person joining the organization took a solemn oath of allegiance to serving their homeland.
And then in Krasnodon, events that were completely incomprehensible to the Germans began to happen: suddenly Sovinformburo reports appeared on the walls of houses, then leaflets, then various kinds of threats addressed to German commandants, the police, etc. Or suddenly at the market in the baskets of traders, on stalls and Even on the backs of the police, leaflets appeared, signed with three letters “Sh. M. G.”, which meant the headquarters of the “Young Guard”.
Oleg took out a radio somewhere. At great risk, this receiver was delivered to our home and installed in the kitchen under the floor. Now the Young Guards gathered in small groups to listen to Moscow, and the next day the whole city learned the truth about the Soviet Union, the truth about the situation at the front. Hundreds of leaflets issued by the Young Guards, like a life-giving ray of Stalin’s truth, illuminated in the darkness of fascist oppression the path that Stalin’s should take the youth. Young underground fighters exposed Hitler’s lies that the Red Army supposedly no longer existed, that the Germans had taken Stalingrad and Leningrad, that Moscow was already encircled and was about to fall one of these days.
The Young Guards grew in number and quality. Even recent schoolchildren today were already real underground fighters who had their own tactics, their own specific combat mission. Gradually, Oleg and his comrades transformed their organization from a purely propaganda organization into an organization of armed resistance to the Germans. Rifles and grenades obtained from the Germans began to arrive at the Young Guard's warehouse. From then on, the roads became unsafe for Hitler’s cars.
The German commandants became worried. They increased the police force. The Young Guards pursued the Germans day and night. It was they, the Young Guards, who spoiled telephone and telegraph communications. It was they who, when the Germans tried to take bread out of Krasnodon, burned 6 stacks of bread and 4 stacks of hay. It was the Young Guards who recaptured 500 head of cattle, which the Germans had prepared for shipment to Germany, and also killed the Romanian soldiers accompanying the cattle.
One day, the headquarters of the Young Guard learned that the Nazis were going to send several thousand young residents from Krasnodon to Germany. Based on inquiries, the Young Guards learned that a special case had been prepared for each candidate to be sent to the labor exchange. The headquarters developed a precise plan for setting the exchange on fire. One fine evening Krasnodon was illuminated by the glow of a fire. It was the labor exchange, which we called the nest of slavery, that was burning.
On November 7, flags suddenly began to glow over Krasnodon, on which was written: “Death to the German occupiers!” It was the work of the Young Guards.
It is very difficult to list all the deeds of the Young Guard. They did a lot, they would have done even more if not for the hand of a traitor.
On January 1, 1943, mass arrests of Young Guards began. It was very difficult to hide. Oleg left and did not come home for 11 days. I knew what awaited my son. The Germans gave the order that if Oleg Koshevoy or any other of the Young Guards were found with anyone, he would be executed along with them. On the eleventh night Oleg returned. We spoke very seriously and for a long time with Oleg, I will never forget his words:
Mom, even if they manage to catch me, they still won’t torture me for long. I will not say a word, I will accept all the torments, but I will not kneel before the executioners.
Oleg disappeared again.
The traitor betrayed Oleg. He was executed.
No, I cannot describe in words all the torture suffered by Oleg and his comrades. The executioners burned Komsomol ticket numbers on their bodies, drove needles under their nails, burned their heels with a hot iron, gouged out their eyes, hung them from the ceiling by their feet and held them until blood began to flow from their mouths. The Germans broke the Young Guard's arms and legs, broke their chests with the butts of machine guns, beat them with two whips, and dealt them a hundred blows at once. The walls of the prison were stained with the blood of the Young Guards; the executioners forced the young patriots to lick this blood with their tongues, and then threw them half-dead into the shaft of shaft No. 5.
But even with the most sophisticated torture, the Nazis were unable to find out anything. The Komsomol members stood bravely and steadfastly. Seryozha Tyulenin was pierced with a bayonet, and then a hot ramrod was shoved into the fresh wounds. Seryozha died without saying a word to the executioners.
