People's Museum of the History of the Educational Institution "Maryinogorsk State Order of Honor" Agricultural and Technical College named after V. Lobank. V.e

I continue to deal with Ukrainian collaborators near Lepel.

This means that everything is more or less clear with Linkov. As he left for Polesie at the end of May, the brunt of the war with the Nazis near Lepel fell on Dubov’s brigade (commander Dubrovsky, commissar Lobanok).

(It turns out that Egorov, who symbolically hoisted the flag over the Reichstag together with Kantaria, was a partisan under the leadership of Lobank near Lepel. Just a sacred place.)

The brigade arose approximately 01.09.42 and consisted of three detachments. On its basis, the largest partisan zone in the BSSR later arose under the leadership of Lobank.

I see that in Lepel there was a desire for conquistador raids: in the spring of 43, Lobanok went on a large raid across Lithuania. It can be renamed in nationalist terms: “The March of the Belarusians against Lithuania” :)

Vladimir LOBANOK: STROKES TO THE PORTRAIT

One of the organizers and leaders of the partisan movement in Belarus, Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Eliseevich Lobanok, also brought Victory closer as best he could. I, an ordinary fighter in a partisan unit under his command, want to add a few touches to the portrait of this wonderful man...

Just before the war, Vladimir Lobanok, who had just been elected first secretary of the Lepel district party committee and did not even have time to move his family, was far from everything military-battle by education, agronomic specialty, life experience, and character. And the corresponding directives of the first days, which demanded, when the heat was on, the urgent deployment of partisan actions, rather resembled declarative calls of the most general nature. The briefing before being sent from Gomel behind enemy lines also clarified little. There were not even maps of the required scale, and using the old ones that were found, it was almost impossible to navigate the area. It’s good that even before the German invasion they managed to select volunteers for underground work and hide something in Sosnyagovskaya Pushcha.

The arrival of Lobank in Lepelshchyna as an authorized representative of the party and Soviet power inspired the participants in the local underground: he was already known from his first confident steps in the area. It was extremely difficult to work; life often hung by a thread. Extreme tension in conditions of constant danger, moments of anxious sleep somewhere in the hayloft, in a haystack or on the bunks of a dugout in Sosnyagovskaya Pushcha, secret but such fruitful meetings with underground activists - these anxious everyday life were soon crowned with practical actions to defeat the volost governments, food procurement points, and then enemy military garrisons. In the positions of group commander, detachment commander, commissar, and brigade commander, V.E. Lobanok was the soul of all patriotic endeavors.

“He not only led partisan detachments,” his combat description testifies, “but also with weapons in his hands, with grenades, with a “fishing rod” from a mine planted on a “piece of iron,” he carried fighters to heroic deeds by personal example. operation in which he did not take part. An ambush on the Lepel - Berezino highway (where Lobanok was wounded), the defeat of the Ivansk zemstvo farm, a major battle with Nazi robbers near the village of Zeleny Ostrov, the defeat of German garrisons, a campaign in Lithuania, diversionary actions in the time of the punitive expedition of 1943 is far from a complete list of only his major operations.”

Nothing consumes a person more than war. And no school teaches as quickly as the school of war.

Not much time has passed since the first armed actions of Lobank’s Lepel detachment, and his growth as a commander in this living movement towards the truth of life attracted attention immediately. Generously gifted with the kindness of his soul, Vladimir Eliseevich was very attentive to people, never allowing himself to raise his voice to a subordinate, although sometimes the situation demanded it. A respectful attitude towards others, corrected only by a demanding look, combined with the unquestioning obligatory nature of commander’s orders, created that outwardly invisible fabric-atmosphere of stewardship and subordination, which is commonly called “iron discipline” and which was an indispensable means in a duel with a fierce and insidious enemy.

Never forget the deep raid into Lithuania...

After the destruction of two landowners' estates, where Lobank's group acquired horse-drawn transport, they began to be mistaken for a military unit with a convoy. Fear has big eyes. Rumor outpaced the movement of the “red landing”; enemy garrisons scattered along the way. Moving forward, the partisans destroyed telephone and telegraph communications, burned the bridge over the Disna River, and destroyed a train with provisions and officer property. Near the Ignalina station, a freight train was blown up, and a train rushing from the opposite direction crashed into the cars blocking the tracks. The indiscriminate shooting of the surviving occupiers only intensified the panic in their camp...

Having traveled more than 400 kilometers across Lithuania, repelling all punitive attacks, Lobank’s group returned to their camp near Lepel at the end of April 1943. In the raid, Lobanok showed himself to be a commander with brilliant military training, as if he had graduated not from an agricultural academy, but from the highest military academy.

The growing activity of the partisans brought down the arrogance of the ceremonial marches “across Europe” from the occupiers. Something began to undermine, erode, little by little deform such a strategically important factor in war as time - the main element of maneuver. Something somewhere shifted, was done at the wrong time, causing confusion not only in the operational, but also in the strategic plans of the headquarters. Mastery of time—one cannot dream of anything more in war.

The strengthening of the punitive measures of the occupiers, who occupied up to 50 divisions on the Soviet-German front, also did not help. The countermeasures of the partisans, as a rule, nullified all punitive attacks. Lobanok rose to the occasion here too. In May '43, during the punitive expedition "Cottbus", the Nazis managed to surround the partisans and civilians at the Domzheritsky and Palik lakes. A combined group of detachments under the command of Lobank broke through the encirclement, rescued all those blocked, and captured weapons and other trophies from the enemy. And word spread throughout the detachments and villages about “Volodya” (his underground nickname) as a “savior”.

The brigade form corresponded to the territorial form - partisan regions and zones. This is 60 percent of the Belarusian land cleared of foreigners. People said: “The land is peasant, the forests are partisan, the highway is German, and the government is Soviet.” And it turned out in total: the Belarusian partisan republic is a military form of Soviet power. It was personified and carried out by the main partisan commanders - commanders and commissars of brigades and detachments.

The protection of civilians was, as it were, a cross-cutting priority for the partisans at all stages of their actions.

In the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone (3,245 sq. km of territory, 1,220 settlements, about 80 thousand inhabitants) at the end of forty-three, 16 brigades were stationed. By order of the TsShPD of November 28, 1943, they were brought into a formation headed by the authorized representative of the Central Committee of the CP(b)B and the BSPD, already then a Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel V.E. Lobank.

Under his leadership, life in villages and towns, including the regional center of Ushachi, began to boil. Despite the snowy winter, defensive structures and, for some reason, additional landing sites were built. All 3 power plants, 6 mills, 20 factories for the production of linseed oil, turpentine and tar, carpentry and cooperage enterprises worked under intense conditions. Telephone and radio communications worked clearly. They were preparing... What they were preparing for - only one person, who had taken refuge in a snow-covered forest dugout near Ushachi, knew everything about it. Colonel Lobanok knew this...

Decisive battles lay ahead for the complete liberation of Belarus...

The order of the head of the Central Shpd to the Lobank task force in the Polotsk-Lepel zone consisted of two parts. The first, brought to the attention of the brigade command, talked about holding the zone. The second (top secret) outlined measures for the preparation and reception of the airborne corps in the partisan zone. Both combat missions were closely interconnected.

We will never forget the invasion of the partisan zone by a 60,000-strong punitive group. The Lobank partisans had to fight incredibly difficult battles in April-May forty-four...

There were two words on everyone’s lips in those days: “Partisan Stalingrad.” Yes, in terms of the intensity of the almost month-long battles, the battle of Ushachi was very close to this, the reddest mark of the Great Patriotic War.

The main result of the battle was the salvation of the bulk of the population. Not only those 15 thousand who, together with the partisans, made the breakthrough on the night of May 4-5, but also those who had been saved from being taken into captivity even earlier, who, with the help of the partisans, managed to disperse during the fighting and secretly return to their villages. Although there were some casualties among them.

The military, operational and strategic significance of the duel near Ushachi lies in the fact that during a month of heaviest fighting, despite more than three times the numerical and other advantages of the punitive forces, the partisans, skillfully combining positional battles with specifically partisan methods and means, which the former chief of staff of the 3rd TA Otto Heidkämper in his memoirs will call “diabolical and formidable actions”, so exhausted the troops removed from the front that this significantly weakened their resistance during the battle for Belarus that soon began in the zone between Vitebsk and Polotsk. Not to mention the serious direct losses of the Nazis in manpower: the partisans killed 8,300, wounded up to 12,000 soldiers and officers - the number of almost two divisions, destroyed a lot of equipment - tanks, artillery, vehicles, aircraft. What kind of “Spring Festival” is this for the enemy, as the punitive expedition was called?

As a participant in the battles with punitive forces in the spring of forty-four near Ushachi, seriously wounded and shell-shocked at the last lines of defense, I dare to say: without Lobank, without his endurance, patience, courage, resourcefulness, personal example, and finally, simply without his naked honesty, all this a heroic epic, like the amazingly daring and precise breakthrough itself, would have been simply impossible. But he remained a very modest, seemingly not at all militant man, “with a quiet voice and a shy smile” (M. Svetlov). Participants in the breakthrough later joked with pride and admiration: “Field Marshal Paulus would have surrendered.” As he particularly distinguished himself in battles with punitive forces, and at the same time showed brilliant qualities as a military leader, the commander of the formation, Colonel Lobanok, was deservedly awarded the highest military commander, essentially the general's Order of Suvorov, first degree. And that says it all.

It is significant that one of the participants in the breakthrough near Ushachi, Mikhail Egorov, was destined, together with the Georgian Meliton Kantaria, to hoist the Victory Banner over the Reichstag.

Lobank’s personal friend, Hero of the Soviet Union, fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev, who, already without legs, with prosthetics instead, shot down 7, and only 11, enemy aircraft, spoke with his heart in June seventy-four at the opening of the “Breakthrough” memorial complex near Ushachi:

When I come to Belarus, every time I feel that I am indebted to it...

Apparently, under the influence of the surging impressions-memories “about fires-conflagrations, about friends-comrades,” Vladimir Eliseevich made the following entry in the notebook of a deputy of the Great Union Power: “Do you know when I was born? On the night of May 5, 1944, at 22 hours 30 minutes. When we made a breakthrough."

Blessed is the person who, instead of a dash between two dates, has another significant milestone, equal to a second birth for the sake of Life and Happiness of people on Earth.

When the fascists who burst into Vitebsk tried to enter the construction parts plant, they were met with gunfire. It was an eighteen-year-old factory security soldier, Leonid Baranovsky, who sent bullet after bullet at his enemies. On the same day, residents of Vitebsk saw how the Nazis led a blond boy to be shot, and the factory workers conveyed Leonid’s last words: “I will defend my native factory until the last drop of blood!”

Until the last drop of blood... These words perfectly characterize the selfless struggle of the Vitebsk underground fighters against the fascist occupiers.

The invaders did not expect submission from the residents of Vitebsk. They've already had to deal with them. Only 45 thousand of its residents were employed in the construction of a perimeter defense around Vitebsk. In a short time they surrounded the city with trenches, anti-tank fortifications and other defensive structures. Many fascist warriors were destroyed here by soldiers of the Red Army, Vitebsk people's militias and fighters of destruction battalions.

With frenzy, Hitler's thugs took out their anger on Vitebsk, which they captured at the cost of great losses. They tortured, shot and hanged Soviet people, burned them at the stake, and killed them in gas chambers. As established by the State Extraordinary Commission, during the occupation of the Vitebsk region, the invaders killed and tortured 151,421 Soviet citizens and 92,891 prisoners of war of the Red Army in the region, 68,434 people were taken to hard labor in Germany. In Vitebsk and the region, the Nazis destroyed about 12 thousand enterprises and social and cultural institutions, including the largest machine tool factories in Belarus, knitwear and shoe factories, 18 power plants and substations. The fascist thugs destroyed 205 hospitals, 1076 school buildings, 11 scientific institutions, 4 libraries, 3 museums, 1130 theater, cinema and club buildings, 378 children's institutions and 46,483 public buildings on collective farms, monuments of ancient Russian architecture - the Intercession Cathedral and 8 churches, built in the XI-XII centuries. They took to Germany or destroyed 51,335 agricultural machines, tractors, locomobiles, 185,625 heads of cattle, 103,908 horses, a huge amount of small livestock, bread and other agricultural products. The total losses caused by the invaders to the national economy of the region are estimated at 25,258,770.8 thousand rubles (in old terms).