Lyuba Shevtsova! Comrades, I cannot calmly pronounce the name of this brave Komsomol member. She endured all the torture, but did not mention a single name of her fellow fighters. She told the executioners:
No matter how much you torture me, you will not be able to learn anything from me.
With the pride of my mother, I pronounce the names of Vanya Zemnukhov, Zhenya Moshkov, Uli Gromova, Shura Dubrovina, Anatoly Popov, Zhenya Shepelev and many, many others: they died heroes. No amount of torture forced them to hand over their comrades. Tolya Popov, when asked by the police chief: “What did you do?”, answered:
I won’t say what we did, but it’s a pity that we didn’t do enough!
The chief of police asked my Oleg a question:
What made you join the partisans?
Love for the Motherland and hatred for enemies. You won't force us to live on our knees. We'd rather die standing. There are more of us and we will win!
Oleg behaved courageously and fearlessly in prison. The letters I received from him were cheerful, and, as always, he tried to convince me that nothing would happen to him. He calmed me down and even joked. He told the guys:
Don’t show that it’s hard for us to part with life. After all, these barbarians will not have mercy, but we are dying for a great cause - for the Motherland, and the Motherland will take revenge for us. Let's sing, guys!
Exhausted from torture, tormented, they sang, sang in spite of their tormentors, executioners.
Oleg was sent from the police to the gendarmerie. And there he did not lose courage. He loved life. He wanted to live. Together with two comrades, he prepared an escape. They broke the grate and fled, but were unsuccessful. The police caught them, and the heroes were executed in the basement of the hospital.
When I found the corpse of my dear son, he was mutilated beyond recognition.
Oleg was not even 17 years old at that time, but his hair turned gray from everything he experienced in the Gestapo. The executioners gouged out his eye, cut his cheek with a bayonet, and knocked out the entire back of his head with the butt of a machine gun.
My dear friends! My heart stops when I remember what the executioners did to my son and to dozens of similar young Krasnodon residents. May the Germans be damned! Let the specter of terrible executions hover over them. May they all suffer a terrible inevitable death!
Dear comrades! I, the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, make an appeal - do not spare your strength, help the front with honest and selfless work. Defend the freedom of your native country from the German barbarians, do not spare your strength and life in this struggle, just as my son Oleg and his comrades did not spare it. My son, just like you, loved life, loved, like you, to laugh and sing, but in difficult times, in difficult hours of testing, his heart did not tremble. He fearlessly rebelled against his enslavers and dedicated his young life to the great cause of liberating his native land.
Oleg told me many times that the brave die once, but cowards die many times.
I am speaking to you on behalf of all parents of members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard". I urge you: help the Red Army soldiers mercilessly destroy the Germans, destroy them like the very last reptiles. With the voice of a mother, I call on you to take merciless revenge on the Germans.
MY COMRADES
VALERIYA BORTS, member of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard".
"Komsomolskaya Pravda" dated 16.IX-1943
I would like to talk about my friends and comrades, members of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard", with whom I worked during the days of the German occupation of the city of Krasnodon. Many, many years will pass, but with deep emotion I will remember the names of those who did not submit to the Germans, who went underground during the dark days of the occupation, who burned warehouses, blew up bridges, and did not give the Germans an hour of rest on our land. I am proud that my comrades - the leaders and organizers of the Young Guard - received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. The government highly appreciated their services to the Motherland.
I would like to briefly talk about the comrades who died for the happiness of the people.
On the black day of July 20, 1942, the Germans entered Krasnodon. Residents of the city learned what the German “new order” was. In the first days, the occupiers buried fifty-eight people alive in the city park. All the pits of the quarries around our rock were filled with the corpses of innocent people. How could Soviet youth respond to these atrocities? We saw blood and the faces of people brutally executed by the Germans, distorted in death horror. We saw children, women; old people mutilated by the bayonets of German soldiers. Only those who saw this with their own eyes can understand how great our hatred of the Germans was. Hatred knows no words. We gritted our teeth, we went underground, organized our own detachment - a detachment of people's avengers and called it "Young Guard".
We decided from the very first days to act boldly and persistently. It couldn't be any other way. The leaders and organizers of the Young Guard were brave, strong-willed Komsomol members, stubbornly pursuing their goal.
One day, a group of prisoners of war were being led along the street - ragged, hungry. Residents brought them bread, but the guards threw the bread into the mud. One Romanian hit a prisoner in the face because he wanted to pick up potatoes. We were nearby at the time. Leonid Dadyshev grabbed a stone and threw it at the Romanian. The soldier ran after him. At this time, Sergei Tyulenin, Oleg Koshevoy and I took away three prisoners.
I remember my fallen comrades and their courageous, strong images rise before me. Here is Ulyana Gromova - slim, beautiful girl. She completed her tenth year and studied well. The German came and everything went to pieces. Let alone study, it is impossible to live under the Germans. Ulyana often said: “It’s better to die than to be a slave. If I get caught by the Germans, I won’t say a word to them.” And she died like a heroine, torture did not break her, she did not betray her comrades who were still free then with a single word. It used to be that in difficult moments Ulyana would smile warmly and joyfully, and all the hard things would go far away, and strength and energy would appear again. We loved her, took care of her, and each of us always found sympathy with her. Even in prison she did not change, she was just as cheerful, cheerful and thus supported everyone who was sitting in the cell with her.
Lyuba Shevtsova. A cheerful girl with blue eyes, lively, perky, tireless. If she received a task from headquarters, she took it on with ardor. She infected us all with her courage and audacity.
In prison, after torture that only the Germans are capable of, Lyuba told her comrades: “I don’t care about dying, and I want to die honestly and nobly.” Lyuba died a hero... Just the thought that Lyuba is no more makes you feel like an orphan.
Sergei Tyulenin, a 17-year-old boy with open face and stubborn traits. He was a very persistent man; he always got what he wanted. A strong character cannot be bent. And they didn’t bend him. The executioners used hot irons to break his hands and gouge out his eye, but Sergei Tyulenin did not say a word.
Combat Chief of Staff! How good and warm it was with him, how he rejoiced at his luck, how he straightened up when danger approached! Brave and adventurous, he was our favorite. His martyrdom in the hearts of the surviving Young Guards will always be a call for revenge.
I knew Oleg Koshevoy even before the war. He was very inquisitive, interested in everything and loved music. True, our lessons were progressing poorly, but this, perhaps, rather depended on the teacher. I had a large library at home. Oleg, as we jokingly said, swallowed it whole. He took several books at once, and returned them three or four days later.
Oleg looked about 20 years old; he looked physically strong and healthy. In fact, he was not even 17 years old. His most characteristic features were determination, enterprise, and perseverance. We already knew: Oleg said it means it will be done. He was a wonderful comrade - sensitive, reliable. Oleg wrote poetry, had a kind, good heart; but when it came to the Germans, he was angry and merciless. Before his death, Oleg said: “We did not live on our knees, and we will die standing.” I will never forget these words from him. Oleg was our conscience.
Vanya Zemnukhov enjoyed great love in our organization. So it seems that a slightly stooped young man with bright and intelligent eyes will now enter the room and start speaking, and he will speak well and intelligently. And every time we looked at him, we felt like teenagers; I wanted to work hard to earn the right to be friends with him. We were amazed at Vanya Zemnukhov’s calmness in moments of danger, as if it didn’t concern him, as if he had nothing to do with it. But this was not simple carelessness or apathy. No, in this calmness we saw strength, the ability to courageously face difficulty, meet it halfway and win. This is how we knew him in the days of our struggle, and this is how he remained until the last second of his life.
I remember Alexandra Bondareva well, a girl of average height, with dark eyes, lively and regular facial features. Sasha sang and danced very well. At first glance it seemed that she was just a cheerful girl, but it only seemed so. She never refused dangerous assignments and knew how to go on risky business with a joke. She openly and proudly accepted death at the hands of the executioner.