The brown plague raged fiercely in Vitebsk. The fascist barbarians imposed the so-called “new order” with mass terror, torture and gallows, terrible abuse of women, children, and the elderly. Residents of the city were put on a meager ration, which was barely enough not to die of hunger. Tram and bus traffic stopped, and instead of electricity, a kerosene lamp and a torch appeared. Cultural life froze. With disgust, the population read the inscription “Only for Germans” that appeared on the building of the Spartak cinema. In Vitebsk, Orsha, Polotsk and other cities in the region, the occupiers created death camps for prisoners of war and the population, where hundreds of people died daily from hunger and epidemic diseases. Day after day, the Nazis did their dirty work. Here is what Vitebsk resident S.I. Yupatov says about the Vitebsk prisoner of war camp: “Every day the Nazis shot at least 200-250 people in this camp. In the winter of 1942, walking along the Polotsk highway, I saw how the Germans took large groups of Red Army soldiers and officers into the field and shot them. Those who remained alive and tried to crawl out of the hole were pushed back by the Nazis and buried alive here.” An eyewitness to fascist atrocities in Vitebsk, K. P. Evdokimova, recalls: “My apartment is located near brick factory No. 5. Almost every day at about 4 o’clock in the morning, the Germans brought groups of people doomed to death from the field commandant’s office to the territory of the factory. Among those shot were women with babies in their arms. I myself saw how the Germans shot innocent teenagers aged 10–12 years. Before death, they were forced to strip naked. The fascists forcibly took off the clothes of those who resisted.”

It is impossible to read the testimony of M.I. Prokhorova without shuddering: “At the beginning of July 1941,” she writes, “I went to the village of Zhurzhevo. Two kilometers from Zhurzhev, I saw naked people standing on the edge of a huge pit. The fascist cannibals shot them with machine guns. One of the women, wounded, escaped from the hole and tried to escape. The fascist caught up with her and hit her on the head with a machine gun. When she fell, he killed her with several shots. Children were thrown into pits alive, some of the kids were grabbed by the legs by the fascist murderers and their bodies were torn apart. Above the execution site there were screams and groans of bleeding and dying people. When they were covered with earth, a bloody mess formed. Hundreds of people tossed and turned in terrible agony in the pits. After burial, the earth shook for a long time. A few days later I saw arms and legs sticking out of the ground, and the ground was cracked. It was clear that people were dying a painful death, trying to escape from the weight of the earth poured on them.”

What were the invaders aiming for when they committed their heinous atrocities? There was also a common goal - the extermination of the Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian peoples provided for by Hitler's Ost plan. But there was another, so to speak, immediate goal. The Nazis tried to paralyze the will of the Soviet people to fight, to sow fear among them, the consciousness of the impossibility of resisting Hitler's occupation. But, as in all Soviet land temporarily captured by the enemy, the fascists had to endure severe disappointment in Vitebsk. Literally every day, more and more tangible blows fell on them: someone disabled the locomotive circle at the railway station, a transformer booth at the leather factory was blown up by a mine planted by the communist Bolshakov. Time passes, and the enemy vehicle falls into pieces along with the Nazis. It was unknown patriots who laid mines on the Surazhskoe highway. The people who blew up several German planes at the airfield turned out to be elusive. Vitebsk residents, in deep secrecy, proudly conveyed to each other the news of the daring feat of two teenagers - a boy and a girl, who blew up a bridge across Vitba in the city itself. In their numerous, threatening orders to the population, the Nazis were forced to admit that many townspeople gave light signals during Soviet air raids, indicating military installations, and that leaflets and reports from the Sovinformburo were widely distributed in the city.

The invaders' concerns were well founded. From the very first day of enemy occupation in Vitebsk, popular resistance to the fascist enslavers developed and steadily grew. Its organizers were communists, Komsomol members and non-party Soviet patriots.

A special feature of this struggle was that previously prepared underground organizations and groups operated in Vitebsk. Following the instructions of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus (Bolsheviks), the Vitebsk Regional Party Committee from the very beginning of the war was preparing for partisan warfare. The secretaries of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks, P.K. Ponomarenko, V.G. Vaneev, and I.I. Ryzhikov, came to the region to provide assistance. So, on July 4, 1941, a group of leading party workers of Belarus, headed by the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b)B V.G. Vaneev, arrived to help the Vitebsk Regional Committee of the Party. Together with this group, the regional committee held a meeting of the secretaries of city and district party committees, at which specific measures for organizing partisan detachments and the underground were discussed. The regional committee of the CP(b)B created underground city and district party committees, which began work on recruiting communists and non-party patriots into underground organizations. This task was excessively complicated by the fact that those most capable of enduring the difficulties of the underground went into the army.

Particular attention was paid to recruiting the underground in the regional center - Vitebsk. Everything had to be done to prevent the enemy from using the powerful industry of the city, created during the years of Soviet power, for his own needs. More than 50 underground organizations and groups, uniting more than 700 patriots, were left in Vitebsk. The regional and city party committees paid special attention to conspiracy: underground organizations were built on the principle of closed chains. This meant that the leader of an underground organization (group) could be known to no more than two or three underground members. In turn, each member of the underground group had connections with only two or three comrades. The City Party Committee maintained contact with underground organizations through deeply undercover persons. Such an organization guaranteed the underground from major failures even in cases where the fascists managed to detect its individual links.

The selection of underground leaders was carried out directly by the secretaries of the regional and city party committees. On July 6, 1941, many party workers were summoned to the regional party committee. Each of them was invited to an individual conversation with V.G. Vaneev and the secretary of the regional committee of the CP(b)B I.A. Stulov. Then a meeting of party workers selected for the underground took place. A specific plan for immediate action was discussed, appearances, meeting points, methods of communication between underground fighters and partisans, locations of secret warehouses of weapons, propaganda materials, medicines, etc. were established. Meeting locations for meetings with members of the center were appointed in Poddubye, Vitebsk region, in the city of Surazh , in Lioznensky, Orsha, Beshenkovichsky districts, in the village of Vstrechki, Velizh district and in the village of Sloboda, Ponizovsky district, Smolensk region.

A wide network of underground meeting places was created in Vitebsk. One of them was located in 1st Pozharny Lane, in the house of one of the organizers of the underground, the chairman of the factory committee of the Red October shoe factory, communist Z. S. Balashev, the other was in Bezymyanny Lane, in the house of the former director of the furniture factory, communist E. L. Ivanova. The meeting place for the underground workers was the apartments of regional executive committee employee A. E. Belokhvostikov, A. S. Stoyakova, P. I. Gauberg, M. Ya. Martyshunas, M. K. Osker, F. M. Shalaeva, O. S. Svechkina and many other patriots. In the house of the former driver of the regional executive committee, Petrov, the underground members stored weapons and accumulated money for sabotage. Thus, the invaders met in Vitebsk not only with spontaneous partisan actions of the population, but also with an organized underground.

To organize the underground in Vitebsk, the secretaries of the Zheleznodorozhny District Party Committee I.G. Grigoriev, B.K. Semenov and other communists were left. Grigoriev and Semenov toured the previously designated safe houses, did some work to establish connections with the underground fighters left behind in the city, and gave the first tasks to organizations and groups. And before the Nazis had time to settle in the city, sabotage began, enemy soldiers and officers began to disappear without a trace. One of the sabotages was carried out by I. G. Grigoriev himself, together with the leader of the underground group A. E. Belokhvostikov. Having laid a mine delivered by the partisans on the Vitebsk-Losvida railway - a suitcase with 20 kilograms of tola - they inserted a fuse from a lemon grenade into it and attached a cord several tens of meters long to the fuse pin. When a large train with weapons appeared, Belokhvostikov, at a signal from Grigoriev, pulled the cord. A mutilated locomotive, 7 wagons smashed to pieces, more than 30 killed Nazis and a large amount of mangled enemy military equipment - this is the result of this sabotage.

Moving from organization to organization, from one location to another, Grigoriev often found himself in raids, but each time he successfully escaped and again, with inexhaustible energy, devoted himself to preparing the next sabotage, issuing leaflets, and establishing connections with the population. On Grigoriev’s initiative, several new underground groups were created in the city after its occupation: Belokhvostikov’s group, a Komsomol youth group at the railway junction led by Komsomol member N.P. Krasovsky, a group of Komsomol members at the airfield, led by Komsomol member Yeletsky, and others.

It was very difficult for I. G. Grigoriev and B. K. Semenov to work in the city, since many residents of Vitebsk knew them. In this regard, Semenov left Vitebsk in December 1941, and Grigoriev in May 1942. Subsequently, they fought the enemy as part of partisan formations.

The Central Committee and the Vitebsk Regional Committee of the CP(b)B took measures to strengthen the leadership of the partisan struggle in the Vitebsk zone and the city itself. Representatives of the Central Committee and the regional party committee were sent here to establish contacts with the underground and provide assistance to it. In March 1942, by decision of the Central Committee of the CP(b)B, the Vitebsk group of the regional party committee and regional executive committee, headed by I. A. Stulov, was created in the Soviet frontline zone. In May 1942, the bureau of the regional party committee allocated a special “Vitebsk Bush”, the responsible organizer of which was approved by V.R. Kudinov. Soon V. R. Kudinov was appointed responsible organizer of the regional party committee for the city of Vitebsk.

On April 7, 1942, the Vitebsk underground city committee of the party was created, which took over the leadership of the underground struggle in the city. The city committee included V. R. Kudinov (secretary of the city committee), B. K. Semenov and M. I. Matsenko. The city party committee was based at the location of the partisan brigade M. F. Biryulin, whose commissar was V. R. Kudinov.

The creation of an underground city committee had a very positive impact on the activities of underground organizations in the city. She has become much more efficient and purposeful. With all the variety of tasks that the city committee set for underground organizations, the main ones were: 1) carrying out combat work (this included sabotage, the destruction of fascists and their minions, collecting information about the enemy and transferring it to the command of partisan formations and units of the Red Army); 2) organization of mass political agitation among the population; 3) disintegration of the enemy occupation apparatus (police, government, military formations, etc.).

Depending on their composition, experience and other circumstances, underground organizations and their individual members specialized in performing one of these tasks. But each of them, in one way or another, fulfilled all the tasks facing the underground, and, first of all, carried out propaganda work among the population. Agitation under the conditions of the most brutal occupation regime was the main form of communication between the underground workers and the broad masses of Soviet people. It made it possible, on the one hand, to maintain the necessary secrecy of organizations, since it was carried out mainly with the help of leaflets, and on the other hand, it gave the underground members the opportunity to direct the struggle of the population against the invaders, to mobilize them to disrupt the activities of the occupation authorities. It was thanks to the propaganda work of the underground that the population was not only well aware of the situation at the fronts and in the Soviet rear, and for the most part did not succumb to fascist propaganda, but also knew what needed to be done for the most successful fight against the occupiers.

Many underground organizations began their activities with propaganda work. So, for example, a Komsomol youth group began to work under the leadership of Komsomol member V. A. Kozlovsky. Before the war, Kozlovsky was a freelance chairman of the commission on military and physical culture work of the Pervomaisky district Komsomol committee in Vitebsk. When the Nazis came to the city, he got a job as a dispatcher at a power plant. The Komsomol member was passionately eager to fight, but did not know where to start. An incident brought him together with the secretary of the Zheleznodorozhny district party committee, Grigoriev. Knowing the young man well, Grigoriev instructed him to create a Komsomol youth underground group from reliable friends to distribute leaflets.

One day Kozlovsky invited those of his comrades whom he trusted most to visit him. The young patriots quickly found a common language, but everyone was worried about one thing: where to start? Then Kozlovsky unfolded a bundle with leaflets from the regional party committee in front of them. They said: “... the shed blood of Belarusian sons and daughters, the black ashes of cities and villages, abuse of women, thousands of killed and maimed people - these are the traces of the presence of fascist executioners on our native Belarusian land...

Beat and destroy the German occupiers and their minions by all means and wherever they appear!

Join the ranks of the people's avengers-partisans! Help the Red Army destroy the fascist invaders!..”

Kozlovsky gave the group the first task: distributing leaflets. Soon leaflets appeared on fences, in churches, in markets, and in prisoner-of-war camps. The Gestapo men were running wild in search of underground fighters. But it never occurred to anyone that the duty dispatcher of the power plant, Kozlovsky, and his friends, yesterday’s schoolchildren, were so skillfully engaged in this dangerous task.

Young underground fighters assembled a radio receiver from old units and listened to messages from Moscow in the evenings, and in the mornings they distributed them throughout the city using leaflets and orally. Vladimir’s mother, E. D. Kozlovskaya, actively helped them. She scattered leaflets at the market, was on duty on the street, while in the attic of her house her son and his friends listened to the radio and wrote leaflets with a message from the Sovinformburo.

Following the propaganda work, hostilities began. Kozlovsky blew up two transformer boxes in the city and planted a magnetic mine on a German tank. He also prepared the explosion of the transformer substation. In the fall of 1942, the courageous Komsomol member V. A. Kozlovsky and his father A. D. Kozlovsky died tragically. But his friends continued the fight: they produced and distributed leaflets, which often appeared in police headquarters. The underground members made stamps with the words: “Death to the German occupiers!” And soon the fiery words of the party’s rallying cry began to appear on almost every order the invaders issued to the population.

Other underground organizations and groups were also active in mass propaganda work. The political agitation of the underground was very effective. It not only exposed the predatory “new order” and raised honest Soviet people to a sacred struggle against the invaders, but also served as an important means of disintegrating enemy troops, police and other enemy formations. Thus, underground worker A. Krivitsky, who worked at the Vitebsk station, distributed leaflets of the Free Germany committee delivered by partisans in German. First, Krivitsky placed several leaflets on the railroad tracks. A German passing along the way picked up the leaflet, looked around warily and hid it. After this, the underground worker began to act more boldly. Having met the same German one day, he handed him a leaflet and complained:

I don't understand what is being written about.

Gut, gut,” said the German, taking the leaflet. After reading it, he explained: “They write here that there will soon be freedom, but Hitler will be kaput.”

The underground fighters were able to explain to the German officers August Joseph and Willy Ringenmann the true meaning of the war and persuade them to join the partisan detachment. August Yuzef agreed to carry out the task of the underground city party committee - to collect detailed information about the German garrison of Vitebsk. For this he asked for three days. But something unexpected happened. The chief of staff of the partisan detachment, to which August Józef was to be delivered after completing the mission, was ambushed and killed. A note about the impending escape of a German officer was found in his bag. A. Jozef was shot by the Nazis.

The young underground worker G. Lyakhota organized the escape of Czech Laido, an employee of the encryption service of the German military unit, who gave very valuable information about the enemy. Underground Komsomol member D. Spiridonova threw leaflets and Soviet newspapers onto the road along which the police usually walked, and saw that some of them were picking up “seditious” materials. One day, two policemen came to the apartment of a woman associated with underground fighters and asked:

Have you read the Sovinformburo report?

The hostess replied that she did not read anything forbidden. The police response was unexpected:

Okay, we'll bring it.

Soon they brought the newspaper “Vitebsk Worker” and read a message about the situation at the front to the “ignorant” hostess. As a result of further conversation with the hostess, both policemen expressed a desire to go over to the partisans and, on instructions from the underground, they persuaded thirteen policemen to do so.

The underground paid a lot of attention to propaganda work among the personnel of the auxiliary units formed by the Nazis. They were served by traitors to the Soviet people - all kinds of criminal rabble, former kulaks, shopkeepers, etc. But some of the personnel of the auxiliary units consisted of Soviet prisoners of war - people who could not endure hunger and abuse in the camps, became cowardly, agreeing to serve the occupiers . Many of them did this so that, at an opportunity, they could escape and continue the fight against the hated enemy. Fascist propaganda intimidated the soldiers of the auxiliary units in every possible way, inspired them that the path to their own people was cut off, that the partisans and Soviet authorities would shoot all defectors. The City Party Committee set the underground members the task of exposing this fascist slander and at the same time explaining to the soldiers of the auxiliary units that their service to the enemy is a grave crime against the Motherland, that they can and must atone for their guilt by fighting the invaders. It was necessary to help everyone who sought to find ways of this struggle.

Thanks to the propaganda work of the underground, many soldiers of enemy auxiliary units often went over to the partisans with weapons in their hands. In this work, as in general in all their mass political activities, the Vitebsk underground fighters made extensive use of newspapers and leaflets delivered to them by the partisans. Here is one of these leaflets, published by the Vitebsk regional party committee:

“To the Cossacks and soldiers of units formed by the Germans.

The Nazi invaders lured you into their nets with deceit and threats...

We tell you directly and openly: by being in the ranks of military units serving the Germans, you are committing a great crime against your Motherland...

However, you can receive forgiveness from the Soviet government and restore the honor of the patriots of our Motherland to yourself and your families if you immediately leave the Germans and honestly serve the Soviet people... The comrades from the 825th battalion, formed by the Germans from prisoners of war, acted prudently. On February 21, having killed all the Germans, they established contact with the partisans, and all 1016 people with all their weapons - 680 rifles, 130 machine guns, 24 machine guns, 8 mortars and 6 guns - went over to the side of the partisans and together with us they mercilessly smash the damned Nazis. Do not believe the fascist lies that the partisans and the Red Army are shooting all those who went over to their side.

The partisans and the Red Army will accept you and save your life, and you, together with us, as equals, will fight against the common enemy."

This leaflet was widely distributed by underground fighters in Vitebsk and played a big role in the disintegration of auxiliary formations and the police. Thanks to the explanatory work carried out by the Vitebsk underground workers, the 125th auxiliary battalion, consisting of 800 captured Soviet soldiers and commanders, went over to the side of the partisans; All 26 Soviet prisoners of war assigned to it fled from the German military unit GPK.535. A large number of Soviet people, deceived by the invaders, fled to the partisans in small groups and alone.

The underground city committee of the party paid great attention to organizing escapes of Soviet prisoners of war. The overwhelming majority of them were eager to fight and represented a very valuable reinforcement for the partisans. The underground found a variety of ways to communicate with captured Soviet soldiers and helped them get out of captivity. So, in August 1943, with the help of underground workers, 57 prisoners of war escaped from a plywood factory. Before escaping, they set the factory floor on fire. On September 22, 1943, the escape of 51 Soviet prisoners of war from a German construction battalion was organized. Together with them fled Germans, Czechs and Poles promoted by the underground - 21 people in total. Moreover, before escaping, the Germans stole weapons from their officers and came with them to the partisans.

Often, it was enough for the underground fighters to send the prisoners of war an escape plan and the route of further movement, and the fugitives in groups and alone, guided along the way by the underground fighters and the population, arrived in the zone of action of the partisan formations.

Among the underground fighters there were many true enthusiasts of their work - organizers of escapes and guides for residents of Vitebsk and prisoners of war to the partisans. For example, underground fighter Y. Valkovich showed a lot of initiative in organizing escapes of Vitebsk residents and prisoners of war. Once in the underground city party committee he was jokingly asked:

When will you join the partisans?

When I bring three hundred hundred to them, then I will go myself, but for now there is a lot of combat work here too.

The underground city committee of the party was closely connected with the partisans. Reliable meeting points and meeting points were established, through which patriots who wanted to beat the invaders with weapons in their hands, as well as intelligence data and various kinds of enemy documents. In August - October 1943 alone, more than 100 people were transported from Vitebsk to M. F. Biryulin’s brigade. In turn, the partisans supplied the underground with newspapers and leaflets, weapons, and mine-explosive means.

Concerned about the situation in the city, the fascist authorities, along with intensifying repressions against the population, systematically strengthened the occupation regime. The civilian population was allowed to enter and exit Vitebsk only with special passes. Re-registration of passports was carried out repeatedly: first, a description of the characteristics of its owner was made in the passport, then after a while the “Verified” stamp was affixed. In the fall of 1942, during the next re-registration, “Viewed” marks were made. According to the police hour, the appearance of civilians on the streets was prohibited under pain of execution from 17:00 in the evening to 5:30 in the morning. At this time, it was forbidden to even visit neighbors: each resident had to stay only at home. Visitors could spend the night with local residents only with the permission of the police. Almost every night in houses, and during the day on the streets, bazaars, etc., massive document checks and raids took place. The underground fighters faced mortal danger at every step, but courage and selfless devotion to the Motherland and the cause of the party won.

The underground city committee constantly oriented underground organizations and groups towards expanding combat activities. Sabotage, the destruction of the invaders and their minions, and the collection of intelligence data about the enemy became increasingly widespread and organized. Here are some examples of this activity.

In October 1942, a group of underground workers led by Shchukina laid mines on the Vitebsk-Orsha railway. The explosion destroyed a locomotive and 32 wagons with food and various property. Soon, underground workers also planted mines on the section of the Vitebsk-Zaluchye railway. The Nazis discovered them. While clearing the mines, an explosion occurred and six enemy soldiers were killed. In the same month, a military train with fuel ran into mines laid by underground workers near the city station - 30 tanks with aviation gasoline flew into the air.

Almost from the first days of the enemy occupation of Vitebsk, a Komsomol youth group was active, which included V. Bogdanova, A. Gogulya, his sister Olga, P. Guria, I. Erofeev, A. Ivashchenko, O. Iotko and her brother Vanya, V. Lopukhov, his sister Ganya, M. Tarasov, K. Shutov and others. The group was headed by worker F.K. Mekhov. Working under the leadership of the special group of the NKVD of the BSSR “Elusive”, young underground fighters campaigned among the city population, collected data on the movement of trains and cargo transported by the enemy by rail. A. Gogulya and K. Shutov stole weapons and very valuable documents from an important fascist official.

Before meeting Mekhov’s group, A. Gogulya acted alone. He hunted down enemy soldiers and killed them. The occupation authorities were extremely concerned about the frequent “disappearance” of soldiers and officers. The underground workers were also puzzled. They knew that in most cases it was not their doing. And when the leader of the underground group met the brave patriot A. Gogulya, it became clear why the Nazis so often “disappeared.” “Unfortunately, this is not an organization, but I, I alone crush the bastards,” Andrei sadly admitted to Mekhov. - I guessed that there was an underground organization. I found out from a leaflet picked up on the street. There was a moment when, it seems, I attacked the trail, but didn’t catch it... So I began to fight as best I could.”

In December 1942, most of the group members were captured by the Nazis and shot.

F. Mekhov, D. Tarasov, I. Iotko and some other members of the group, who escaped arrest, continued to inflict significant blows on the invaders.

A group of underground workers acted bravely, the core of which were the communists I.K. Osker, Kirshin, Lyubchenko, Toropin, Mikhailov and Fedotova. The underground members attracted Komsomol members and non-union youth to their activities. Back in November 1941, members of this group blew up a bridge across the Vitba River, as a result of which traffic along it was suspended for several days. The group did a lot of work to collect information about the location of enemy troops in the city. Twice, in January and October 1943, she drew up a detailed plan of Vitebsk with all enemy military installations, the deployment of military units, etc. included in it. The last version of the plan included a detailed (80 pages) description of the enemy’s military installations and units, located in the city and its environs. The underground city committee of the party transferred both plans to the Vitebsk regional committee of the CP(b)B, located in the Soviet rear.

The Gestapo managed to deal heavy blows to the underground group. They captured and, after brutal torture, shot the communists Mikhailov and Fedotova. But their fighting friends continued to act. Those who were threatened with arrest went to the partisans. And new patriots took their place. In 1942, the group numbered up to 20 people.