In the name of the freedom of the Motherland, my friends fought, sparing neither strength nor life. In the name of liberating the Motherland, the surviving Young Guards continue to fight in the ranks of the Red Army.
I appeal to the officers and soldiers of the Red Army as a member of the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard": take revenge, comrades, for the death of those who died but remained faithful to their Motherland. The blood of my tortured comrades calls for revenge. Take revenge! This is me saying, a simple Soviet girl who saw with her own eyes what the “new order” of the Germans was.
* * *
Organizers of the Krasnodon Komsomol underground
Victor Tretyakevich
Oleg Koshevoy
Ivan Zemnukhov
Ulyana Gromova
Sergey Tyulenin
Lyubov Shevtsova
Ivan Turkenich
Vasily Levashov
Members of the Young Guard
Lidia Androsova
Georgy Harutyunyants
Vasily Bondarev
Alexandra Bondareva
Vasily Prokofievich Borisov
Vasily Mefodievich Borisov
Valeria Borts
Yuri Vitsenovsky
Nina Gerasimova
Boris Glavan
Mikhail Grigoriev
Vasily Gukov
Leonid Dadyshev
Alexandra Dubrovina
Antonina Dyachenko
Antonina Eliseenko
Vladimir Zhdanov
Nikolay Zhukov
Vladimir Zagoruiko
Antonina Ivanikhina
Liliya Ivanikhina
Nina Ivantsova
Olga Ivantsova
Nina Kezikova
Evgenia Kiikova
Anatoly Kovalev
Klavdiya Kovaleva
Vladimir Kulikov
Sergey Levashov
Anatoly Lopukhov
Gennady Lukashov
Vladimir Lukyanchenko
Antonina Mashchenko
Nina Minaeva
Nikolay Mironov
Evgeniy Moshkov
Anatoly Nikolaev
Dmitry Ogurtsov
Anatoly Orlov
Semyon Ostapenko
Vladimir Osmukhin
Pavel Palaguta
Maya Peglivanova
Nadezhda Petlya
Nadezhda Petrachkova
Victor Petrov
Vasily Pirozhok
Yuri Polyansky
Anatoly Popov
Vladimir Rogozin
Ilya Savenkov
Angelina Samoshina
Stepan Safonov
Anna Sopova
Nina Startseva
Victor Subbotin
Nikolay Sumskoy
Vasily Tkachev
Demyan Fomin
Evgeny Shepelev
Alexander Shishchenko
Mikhail Shishchenko
Georgy Shcherbakov
Nadezhda Shcherbakova
Radiy Yurkin
Adult underground fighters of Krasnodon
Philip Petrovich Lyutikov
Nikolai Petrovich Barakov
Andrey Andreevich Valko
Gerasim Tikhonovich Vinokurov
Daniil Sergeevich Vystavkin
Maria Georgievna Dymchenko
Nikolai Nikolaevich Rumyantsev
Nikolay Grigorievich Taluev
Tikhon Nikolaevich Sarancha
Nalina Georgievna Sokolova
Georgy Matveevich Solovyov
Stepan Grigorievich Yakovlev
* * *
DECREE
ON THE AWARD OF THE TITLE OF HERO OF THE SOVIET UNION TO THE ORGANIZERS AND LEADERS OF THE UNDERGROUND KOMSOMOL ORGANIZATION "YOUNG GUARDS"
For outstanding services in organizing and leading the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" and for displaying personal courage and heroism in the fight against the German invaders, be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star medal:
Gromova Ulyana Matveevna.
Zemnukhov Ivan Alexandrovich.
Koshevoy Oleg Vasilievich.
Tyulenin Sergei Gavriilovich.
Shevtsova Lyubov Grigorievna.
Chairman of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. KALININ.
Secretary of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. GORKIN.