The permanent meeting place of Vitebsk underground workers in 1942 was house number 6 on 17th Gorodokskaya Street, where E. I. Tichinina lived. At the apartment of this brave and courageous woman, the underground organized courses on studying mine demolition.

The Gestapo managed to find this turnout. But the underground fighters did not sleep either. Warned of the danger, they managed to escape half an hour before the Nazis arrived. The latter received only 20 kilograms of tola.

Inconspicuous, as if isolated on the banks of the Western Dvina, stood a house on 7th Kuibyshevskaya Street. No one suspected that underground members were gathering under the roof of this house. The owner of this house, 68-year-old A. S. Stoyakova, was one of the active fighters of the underground group. More than once she saved the lives of many connected people; she was not afraid to carry out the most difficult tasks day or night. In a basket with cucumbers or cabbage, she carried mines around the city and delivered newspapers and leaflets to designated places. Often, under such a disguise, the basket was filled with explosives. In the end, the Nazis tracked down the brave underground woman. They brutally mocked her, beating her half to death. But Anna Stepanovna bravely endured the torture. She died at the hands of the Gestapo executioners, who never obtained testimony from her.

For courage and perseverance in the fight against the Nazi invaders, A. S. Stoyakova was posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War.

The efforts of the Gestapo to deprive the underground fighters of shelter from the population were in vain. There were many patriots in the city who were ready to take the mortal risk of providing their homes for the needs of the underground fighters. After the failure of appearances on Gorodokskaya and Kuibyshevskaya streets, the underground fighters settled on Gorodok highway in the house of Leonid Chistobaev.

The underground grew. New groups appeared. One of them consisted of medical workers. It was headed by K. S. Okolovich, R. F. Makhnov and M. L. Murashko. Underground medics saved the lives of the seriously wounded chief of staff of the rifle corps, Colonel P. N. Tishchenko, tanker K. A. Galasyev, and pilots Shotorashvili and Lagunov. Neglecting the danger (the wounded were under strict supervision), the underground fighters outwitted the invaders. They provided the recovering Soviet soldiers with the necessary documents and sent them to the partisans.

At the apartment of the former accountant of the KIM factory, M.A. Kuznetsova, the underground organized a kind of “passport desk”, where they processed passports taken from rural residents who were being treated in a tuberculosis hospital. Under the guise of documents of patients being discharged from the hospital, nurses G.K. Vishnevskaya, T.I. Pilat, L.A. Polyanina made corresponding notes in these passports at the city government. Such passports were reliable documents. The underground medical workers supplied them to many of their comrades. They saved many Soviet people from being deported to Germany by issuing them certificates of “illness.” Underground workers and messengers who were in danger were given certificates indicating that such a resident of a rural area was returning home after treatment in a tuberculosis hospital.

An underground group of medical workers provided great assistance to the partisans. She supplied them with medicines, medical instruments, and dressings.

The group also engaged in reconnaissance. For example, K. S. Okolovich and M. M. Kiryukhina helped Soviet intelligence officers collect, establish and map the locations of enemy headquarters, military units, defensive structures, anti-aircraft batteries and ammunition depots in Vitebsk. This important information was transferred to the command of the Kalinin Front.

Back in the summer of 1941, on the initiative of N. Ya. Nagibov, the chef of the Vitebsk station restaurant, an underground group arose, which then turned into a fairly large organization. The old security officer E.I. Khmelev, P.S. Smirnov, I.E. Yakimov and his wife Ya.S. Yakimova, Nagibov’s wife T.S. Shchukina, N.A. Lyakhovsky and other patriots took an active part in it.

At the beginning of its activities, the group paid great attention to the work of involving the population, especially young people, in the underground struggle against the occupiers. Then the group began active combat operations. Its members conducted reconnaissance, collected weapons and explosives. At one of the safe houses, N. Ya. Nagibov organized training for underground members in sabotage. From here, having received some training, people went to practice, to combat operations: to blow up bridges and trains, warehouses and other enemy targets.

The group’s activities became especially intensified after N. Ya. Nagibov’s meeting in May 1942 with the responsible organizer of the Vitebsk Regional Party Committee V. R. Kudinov. During the meeting, Nagibov was officially approved as the commander of the sabotage and reconnaissance group. Party bodies began to lead the independent groups that soon emerged, headed by P. S. Smirnov and N. A. Lyakhovsky, through N. Ya. Nagibov.

N. Ya. Nagibov and his comrades conducted many major military operations. In December 1942, they committed two acts of sabotage on the railway: one within the city, the second, together with the partisans of M.F. Biryulin’s detachment on the Vitebsk-Gorodok section. As a result, a locomotive and 12 carriages went downhill for the first time, and another 5 carriages of the enemy’s military echelon for the second time. Such operations were carried out repeatedly.

The Vitebsk underground, including members of N. Ya. Nagibov’s group, hunted down and killed the invaders and their accomplices. The situation was set up in such a way that every day several fascists were exterminated in the city. The terror unleashed by the underground terrified the occupiers. Recalling this, Nagibov says: “The Germans often said that you live here like on a volcano. It’s a hundred times easier at the front than in this city, where they can kill you around the corner at any minute.”

The passport department of the city police seriously interfered with the activities of the underground fighters and partisan liaisons. He registered all the residents of Vitebsk, and the police easily identified the appearance of every new person in the city. The underground city committee of the party set the underground members the task of confusing the police records. The performers of this task found an ingenious way to complete it. Several underground workers led by V.I. Vyalova, under the guise of visitors, made their way into the passport department and placed 3.5 kilograms of tola in the oven. They stretched and disguised a cord from the fuse, to the end of which they tied a bottle labeled “Vodka.” Shortly after they left, an explosion occurred in the passport department. The internal walls of the building were destroyed, two policemen and an official were killed. Accounting documents turned into a pile of waste paper. Later it became known that the explosion occurred because one of the police officers tried to pocket “forgotten” vodka by someone.

On November 26, 1942, brave patriots carried out a daring operation in Vitebsk: in broad daylight they carried out the people’s sentence on the traitor to the Motherland A.L. Brandt, the son of the city’s deputy burgomaster, who had been executed by partisans even earlier. Before the war, A.L. Brandt worked as a Russian language teacher at Vitebsk secondary school No. 1. With the arrival of the occupiers, he became the editor of the fascist leaflet “New Way”. The traitor to the Motherland denounced the Soviet system in every possible way, betrayed the Soviet people, and wrote slanderous articles about partisans and underground fighters. The operation to destroy the vile traitor was organized by the special group of the NKVD of the BSSR “Elusive”. The task was extremely difficult. Brandt lived in the city center, where there were always many Nazis.

The traitor's apartment was guarded by police. The strictest police regime was raging throughout the city: martial law was declared in Vitebsk at that time.

The task of destroying Brandt was entrusted to members of the special group V.F. Kononov and I.P. Naudyunas. Having made their way to Vitebsk, the security officers carefully tracked down Brandt and developed a detailed operation plan. Kononov and Naudyunas, through their friend E. S. Mazikova, involved patriots M. G. Stasenko and E. G. Filimonov, who lived in Vitebsk, to carry it out. It was decided that the most convenient time to kill Brandt was in the morning, when he goes to the editorial office. On the morning of November 26, 1942, the entire group headed to Brandt’s apartment. On Steklova Street it split up. According to the previously planned plan, Naudiunas and Stasenko went to Brandt’s house to kill him as he left the apartment. Kononov and Filimonov remained at the intersection of Steklova Street and Proletarsky Boulevard so that if Stasenko and Naudyunas were pursued, they could throw grenades at the Nazis and allow their comrades to escape. Everything went according to plan: when he saw Brandt leaving the house, Stasenko went to meet him. Having caught up with the traitor, Stasenko fired his pistol point-blank, at a distance of two steps. Brandt fell dead. After the shot, Stasenko turned onto Aviatsionnaya Street and ran. Naudiūnas killed the policeman who followed him with one shot. On Glass Street, underground fighters caused a commotion. To divert attention from the executors of the people's sentence, they, together with the police, shouted: “Keep them!” And while the Nazis and the police were busy with the corpses of Brandt and the policeman, everyone participating in the operation disappeared and safely reached the partisan detachment of M. F. Biryulin.

A few days later, the fascist newspaper “New Way” published an obituary, which stated that “Alexander Lvovich has fallen as another victim.” It was also reported here that 10 months ago, on January 30, 1942, his father, Brandt L.G., deputy mayor of the city, was killed. This message frightened the fascist lackeys. They saw that even such privileged servants of the occupiers were not protected from popular wrath.

A significant contribution to the underground struggle in enemy-occupied Vitebsk was made by a group of underground women led by the remarkable daughter of the Belarusian people, V. Z. Khoruzhey.

Vera Zakharovna lived only 39 years. Her entire conscious life is a selfless service to the Communist Party and her people. In 1920, as a seventeen-year-old girl, Vera joined the Komsomol and voluntarily went to fight the gangs of General Bulak-Balakhovich. In December 1921, she was already a member of the Bolshevik Party. After graduating from the Central Soviet Party School, Khoruzhaya worked in the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Belarus, was the editor of the Komsomol newspaper “Young Arats”, and conducted educational work among former street children.

In February 1924, Vera Zakharovna switched to underground Komsomol work in Western Belarus. Soon she was elected secretary of the Komsomol Central Committee and a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Western Belarus, a member of the Komsomol Central Committee of Poland. On September 15, 1925, the Polish police managed to arrest the revolutionary. Khoruzhaya spent seven years in prison, but even behind prison bars she continued to fight. Her “Letters to Freedom” taught revolutionaries courage. In 1930 they were published (and then reprinted several times) in the USSR. “...From every line,” wrote N. K. Krupskaya about “Letters,” “a man of strong will, a convinced revolutionary, a fighter for the workers’ cause looks at us...” In 1930, the Presidium of the Central Executive Committee of the BSSR awarded I am wearing the Order of the Red Banner of Labor. In the fall of 1932, Khoruzhaya, in accordance with the agreement between the governments of the USSR and Poland on the exchange of political prisoners, arrived in the Soviet Union.

The war found Vera Zakharovna at party work in Pinsk. She was passionately eager to fight. “Heavy and strong, like an animal’s paw, grief grabs the soul,” Khoruzhaya wrote in her diary in those days, “burning anger burns the heart with a violent flame: ours are gone, and our cities, our mines and our villages, our fields and hayfields - our entire radiant Belarus is in the hands of a fierce, evil enemy. There are gallows in the squares turned into ruins. Hateful people with machine guns walk along our destroyed streets, and every step they take echoes with pain in my heart. It is my soul that they trample with a shod boot, they iron with the tracks of tanks, they tear my soul, my Belarus with shells, bombs, and mines.”

Vera and her husband, party worker S. Kornilov, went to join the partisans. In the fall of 1941, the headquarters of the partisan detachment sent her across the front line to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus with a report on the activities of the detachment.

Having completed the task, Vera Zakharovna went to visit relatives in the Perm region, where she had a son, named Sergei in honor of his deceased partisan father. But no matter how hard it was to part with her children (she also had a daughter, Anna), Khoruzhaya insisted that her experience in the underground struggle be used. On August 24, 1942, the Central Committee of the CP(b)B sent her at the head of a special group for underground work in Vitebsk.

Having moved to the partisans, Vera Khoruzhaya and her friends S.S. Pankova, E.S. Suranova, A.F. Ermakovich, E.D. Ivanova, A.P. Ivankova and M.F. Isakova entered the occupied Vitebsk. The day before, they received addresses of more than 100 safe houses and information about reliable people who could provide them with help and support. Using this information, Khoruzhaya established contact with more than 20 Vitebsk underground fighters and created a reconnaissance and combat group from them.

Horuzhaya worked in Vitebsk for five weeks. During this time, she conveyed a lot of valuable information about the enemy to the command of the Red Army.