Moscow, Kremlin. September 13, 1943
UKA3
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
ON AWARDING ORDERS OF MEMBERS OF THE UNDERGROUND KOMSOMOL ORGANIZATION "YOUNG GUARDS"
For valor and courage shown in the fight against German invaders behind enemy lines, award:
ORDER OF THE RED BANNER
1. Popov Anatoly Vladimirovich.
2. Sumsky Nikolai Stepanovich.
3. Turkenich Ivan Vasilievich.
ORDER OF THE PATRIOTIC WAR, FIRST DEGREE
1. Androsova Lydia Makarovna.
2. Bondarev Vasily Ivanovich.
3. Bondareva Alexandra Ivanovna.
4. Nina Nikolaevna Gerasimova.
5. Glovan Boris Grigorievich.
6. Dadyshev Leonid Alekseevich.
7. Dubrovina Alexandra Emelyanovna.
8. Eliseenko Antonina Zakharovna.
9. Zhdanov Vladimir Alexandrovich.
10. Ivanikhin Antonina Aleksandrovna.
11. Ivanikhin Liliya Alexandrovna.
12. Kiykova Evgenia Ivanovna.
13. Kulikov Vladimir Tikhonovich.
14. Levashov Sergei Mikhailovich.
16. Lukashev Gennady Alexandrovich.
16. Lukyanchenko Viktor Dmitrievich.
17. Mashchenko Antonina Mikhailovna.
18. Minaeva Nina Petrovna.
19. Moshkova Evgeniy Yakovlevich.
20. Nikolaev Anatoly Georgievich.
21. Orlov Anatoly Alexandrovich.
22. Ostapenko Semyon Markovich.
23. Osmukhin Vladimir Andreevich.
24. Peglivanova Maya Konstantinovna.
25. Loop Nadezhda Stepanovna.
26. Petrov Viktor Vladimirovich.
27. Pie by Vasily Markovich.
28. Rogozin Vladimir Pavlovich.
29. Samoshina Angelina Tikhonovna.
30. Safonov Stepan Stepanovich.
31. Sopova Anna Dmitrievna.
32. Startseva Nina Illarionovna.
33. Fomina Demyan Yakovlevich.
34. Shishchenko Alexander Tarasovich.
35. Shcherbakov Georgy Kuzmich.
ORDER OF THE RED STAR
1. Arutyunyants Georgy Minaevich.
2. Wrestler Valeria Davydovna.
3. Ivantsova Nina Mikhailovna.
4. Ivantsova Olga Ivanovna.
5. Mikhail Tarasovich Shishchenko.
6. Yurkina Radiy Petrovich.
Chairman of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. KALININ
Secretary of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. GORKIN
DECREE
Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR
ABOUT THE AWARDING OF ELENA NIKOLAEVNA KOSHEVA WITH THE ORDER OF THE PATRIOTIC WAR, SECOND DEGREE
For active assistance provided to the underground Komsomol organization "Young Guard" in the fight against the German invaders, award Elena Nikolaevna Kosheva with the Order of the Patriotic War, second degree.
Chairman of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
M. KALININ.
Secretary of the Presidium
Supreme Soviet of the USSR
A. GORKIN.
Moscow Kremlin. September 13, 1943
Discussion:
Documentary film “Young Guard”:
“Young Guard” is an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization of boys and girls that operated during the Great Patriotic War (from September 1942 to January 1943), mainly in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region of the Ukrainian SSR.
The organization was created shortly after the occupation of the city of Krasnodon by Nazi Germany, which began on July 20, 1942. The “Young Guard” numbered about one hundred and ten participants - boys and girls. The youngest member of the underground was fourteen years old.
Krasnodon underground
During the work of a special commission of the Voroshilovgrad regional committee of the Communist Party (b)U in 1949-1950, it was established that an underground party group led by Philip Lyutikov was operating in Krasnodon. In addition to his assistant Nikolai Barakov, communists Nina Sokolova, Maria Dymchenko, Daniil Vystavkin and Gerasim Vinokurov took part in the underground work.
The underground began its work in August 1942. Subsequently, they established contact with underground youth organizations in Krasnodon, whose activities they directly supervised.