Of great interest are the letters of the Khoruzhey about the struggle of the population of Vitebsk against the invaders. “My dear friends! - Vera wrote in her first report. - Two trains “accidentally” collided at the station last night. At the sawmill, machines that carry out the most urgent orders for military organizations are constantly being damaged. During the construction of fortifications, the earth collapses and crushes the German guard.” According to the Khoruzhey group and other underground organizations operating in the city, Soviet aviation often and effectively bombed important military installations of the invaders in Vitebsk. Reporting about these bombings and the attitude of local residents towards them, Khoruzhaya wrote: “The air raid warning has just ended - a raid by Soviet planes. I don’t yet know what the results of the bombing were, but you can see fires blazing in three places and shells exploding continuously: the bomb hit an ammunition depot at the airfield. The alarm began at dusk at 6 o'clock and ended only at 9 o'clock... We are standing in the yard, intensely peering into the sky. With all our being we listen to the roar of the engines. “Fly, fly, my dears, beat them damned, beat them in hundreds,” the neighbor dreams excitedly. “God grant you happiness, good luck...”

The Khoruzhey group, like all other underground fighters, enjoyed the active help of the population. The hideout of the Khoruzhey group was an apartment in building No. 4 on Traktornaya Street. The Antonov family lived in one half of this house, and the Vorobyov family lived in the second. Both of these families - M.I. Vorobyova, her son Vasily, his son's wife Agafya, S.D. Antonov, his wife Zinaida Semyonovna, their daughter Valya - carried out the instructions of the Khoruzhey, established connections, and collected information about the enemy. “These wonderful people,” Khoruzhaya wrote, “are unshakable in their hatred of the enemy and in their love for the Motherland. No matter what happens to them, they will always remain Soviet patriots."

Meanwhile, the situation in the city became increasingly complicated. Gestapo bloodhounds were scouring everywhere. In the end, they managed to get on the trail of the underground Horuzhei group and, with the help of a traitor, arrest its members. Promises, threats, and torture were used. But nothing helped the fascist torturers. During interrogations, Vera behaved firmly, did not give her real name and did not give any testimony. Other underground fighters also stood firm during interrogations: the Vorobyov family, Evdokia Suranova, Sofia Pankova and others. But one of those arrested, Vasilyeva, could not stand the torture. At a confrontation with Khoruzha, when the Gestapo asked: “Who is this?” - she answered: “Faith.” In addition, the Nazis discovered one of Vera’s letters. For three days, Hitler’s fosterling Petrov spent three days deciphering it. The Nazis realized that they had one of the leaders of the underground in their hands. The entire arsenal of Gestapo atrocities was tested on Khoruzhey and her friends.

On December 4, 1942, the Nazis shot Maria Ignatievna and Vasily Vorobyov, Zinaida Semyonovna and another woman, probably Boldacheva. After inhuman torture, the Gestapo mercilessly dealt with the rest of the members of the underground group. But to this day it has not been clarified where and when Vera Khoruzhaya (according to documents - Anna Sergeevna Kornilova), Sofya Pankova (according to documents - Antonina Sergeevna Zasko), Evdokia Suranova (according to documents - Maria Vasilievna Petrovskaya) were executed. In one of the cells of the former Gestapo dungeon, several barely visible letters were found: “To the Choir...”. Do these letters mean the beginning of the surname of the brave underground woman?

Here, in this dark basement, everything cries out about the shed blood of patriots, about their cruel suffering and torment, about the terrible tortures that Hitler’s sadists committed on the Soviet people. On the ceiling and walls of the basement there are inscriptions made by underground fighters in the last minutes of their lives. Every letter, every word of these inscriptions is imbued with love for the Motherland, devotion to communist ideals, and indomitable hatred of enemies. In one of the cells it is written: “Raya Shcheryakova, born in 1925. I want to live, but I'm dying. They'll shoot me." The Nazis caught Komsomol member Raya Shcheryakova red-handed - with leaflets. The girl was brutally tortured, the torture was replaced by a promise to save her life if she betrayed her comrades. But the brave underground woman was silent. Enraged fascists shot the patriot.

And here are other tragic inscriptions: “Pirogov Vladimir, arrived 11/II 1943, left 19 forever. I feel sorry for my life. Farewell, Motherland"; “Vera Evseenko, Luda Berezkina, 18 years old, executed on September 6”; “Eduard Grebenkov, shot on 27/II 1943”; “Blinov Igor Moiseevich, Moscow, shot for espionage.”

From here they took Vera Khoruzhaya to execution. For active participation in revolutionary activities and demonstrated heroism in the fight against fascist invaders during the Great Patriotic War, by the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of May 17, 1960, Vera Zakharovna Khoruzhey was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. She was also posthumously awarded the Order of the Red Banner. The street in Vitebsk, where Vera Horuzhaya lived during the war, now bears her name. In the dungeons of the Gestapo, where the national heroine and other brave patriots languished, a branch of the regional local history museum was created.

New fighters replaced the fallen. The underground struggle in Vitebsk flared up.

A group of underground workers led by communist T. A. Morudov acted bravely. Finding himself in enemy-occupied territory, Morudov began to look for ways to fight the invaders. In Stary Selo, located near Vitebsk, he met his friend A. S. Bobrovsky, a former employee of the republican office of the State Bank. Patriots listened to Soviet radio messages at night, copied them by hand and distributed them among the population. Soon they managed to establish contact with the intelligence officer of the Red Army special group N.A. Shlakov. On his instructions, T. A. Morudov moved to Vitebsk. It was decided to create a reconnaissance group. Shpakov's knowledge and experience were very useful. He developed a code for written reports, established passwords for appearances, and communication methods.

Soon the underground group itself began to take shape. It included: N.F. Lynchenko, Komsomol members E.V. Baranovskaya and A.E. Slovas, L.P. Tsyganova, as well as those who escaped from captivity M.E. Stankeev, G.N. Ozerov and others. Stankeev was tasked with reconnaissance of the Nazi fortifications on the left bank of Vitba and outside the city along the Smolensk highway to the village of Vorony. He got a job as a worker at a bakery and, together with twelve other workers, went to the forest to collect firewood. For this purpose, he was issued a pass by the police to travel around the city and its environs. Soon Stankeev discovered pillboxes and bunkers, the location of which was reported to the command of the partisan formations and Soviet troops. The workers who worked on collecting firewood actively helped him. In August 1942, Stankeev was unexpectedly arrested. The reason for the arrest was a note found by the Nazis from the underground worker Kozlov, who was trying to join the partisans. In it, Kozlov wrote to Stankeev: “Take away my sister Tamara, and we will meet at the appointed place.” What these words meant is never clear. Kozlov knew about all the members of the group of workers who went to the “forest for firewood” and collected grenades and ammunition there for the partisans. But he did not betray anyone and died in unbearable pain.

Having no evidence against Stankeyev, the Nazis, after several weeks of interrogation, sent him to a prisoner of war camp located in Vitebsk. Having contacted an underground group operating in the camp, he learned that the Nazis were preparing spies and saboteurs from among the traitors to be transferred to the Soviet rear. The enemy spies were well trained, dressed in the uniform of Soviet officers, and equipped with Komsomol cards and other documents. Stankeyev managed to contact the city underground. They conveyed information about the impending release of enemy agents to the commander of the partisan brigade M. F. Biryulin, who reported this by radio to the Soviet command. A worthy meeting was prepared for the fascist spies.

In an effort to collect more information about the enemy, the underground group arranged for its members to work in various jobs for the occupiers. G.N. Ozerov began working as a switchman at a railway station. Before the war he lived in Moscow. Fighting in a detachment of Moscow militias, Ozerov was captured at the beginning of the war. An underground worker from the Vitebsk KIM factory, N.F. Lynchenko, helped him free from the camp, passing him off as her relative Gennady Dmitrievich Stroikov. Ozerov (Stroikov) collected valuable information about the movement of enemy military echelons, which was delivered to the partisans by N.F. Lynchenko. She made trips to the partisans two or three times a week. Along with intelligence data, she brought them forms of passports, IDs and passes, as well as German stamps and seals. This made it possible to provide the partisans heading to the city with reliable documents. N. F. Lynchenko’s apartment was a meeting place for underground workers. For camouflage, a “relative” who lived with her, an underground worker named Ozerov, began repairing rubber shoes. Every time new information about the enemy was required, the messengers were given the task of “tearing down and gluing up the galoshes.”

The children of N.F. Lynchenko, Nikolai, Dina and Emma, were also liaisons of the underground group. The children were worthy of their mother and completed their tasks with courage and bravery. In a difficult moment, when the Gestapo, using cruel torture, threatened to shoot them along with their mother if they did not tell about the underground fighters, they remained silent, without betraying anyone to the enemy.

Active reconnaissance work was carried out by car coupler A.E. Slovas. Before the war, he worked as a duty officer at the Vitebsk station. For the accidents he was convicted and imprisoned in a camp. But when a threat loomed over the Motherland, he cast aside “grievances.” Returning to wounded Vitebsk, Slovas got a job as a wagon coupler at a railway station and began to look for opportunities to fight the enemy. Here he met with Ozerov. When they got to know each other well, Ozerov instructed Slovas to collect information about the Nazi fortifications in the area from the village of Grishany to Yuryeva Gorka. The data received by Slovas was transferred to Moscow through the partisan brigade M. F. Biryulin.

The command of the partisan formations and Soviet troops needed accurate information about the movement of trains in the Orsha direction. This information had to be transmitted three times a week - on Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. This task was also entrusted to Slovas. But to complete it, it was necessary to move to work from Orlovsky to the Leningradsky Park of the Vitebsk station. By bribing the German timekeeper Mezinger, Slovas achieved a transfer. Here he soon organized a small but active underground group of railway workers and with its help collected information about enemy transportation.

One day a train stopped at the station. Baled hay was stacked on its platforms. Slovas found the arrangement of bales strange. Having examined the train, he established that the invaders were carrying guns and tanks camouflaged from air reconnaissance. When the Nazis hid in the cracks during the bombing of the station by Soviet planes, the underground fighters set fire to the enemy train. In November 1942, Slovas' group derailed 16 carriages and a steam locomotive. At the beginning of 1944, Slovas was driven to Austria, where he was subsequently liberated by Soviet troops.

An active member of the underground group was the wife of Soviet officer L.P. Tsyganov, who operated under the nickname Galya. The war found her with two children in Vitebsk. Hunger forced the woman to go to work at a bakery. This turned out to be very beneficial for the underground. There was one bakery in the city. Knowing the norms for the distribution of bread to German military personnel, Galya determined the number of military units both in the city and those passing through it. The underground group regularly passed on the information received to the partisans and the command of the Soviet troops.

Gestapo bloodhounds managed to pick up the trail of individual members of the group. N.F. Lynchenko and G.N. Ozerov were arrested and subjected to severe torture. They did not say a single word about their comrades and proudly accepted death at the hands of the fascist executioners. In October 1943, during mass raids, many other members of the group were arrested, including its leader T. A. Morudov. Then the underground group was headed by E.V. Baranovskaya. During its activities, the group provided the partisans and the Soviet command with valuable information about many enemy military units, their headquarters and plans, their deployment, transportation by rail, and enemy fortifications. In addition to the underground workers mentioned above, M. N. Baranovskaya, T. Lomakevich, P. A. Beleznov, P. Pepelyaeva, N. Teilova, L. Pepelyaeva, E. Kovaleva and others took an active part in the work of the group.

The leaders of the party underground and the command of the partisans knew well the brave underground intelligence officer E. S. Spiridonova (Pirozhkova), a graduate of the Komsomol organization of the KIM factory. Fearless Dusya, as the underground workers called her, reliably ensured communication between the Vitebsk underground workers, first with the operational security group “Elusive”, and later with the reconnaissance groups of Yu. S. Rudakov and M. R. Efimov. More than once she looked death in the eye, froze her feet while hiding in the snow from the Nazis, but she always carried out important tasks. There were times when Dusya came to the city exhausted, sick, with a high fever, and often a day later she went back into the forest, bringing information about the enemy to the partisans.

Here are just a few episodes from the work of a brave patriot.

Once, not far from the village of Zaronovo, E. S. Spiridonova, with a basket in her hands, in which she was carrying magnetic mines to the city under berries and eggs, was stopped by two fascists. They took the eggs and began to dig into the berries. Without waiting for the Nazis to reach the mines, she killed them outright with a pistol. Another time, Spiridonova carried food from the partisans for the underground in a bag of potatoes. A truck with SS men overtook her. Without being confused, Spiridonova asked for a ride to the city. They gave her a seat in the cabin, and the bag was thrown into the back, and it was safely delivered to Vitebsk under the “guard” of the occupiers.

Spiridonova often carried out combat missions with her father Stepan Ivanovich. Approaching the city, her father pretended to be blind and took a staff in his hands. Under the guise of a “blind” guide, Dusya brought weapons and explosives to the city. Spiridonova did a lot of work to involve Soviet people in underground work.

An underground group created with her active participation at a plywood factory restored by the occupiers sabotaged production in every possible way, damaged machines and equipment, distributed leaflets, and delivered weapons and ammunition to the partisans. When by the summer of 1942 almost all of the plant’s units were disabled, most of the members of the group, led by its organizer G.I. Pushkarev, were transferred by Spiridonova to the partisan detachment. The director, chief accountant, senior mechanic and cashier of the plant with a cash register also came to the partisans.

An underground group led by communist A.E. Belokhvostikov delivered significant blows to the occupiers. On the eve of the war, Belokhvostikov graduated from the Minsk Institute of National Economy, worked in Gomel, and then in Vitebsk as a planning engineer in the regional executive committee. From the very beginning of the enemy occupation of the city, Alexander Efimovich became involved in the active fight against the invaders and created one of the first underground groups in Vitebsk. Its members included V. N. Pakhomov, M. E. Belokhvostikova, N. S. Bobrov, M. A. Romanenko, I. F. Bezbogin, L. I. Khripach, A. D. Shapurov, K. S. Shchuplikova, P.S. Shlyakova and others.

In November 1941, A.E. Belokhvostikov’s group attacked the Nazi headquarters, located near the station, in a school building. A. E. Belokhvostikov, I. F. Bezbogin, L. I. Khripach, M. A. Romanenko came to the operation. Armed with machine guns and guns, the underground fighters quietly crawled up to the sentry and destroyed him. And then the flames tore through the darkness of the night. One after another, grenades exploded and machine guns started working. The underground fighters broke into the building. The stunned Nazis began to jump out of the windows in panic, but fell dead, mowed down by machine gun fire. Just as suddenly as they appeared, the underground fighters disappeared. The occupiers searched for the culprits for a long time, but in vain. And a joyful rumor spread throughout the city: “Our fascists are beating, they’re beating hard.”

On the night of February 22, 1942, during a Soviet air raid on Vitebsk, a member of the group, N.S. Bobrov, having previously made his way to the Smolensk market area, fired missiles and pointed out to the pilots the accumulation of vehicles and other enemy equipment. The bomb strike was precise: cars burned all night and ammunition exploded.

To connect the partisans with the Vitebsk underground fighters, Belokhvostikov was instructed to open a private workshop for repairing tinware. “Visitors” began to come here often. The master greeted them with a password question:

What did you bring?

Buckets. This needs to be fixed.

Very good, we'll fix it now.

I just ask you to do it quickly.

The buckets that required “urgent repair” were filled with tol, mines, and leaflets. On the way back, the “repaired” buckets were sent with parcels for the partisans: with medicines and reports about the enemy and his intentions.

In the spring of 1943, the secret field police “GFP-703” managed to send provocateurs into underground groups, including Belokhvostikov’s group, which the Nazis considered central. In April-May 1943, the Nazis arrested 72 underground members. Dozens of them were shot after brutal torture, including A.E. Belokhvostikov, his sister Maria and other members of Belokhvostikov’s group.

The group was led by P. S. Shlyakova (Paulina), who, even as the Nazis admitted, skillfully continued the work. Her closest assistants were Komsomol member V. A. Alexandrova, I. F. Bezbogin, V. N. Pakhomov, K. S. Shchuplikova. However, the fascists managed to again pick up the trail of some underground groups. In the summer and autumn of 1943, more than 60 underground members were arrested in Vitebsk, most of whom were shot, and some were imprisoned in special SD camps or sent to hard labor in Germany. Among those executed was Paulina - P.S. Shlyakova.

Back in February 1943, the mysterious Katya-A was arrested (and soon shot). Vinogradova, recognized by the Nazis as a dangerous and highly qualified spy. She arrived from Biryulin’s partisan detachment in Vitebsk to continue underground work there.

The arrests continued. The Nazis became aware of the facts of the disappearance of weapons and ammunition from military warehouses, the awareness of the partisans about the routes of punitive expeditions, the deployment of German troops in the vicinity of Vitebsk, the disappearance of strict reporting forms. They were seriously concerned about sabotage and sabotage of the activities of the occupation authorities organized by the population.

The entire intelligence apparatus available in the city was put on its feet, the so-called “partisan catchers” - traitors to the Motherland masquerading as patriots - were mobilized. Fascist intelligence established careful surveillance of the warehouse of captured military weapons. The underground workers arranged for their people to “work” at this warehouse: N. Vinokurov, P. Ivanov, V. Lukyanenko and K. Menshikova, with the help of whom a lot of weapons and ammunition were taken to the partisans. Observation yielded nothing to enemy scouts. The underground workers worked skillfully. Then the Nazis used traitors to the Motherland, who, posing as partisan liaisons, received a significant amount of weapons and ammunition from the hands of the underground. The underground group was defeated.

But repression fell not only on underground workers. With incredible cruelty, the Nazis mocked the entire population of the city. The slightest disobedience resulted in prison and execution. In the dungeons of the Gestapo they tortured and killed everyone who was suspected of sympathizing with the Soviet regime or who expressed even a word of dissatisfaction with the occupation order. To intimidate the population, there were always gallows in the city where patriots were executed.

The bodies of those executed with the inscriptions “partisans”, “hanged for disobedience”, “saboteur” attached to them were not allowed to be removed for several days.

According to documents of the fascist occupation authorities, in June 1942, only 39,107 people remained in the previously prosperous city, which had 174 thousand inhabitants before the war. Through starvation, torture and executions, and exhausting labor, the Nazis sought to destroy the city’s population and suppress its resistance. Young residents of Vitebsk were taken to Germany for hard labor in mines and underground weapons and ammunition factories. No one returned from there. A recently discovered report from the German police in Vitebsk states that every week a trainload of people was sent from the city to Germany. According to the documents of the invaders, it appears that from May 1 to August 1, 1942 alone, 5,039 people were kidnapped from Vitebsk to fascist hard labor. Only occasionally did letters from the doomed, full of horror and despair, slip through the censorship.

Relying on the effectiveness of the bloody regime of the whip and the gallows, the occupiers repeatedly reported in their newspapers and advertisements about the “destruction of communists and their accomplices.” But this was self-deception. The residents of Vitebsk, like all Soviet people, fought the enemy to the death, and no increase in fascist terror could break their will to fight. It included more and more new underground groups, whose actions were distinguished by courage and audacity. Here are some examples.

...On October 12, 1943, a limousine is rushing at full speed along a country road from Vitebsk. It carries a captain, a German battalion commander and a non-commissioned officer. Near the village of Teterki they saw a group of people dressed in German uniforms. The car stops. The underground fighters Kukolev, Saleev, Chaika, Pisarsky and partisan Zagorsky, dressed in German uniforms, run up to her.

Hands up!

The non-commissioned officer obediently raises his hands, chattering something about his innocence. The captain, jumping out of the car, tries to resist. At this time, two more German cars appeared on the road. There was no time to hesitate.

Shoot the Nazis! - Zagorsky orders.

Having destroyed the captain and his companion, the underground fighters crashed the car and ran into the forest literally in front of the approaching Nazis. At first the latter did not understand why people in German uniforms were running from them. And when they figured it out, it was already too late. The fascists only had to fire a few machine-gun bursts at the patriots hiding behind the trees.

A few days later, the same group of underground fighters blew up eight enemy vehicles with soldiers using mines.

...In November 1943, underground worker N. Zhigunov came to his friend V. Ivanov. With him was a medium-sized, pretty girl with long thick braids.

Meet me! Our replenishment.

It was A. Zh-avrid, who already had considerable experience in underground work. On behalf of the partisans, she visited one of the underground groups, and now she had to help N. Zhigunov’s group intensify sabotage activities. They immediately agreed on another operation. It was necessary to lay mines in the trains at the Vitebsk station. Zhavrid proposed a plan:

I will bring you food. Mines will be hidden in the packages.

The next day, the girl appeared with pots and plates near the carriage depot where the underground workers worked. N. Zhigunov reliably hid the mines she brought. Soon, eleven magnetic mines with increased charges were placed in the carriages of five military trains. The trains were blown up en route. A large amount of ammunition and uniforms were destroyed, and several dozen fascist officers traveling in class cars were killed.

One day, a train arrived at the Vitebsk station with weapons intended to be sent to the front. “This train cannot be missed,” the underground decided. A group led by V. Ivanov was tasked with blowing up the train. The composition was heavily guarded. But the underground workers were lucky: Soviet planes raided the station. The train's security hid. Ivanov and his friends took advantage of this. They planted a four-kilogram mine under one of the carriages. As a result of the explosion and subsequent fire, a large amount of weapons was destroyed. In October 1943, the same group laid mines in a bridge along the highway near the Zaluchye station. The explosion put the bridge out of action for almost two weeks.

Directing the militant activities of the underground, the city party committee at the same time paid great attention to strengthening mass political work among the population and exposing false fascist propaganda. Underground organizations increased the production of leaflets, using a wide variety of techniques and methods to distribute them. Leaflets invariably appeared on fences, poles, walls of houses, and in various occupation institutions.

An underground youth group consisting of Komsomol member L. Berezkina (leader), her brother Nikolai, Z. Vasilyeva, N. Vorobyov, N. Zakharov, V. Korneshonok, E. Volchka was especially active in mass propaganda work. The young patriots established contact with the partisans operating in the area of the settlements of Poddubye, Krota and Manuka. On instructions from the command of the partisan brigade “Aleksey”, they carried out sabotage, obtained forms and documents from the institutions of the occupiers. The group received leaflets from the partisans and distributed them in the city. Lydia and Nikolai Berezkin copied the Sovinformburo reports by hand. People found these quarters of paper torn from notebooks in bags when returning from the market, in coat pockets, on fences and walls of houses. On the portraits of Hitler, which were hung everywhere in the city by German propagandists with the inscription “Hitler the Liberator,” patriots painted on various caricature details and instead of the word “liberator” they wrote “strangler.” The ubiquitous boy E. Volchok enthusiastically reported: “And in other areas they make the same inscriptions. They take us as an example."

The scale of underground work expanded, and more and more new patriots were included in it. In this regard, the issue of supplying the underground workers with original documents was acute. And L. Berezkina’s group took up this matter. At the beginning of 1942 J1. Berezkina and Z. Vasilyeva secured a recommendation from one of the police officers and were hired to work in the canteen of the field commandant’s office. They soon found an opportunity to steal blank passports and other documents. Along with obtaining forms and documents, young underground fighters collected information about enemy units and purchased medicines and tobacco to be given to the partisans. From the headquarters of the partisan brigade it was transmitted: “You act well. But extreme caution is needed. Beware of spies and traitors."

The warning was justified. The group involved non-party patriots N.P. Zakharov and his wife in its work. They provided all possible assistance to the underground workers, providing them with their apartment for secret meetings. A. Belyachits often came to this apartment, intending, as he said, to “throw in his lot” with L. Berezkina. The girl treated Belyachits’s advances favorably and shared many secrets with him. In the summer of 1942, underground workers were tasked with studying the possibility of blowing up a building that housed the commandant's office, gendarmerie, post office and radio center. On the evening of September 6, L. Berezkina and Z. Vasilyeva brought six mines and many leaflets from the partisans. On to the next one. day the girls went to the radio center to see the underground fighter Vorobyov. At the moment when they handed over the mines to him, all three were arrested. At the same time, the Gestapo officers searched N. Zakharov’s apartment, where they found four mines and leaflets. Zakharov was also arrested.