Creation of the "Young Guard"
Underground anti-fascist youth groups arose in Krasnodon immediately after the occupation of the city by Nazi Germany began on July 20, 1942. By the beginning of September 1942, Red Army soldiers who found themselves in Krasnodon joined them: soldiers Evgeny Moshkov, Ivan Turkenich, Vasily Gukov, sailors Dmitry Ogurtsov, Nikolai Zhukov, Vasily Tkachev.
At the end of September 1942, underground youth groups united into a single organization “Young Guard”, the name of which was proposed by Sergei Tyulenin. Ivan Turkenich was appointed commander of the organization. Who was the commissioner of the Young Guard is still not known for certain.
The overwhelming majority of the Young Guard members were Komsomol members; temporary Komsomol certificates for them were printed in the organization’s underground printing house along with leaflets
Activities of the Young Guard
Over the entire period of its activity, the Young Guard organization issued and distributed more than five thousand anti-fascist leaflets in the city of Krasnodon with data on the real state of affairs at the front and calls on the population to rise up in a merciless fight against the German occupiers.
Along with underground communists, members of the organization participated in sabotage in the electromechanical workshops of the city.
On the night of November 7, 1942, on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Young Guards hoisted eight red flags on the tallest buildings in the city of Krasnodon and its surrounding villages.
On the night of December 5-6, 1942, on the Constitution Day of the USSR, Young Guards set fire to the building of the German labor exchange (people dubbed it the “black exchange”), where lists of people (with addresses and completed work cards) intended to be stolen for forced labor were kept. work to Nazi Germany, thereby about two thousand boys and girls from the Krasnodon region were saved from forced deportation.
The Young Guards were also preparing to stage an armed uprising in Krasnodon in order to defeat the German garrison and join the advancing units of the Red Army. However, shortly before the planned uprising, the organization was discovered.
Disclosure of the "Young Guard"
Shortly before fleeing from the advancing Red Army units, German counterintelligence, Gestapo, police and gendarmerie intensified efforts to capture and liquidate the Komsomol-Communist underground in the Krasnodon area.
Using informants (most of whom, after the liberation of the Ukrainian SSR, were exposed and convicted of treason and collaboration with the Nazis), the Germans got on the trail of young partisans and in January 1943, mass arrests of members of the organization began.
On January 1, 1943, Evgeny Moshkov and Viktor Tretyakevich were arrested; their arrest was caused by the fact that they were trying to sell on the local market new Year gifts from looted German trucks that had been attacked by Young Guards the day before.
On January 2, Ivan Zemnukhov was arrested, who tried to rescue Moshkov and Tretyakevich, and on January 5, the police began mass arrests of underground workers, which continued until January 11, 1943.
Traitor
Until 1959, it was believed that the Young Guards were handed over to the SS by the Young Guard commissar Viktor Tretyakevich, who was pointed out by former occupation police investigator Mikhail Emelyanovich Kuleshov during the 1943 trial, saying that Viktor could not stand the torture.
However, in 1959, during the trial of Vasily Podtyny, who was admitted to treason against the Motherland, who served as deputy chief of the Krasnodon city police in 1942-1943 and for sixteen years hid under an assumed name, often changing jobs and places of residence, new circumstances of the death of the fearless were revealed Young Guards.
A special state commission created after the trial established that Viktor Tretyakevich had become a victim of a deliberate slander, and the real traitor was identified as one of the members of the organization, Gennady Pocheptsov, who on January 2, 1943, on the advice of his stepfather Vasily Grigorievich Gromov, the head of mine No. 1-bis and a secret agent Krasnodon police, made a corresponding denunciation to the occupation authorities and named the names of all members of the Young Guard known to him.
After the liberation of Krasnodon by the Red Army, Pocheptsov, Gromov and Kuleshov were recognized as traitors to the Motherland and, according to the verdict of the USSR military tribunal, were shot on September 19, 1943.
Vasily Gromov, immediately after the liberation of Krasnodon, was forced to participate in the recovery of the corpses of Young Guards thrown into a mine by the Nazis.