On the same day, other members of the group—Komsomol member V. Korneshonok and E. Volchok—were captured by the Nazis. Having settled down as typesetters in a printing house, they gained the trust of their superiors and often stayed at work after 6 pm, which was prohibited. The underground workers printed and distributed leaflets, involving other young people who worked in the printing house.

Boys and girls were subjected to wild torture. But the executioners did not receive an answer to a single question. In the early morning of September 22, 1942, residents were shocked by the sight: the corpses of young men and women were hanging on the gallows built by the Nazis at the Smolensk market.

The underground fighters were betrayed by the vile traitor to the Motherland Belyachic. In May 1941, Belyachits was drafted into the army, from where he deserted at the beginning of the war. Returning to Vitebsk, he was soon recruited by the enemy intelligence agency Abwehr-318. Pretending to be in love with J1. Berezkin, the traitor found out the composition of the underground group and betrayed it. Subsequently, Belyachits graduated from a fascist intelligence school and on August 20, 1944, he was dropped by plane behind the lines of the Red Army. On August 23, he was arrested and executed by court order.

Despite some failures, the skills of the underground workers grew. Directing the partisan struggle in the city, the underground city party committee paid great attention to the penetration of underground fighters into the institutions of the invaders. This allowed the underground not only to have official residence permits (which in itself was very important), but also to destroy the enemy apparatus from the inside, deliver more sensitive blows to the occupiers, and be aware of their affairs and intentions. So, for example, the communists I. I. Onoprienko and I. M. Kuznetsov, who worked as drivers in a German institution, collected and delivered various information to the underground party city committee, and brought the underground from the partisans. Underground worker M. Losyanov got a job at the Vitebsk housing department. He supplied the underground fighters and partisans with documents and arranged for them to register in the city. Communist printing house worker M.N. Koptelova distributed leaflets among the population, gave the partisans three boxes of ammunition, three rifles, a machine gun and a revolver, stole important secret documents from the occupiers and handed them over to the underground city party committee. Komsomol member V.V. Khudoley worked in the economic department of the city commandant’s office. She found out the enemy's intentions and reported them to the partisans. She drew up a plan of part of the city with enemy military installations marked on it. Komsomol member G. A. Krastina, who worked as a cleaner at a power plant, stole a new gas mask from the Nazis and delivered it to the party’s underground city committee. Another time, on instructions from the partisans, she stole a map from the government building with objects important to the invaders marked on it. A brave, courageous underground worker was P. A. Belenev, the driver of the food department of the city government. He skillfully distributed leaflets and used his “official” trips to collect information about enemy military installations.

Underground worker E.V. Baranovskaya (Hugo) worked first at the headquarters of the fascist military construction organization TODT, and then in the office of the garrison vegetable warehouse. She informed the Soviet command about the fortifications being built by the Nazis, accurate information about the number of enemy troops, and the location of their headquarters.

Nineteen-year-old underground Komsomol member T. Lomonosenko showed a lot of courage and bravery. To disguise herself, she entered the choral circle of the so-called People's House, created by the occupiers for the ideological indoctrination of young people in the fascist spirit. In June 1942, under the noses of the Nazis, a girl organized the escape of six Soviet prisoners of war from the field commandant's office. The fugitives in an Oppel car arrived safely to the partisans. After some time, the brave patriot, together with underground workers L. Matveeva and E. Kolobanova, having agreed with the prisoner-of-war driver, organized the escape of another group of Soviet prisoners of war working at the airfield in a car. Komsomol member Matveeva, working on behalf of an underground organization in a sewing workshop at the airfield, obtained information about the presence of aircraft, drew up a plan of the airfield and handed it over to the partisans.

The leader of the underground group, communist I. A. Bekishev, got a job at the airfield as an electrician. He obtained valuable information about the presence of aircraft and weapons at the airfield, and carried out daring acts of sabotage. Having established contact with V.N. Orlovsky’s group operating here in the summer of 1943, the underground workers began to work together. They mined a bomb shelter where the Nazis hid during Soviet air raids. The explosion killed many fascist pilots. In July-August 1943, underground fighters mined two planes. One of them exploded over the city and crashed into the ground in front of the German commandant’s office, the other a few kilometers from Vitebsk over the village of Shevardino.

The blows of the underground fighters against the occupiers became more and more noticeable. Realizing that one of the reasons for the effectiveness of the underground fighters’ actions was their extensive connections with the partisans, the occupiers stepped up measures to suppress these connections. They installed reinforced control posts around Vitebsk and surrounded it with barbed wire. All those who came to the city had their documents and everything they brought with them carefully checked. These measures were especially intensified after A. Yakimova (Boikoy), a liaison of N. Ya. Nagibov’s underground group, was found in a bag of potatoes, which she was carrying from the partisans to urban sabotage groups. After this incident, the penetration of messengers into and out of the city acquired the character of military operations. Some time after the failure of Boykoy, N. Ya. Nagibov, his wife T. S. Shchukina and I. E. Yakimov were returning from the partisans to the city. As soon as they approached the checkpoint, a policeman came out to meet them and demanded documents. He peered at them for a long time, and then ordered:

Come with me!

There was not a single second to lose. Nagibov killed a policeman with a revolver shot and, together with his comrades, attacked the security of the checkpoint. The frightened policemen, believing that they had been attacked by reconnaissance of the advancing partisans, began to scatter. Taking advantage of this, people previously detained by the police, including one underground woman, escaped. Chasing the policemen who were running away shouting “The partisans are coming,” Nagibov and his friends ran into the city. On the way, they met a German convoy, threw grenades at it and disappeared.

But no matter how the situation developed, the connection between the underground and the partisans was not interrupted. It was carried out by brave, determined patriots - connected partisans and underground fighters. One of them was T.P. Sutorman (Dimerza), who acted under the nickname Bessarabka. Before the war, she worked as a barmaid in trade organizations in Vitebsk, knew the location of the city well, and had many acquaintances. Bessarabka delivered information about the enemy and forms of various documents to the partisans from the underground. Through it, partisans more than once transported explosives to the underground. One day, having hidden a tol in a basket of cucumbers and cabbage, an underground woman ventured to cross a bridge guarded by German patrols.

Documents,” the patrol demanded.

While checking his passport, the Nazi forcefully pushed the basket with his foot. She didn't roll over. Fearing that such a weight would seem suspicious to the sentry, Sutorman managed to divert his attention and safely delivered it to the demolition worker Bolshakov, who worked as a railway driver. Later, many times, in a basket disguised as vegetables, she delivered magnetic mines to the underground from the partisans.

A. M. Kozlova actively worked with Sutorman. Having settled in German economic institutions on the instructions of the underground, she had reliable documents and often went to the partisans, bringing explosives and literature from there. Many Soviet people were sent to join the partisans as patriots.

It was difficult to organize escapes of captured Soviet soldiers. It was no less difficult to hide them and transport them to the partisans. One day, with the help of Sutorman, seven Soviet prisoners of war escaped from the camp and took refuge in the basement of her house. It was necessary to transport them to the partisans. But how? The city was surrounded by control posts and ambushes. At this time, Sutorman suffered great grief - her mother died. For two days she went to different officials until, with bribes, she received a place to bury her mother in the city cemetery. On the third day, seven disguised Soviet prisoners of war, following the coffin, crossed the bridge where the control post was located, and at night they were already at the location of the partisans.

The underground operated in all areas of the city torn to pieces by the enemy. There were more and more of them. It is an impossible task to even briefly cover the activities of all underground groups, underground subversives, leaflet distributors, and messengers. Much could be said about the active group of P.K. Krylatykh, about the underground workers V. Kuznechik, A. Ivashchenko, A. Lopukhov, P. Turin, L. Edman, who operated at the railway station, about the underground worker G. Ya. Danilov, tortured by the Gestapo, the fearless liaison S. Piskunova, the thirteen-year-old underground hero Vanya Erofeev, who managed to deceive the Gestapo and escape from their dungeon on the eve of execution - about many, many wonderful patriots who selflessly fought against the fascist occupiers as part of the Vitebsk underground. The families of underground fighters cannot be ignored either. Their fathers and mothers, wives and children, in fact, were also underground workers.

It is impossible to describe all the examples of courage and heroism shown by the Vitebsk underground fighters. Disregarding death, they performed feats every day, hourly, which became their usual, everyday routine.

From the very beginning of the enemy occupation, underground struggle developed widely in the vicinity of Vitebsk, as well as in other settlements of the Vitebsk region.

In the Vitebsk rural region, V. S. Kulagina’s underground youth group was one of the first to operate. At first it included Kulagina's sisters Maria and Anna, N. Azeush and his sister Nina, G. Yupatov, Ivan and Fenya Yupatov, brothers Peter and Afanasy Yupatov. On instructions from the command of the partisan detachment M. F. Biryulin, the group collected weapons and ammunition and carried out propaganda work among the population.

The group established close connections with the youth of the neighboring villages of Luzhesno and Podberezye - E. Gruntov and his sister Adelina, O. Gruntov, sisters Zina and Taisiya Gvozdev and other young men and women who were part of independent underground groups. Rural underground fighters established contact with the Vitebsk underground, maintained contact with the NKVD special group “Elusive” and the army special group of Yu. S. Rudakov. Young patriots collected intelligence about the enemy, served as messengers, and delivered leaflets to the city.

After the creation of the Vitebsk underground city party committee, V.S. Kulagina became its liaison and at the same time the head of human intelligence of one of the detachments of the 1st Belarusian Partisan Brigade. Skillfully using her underground network, V.S. Kulagina collected valuable data on the location of enemy units, ammunition and fuel depots in Vitebsk, and enemy fortifications around the city. When carrying out tasks of the underground city party committee, V.S. Kulagina often brought tol, fuses, magnetic mines, newspapers and leaflets to the Vitebsk underground fighters, and upon her return she took prisoners of war and city residents to partisan detachments. She scouted out and collected important information about the Nazis’ construction of an airfield near Yanovichi.

...Staroye Selo is a small station village 20 kilometers from Vitebsk. But even from here, devastating blows were delivered to the enemy. The underground organization in Stary Selo was led by a local high school teacher, P.K. Lyakhovsky. He involved the village headman A.I. Shpakov, teacher I. Golubovsky, former qsoHX students A. Mitelev, Z. Bogdanova and others in the fight against the invaders. The organization grew quickly. Soon it included communists A.S. Bobrovsky and Ya A. Golubovsky, teacher of the Vitebsk Pedagogical Institute A.M. Ispenkov.

The Staroselsky underground members had a radio and regularly recorded reports from the Sovinformburo, then distributing them in handwritten form in nearby villages. Following the example of the city underground workers, they pasted leaflets on the announcements and orders of the invaders with the words: “Death to the German occupiers!”

The main thing in the work of the Staroselsky underground workers was reconnaissance.

Information about the enemy was collected by underground fighters S. Guvenenkov, who worked as a duty officer at the railway station, and K. Bogdanov, who got a job as a translator for the Nazis. Sixteen-year-old A. Skuratova (Bykhalenko), a ninth-grade student at Staroselskaya Secondary School, maintained contact with the partisans. Disregarding danger, she always delivered the collected information to them in a timely manner. On instructions from the underground, Skuratova got a job at the headquarters of the German unit in the town of Lettsy. Here she managed to obtain a lot of information of interest to the partisans. Together with her friend R. Tumanovich, she stole a stack of passport forms from the headquarters. P.K. Lyakhovsky sent them to the partisans.

The activities of the Staroselsky underground workers became even more effective after a reconnaissance and sabotage group led by a student of the Moscow Aviation Institute, Yu. S. Rudakov, was flown from the Soviet rear. In addition to the leader, its members included I. I. Baidak and A. A. Bibikova. The group was well prepared to fight behind enemy lines and had a radio transmitter. She quickly acquired reliable people, contacted the underground members of Staroye Selo and launched active intelligence activities. Particularly active was the student of the Moscow Aviation Institute, N. A. Shpakov, who escaped from captivity, a native of Staroye Selo. He knew Rudakov well from studying together at the institute.

The presence of a radio transmitter made it possible to transmit information to the Red Army command in a timely manner. In Vitebsk and its environs, dozens of single patriotic underground workers worked on the instructions of Rudakov’s group: the teacher of the Strelishchanskaya elementary school P. Bykov, the headman of the village of Sorzhishcha M. Telepov, the burgomaster of the Strelishchanskaya volost Matusevich and many others.

Rudakov's group grew quickly. Along with intelligence activities, she was actively involved in sabotage. In the village of Sloboda, Rudakov organized an armed detachment, which included E. P. Varchenko, I. Bonkarev, V. Saposhnev and other local residents. The detachment destroyed enemy food warehouses in the villages of Poltevo, Gankovichi, Lettsy. The underground members burned about 400 tons of hay harvested by the invaders, a large amount of timber intended to be sent to Germany. In Lettsy, the occupiers restored the butter factory. But as soon as a sufficient amount of oil accumulated on it, the underground members reported this to the partisans, who broke into the plant at night and took away its products.

The underground workers, doctor R. F. Makhnov and nurse M. A. Goncharova, who worked at the Letchanskaya hospital, were active. They transported medicines and dressings to the partisans, organized the escape of recovering captured Soviet soldiers, and placed in the hospital under the guise of typhoid-sick young men and women destined for deportation to fascist penal servitude.

A wide underground was created by the Polotsk district party committee (the secretaries were Novikov and Petrov). The most effective underground organization operated in Polotsk itself, which included S. Ya Artemyev, Ya. T. Volkova and others. It was built on the principle of a chain, consisting of links - separate groups of underground fighters. This made it possible to act suddenly and secretly. If any of the groups failed, the chain was broken and the fascists could not trace the entire organization. Artemyev took the nickname Asya, which consisted of the initial letters of his last name, first name and patronymic.

No matter how much the fascists fought, they did not uncover the entire underground. Each link-group carried out its work according to a specific task. Thus, Mindalev’s group established contacts with captured Soviet soldiers, organized their escape and transfer to partisan detachments. The underground member L.T. Volkova showed a lot of courage, organizing the transfer of a large group of captured Soviet military doctors to the partisans. Pashkevich’s group received reports from the Sovinformburo, retyped them on a typewriter and distributed them among the population.

Manis' group carried out reconnaissance work. In July 1942, she established a large concentration of enemy troops at the Polotsk station, which the partisans immediately radioed to Moscow. Soviet planes, according to the underground, raided the station. As a result, three echelons of enemy personnel and equipment were defeated. The Nazis declared a two-week mourning in the city in connection with the funerals of those killed.

The “Fearless” group acted together, which included 13 people, mainly teachers from the Polotsk orphanage, -M. S. Forinko, A. A. Shaeva, V. A. Sedlovsky, V. S. Latko, V. V. Bulakh, N. P. Vanyushin and others. They were called “fearless” for the exceptional courage with which they cared for the pupils left in their care. The group saved 190 children from death. The underground secretly obtained food and clothing for them, and in September 1943 they transported them to the village of Belchitsy, located near the partisan zone. On February 18, 1944, the Fearless group managed to transport all the children and teachers of the orphanage to the partisans of the Chapaev brigade.

One of the most powerful was Samorodkov’s group, which operated on the railway. It included 42 people. The underground members committed sabotage on the railway and fearlessly attacked the enemy day and night. Once at the Gromy station they blew up 2 locomotives and 10 wagons with ammunition. But soon Samorodkov was exposed as a provocateur. During a search, a list of group members was found on him. As a result, they were all captured by the Nazis and brutally tortured. Samorodkov himself committed suicide in the Polotsk prison. After the death of Samorodkov and his comrades, a new group was created at the railway junction, led by Astasheva.

The Polotsk underground had its people in various institutions of the occupiers. The burgomaster of the city of Petrovsky worked on their instructions, through whom the underground fighters learned about the enemy’s intentions, received and transported medicines, flour, salt and other products to the partisans.

The enemy continued to strike at the Polotsk underground. Following Samorodkov’s group, the Nazis managed to arrest Petrovsky, Mindalev, Pashkevich and others in mid-1942. Mindalev and Petrovsky, unable to withstand the brutal torture, committed suicide, but did not betray their comrades. The rest of the underground fighters were shot. In November 1942, the Gestapo arrested the active leaders of the Polotsk underground, F.N. Matetsky and his wife N.I. Matetskaya. For more than three weeks, the prisoners languished in a fascist dungeon, subjected to the most severe torture. Having achieved nothing, the Nazis at dawn on November 24, 1942, took the Matetskys and six other patriots to be shot. The fascist who shot N.I. Matetskaya only wounded her. She fell into a hole, losing consciousness. Having come to her senses, Matetskaya lay under the sand for a long time, waiting for the Nazis to leave. Then, having climbed out of the grave and made sure that all her comrades were dead, she disappeared into the forest. Barefoot, in only her underwear, on a cold November night she reached the village of Lozovka, from where loyal people transported her to the partisans the next day.

Lepel's underground fighters actively fought the enemy. The underground organization here was headed by the communist S. G. Baranovsky. Having started its activities in October 1941, the organization in a short period of time grew from 10 to 50 people. Baranovsky and some other underground workers worked in the Nazi printing house, where, taking constant risks, they printed leaflets. Handed over by an agent provocateur, many members of the organization were shot. Only a few underground fighters managed to break free. Among them was the still very young A. M. Parfenchuk. She endured brutal torture. Having no evidence, the Gestapo eventually released the girl. But the patriot was not afraid of what she saw in prison and continued the fight with even greater energy. Subsequently, she was arrested several times and sentenced to death. But every time she managed to free herself. The last time Parfenchuk was arrested was in August 1943. Together with the underground worker Talush, she carried leaflets from the partisans to Lepel. After brutal torture, the Gestapo decided to shoot the underground women. They dug a hole near the prison and took 16 people out to be executed. They shot in two bursts. At first, eight people were forced to climb into the pit. Having shot them, the Nazis ordered the rest to climb into the pit. Among them was Parfenchuk. But at the moment when the muzzles of the machine guns were already pointed at people, a messenger came running with an order to return Parfenchuk to prison: the gendarme general demanded her to Vitebsk. During interrogation by the general, Antonina could not utter a word - she was so exhausted by torture. The general ordered her to be sent to a medical barracks. There the girl lay for eight days before her speech returned.

Soviet prisoners of war worked as doctors in the barracks. One night, after giving the guard a drink of alcohol, they placed the corpse of the girl who had just died on her bed, and Parfenchuk was transferred to the place of the deceased. After some time, doctors helped the underground worker escape into the forest.

At the Orsha railway junction and in the city, underground groups created by the famous hero of the Patriotic War K. S. Zaslonov operated bravely. Before the war, Konstantin Sergeevich worked as the head of the locomotive depot at the Orsha station. Having evacuated the depot equipment, locomotives and carriages to the east, he left Orsha on the last steam locomotive. Soon K.S. Zaslonov and his friends, who worked at the Ilyich depot in Moscow, asked to be allowed to form a partisan detachment of railway workers. The patriots' request was granted. In August-September 1941, future partisans took short-term courses organized by the Smolensk regional party committee in Vyazma. In November 1941, Zaslonov and a group of drivers arrived in enemy-occupied Orsha. Having settled down at the railway junction, the underground began to gather forces. By the end of December, they had established contact with the Orsha underground district party committee and partisans, and created several sabotage groups.

An important circumstance was that the underground fighters managed to deceive the occupiers and gain their trust. K. S. Zaslonov was appointed head of the Russian locomotive brigades of the Orsha depot. He looked closely at friends and enemies, carefully drew trusted people into the underground, and thoughtfully distributed them among locomotive crews.

Under the leadership of K. S. Zaslonov, underground workers made so-called coal mines: explosives were covered with coal dust with an adhesive substance. Outwardly, these mines looked like ordinary pieces of coal. They were thrown into coal pits and into locomotive tenders. Once in the furnaces, the mines exploded and disabled the locomotives. Most often this happened on the way. In addition, the underground widely practiced freezing the water supply system of steam locomotives, rearranging switches and pushing oncoming trains, and setting fire to station buildings. Later, the underground began to receive magnetic mines through partisans. This made it possible to mine trains with a choice - precisely those trains that were transporting manpower, equipment and ammunition to the front near Moscow.

The activities of the Orsha underground railway workers were extremely effective. In just three months of combat activity, the Zaslonovites organized 98 crashes of enemy trains, disabled and damaged more than 200 locomotives. Hundreds of wagons and tanks with fuel and a large amount of enemy military equipment were destroyed.

The underground strictly observed secrecy. At first, the Nazis could not understand the reasons for such frequent accidents of steam locomotives, attributing these accidents to the harsh Russian winter and the “low quality of Soviet equipment.” But explosions also occurred on German steam locomotives delivered some time later from Germany. The Gestapo began a real hunt for the saboteurs. Once K.S. Zaslonov was arrested. But the lack of evidence and the patriot’s self-control temporarily averted suspicion from him. However, he was under strict surveillance. Convinced that many of them were in danger of arrest, K. S. Zaslonov and his friends left Orsha on February 25, 1942.

Not far from the city, in the area of the village of Logi, the Zaslonovites created the “Uncle Kostya” partisan detachment. It soon grew into a renowned brigade of Belarusian partisans. Enemies shuddered at the mere mention of the name of Konstantin Zaslonov. And at the Orsha junction, the sabotage groups left by the Zaslonovites continued to operate. Having acquired new patriots, they continued to disable steam locomotives and station facilities, create traffic jams at the junction, interacting with partisans, and wrecked military trains.

From the first days of the war, an underground Komsomol youth organization was active in the village of Osintorfa in the Orsha region, headed by S. Shmuglevsky. Even before the enemy arrived, communists and non-party activists, led by Osintorf director G. G. Omelchenko, created a base in the forest and joined the partisan detachment. But Komsomol members and non-union youth remained in the village. They were passionate about fighting the invaders.

Young patriots, led by S. Shmuglevsky, quietly went into the forest, collected and carefully hid weapons and ammunition. On August 10, 1941, they gathered for the first underground meeting. S. Shmuglevsky was elected secretary (commander). The organization included P. Klimovich, Evgeniy and Mikhail Telenchenko, V. Ogurtsov, N. Molokhovich, N. Klimovich, A. Molokhovich, G. Tretyakov, Lyudmila and Vera Bukatik, M. Makarenko, V. Bugaeva, V. Yanovich, V. . Berezovsky, N. Prokopenko, E. Nedosenko. The wounded political instructor, communist E.R. Vilsovsky, who was hiding in the Bukatik family, learned about the creation of the organization. Through members of the organization Vera and Lyudmila Bukatik, he contacted the underground and began to direct their activities.

Underground Komsomol members destroyed telephone lines, thwarted the invaders' attempts to start peat mining, and broke cars. They told the population the truth about the fighting at the front, and hid Soviet soldiers and commanders who had escaped from fascist captivity. On announcements and orders of the German authorities, residents of Osintorf increasingly read the stamped battle cry “Death to the German occupiers!”

Young underground fighters launched an active struggle against the traitors. Burgomaster Trublin, chief of police Skvarchevsky and clerk Pikar were particularly notable for their mockery of the Soviet people. The underground decided to destroy the fascist minions. Having established that. traitors often organize drinking bouts in the council building, and underground members set up an ambush. Late in the evening of August 29, 1941, S. Shmuglevsky, P. Klimovich and M. Telenchenko, armed with a light machine gun, hid in an empty house, past which the burgomaster and his friends were supposed to walk. When the traitors approached, S. Shmuglevsky commanded: “Fire at the enemy!” Clerk Pikar was killed on the spot, police chief Skvarchevsky was seriously wounded. Burgomaster Trublin managed to escape.

On the second day, the enraged Nazis sent a punitive detachment to the village. The Nazis went door to door, carried out general searches and, at the slightest suspicion, arrested innocent people. They managed to find a machine gun in Telenchenko’s apartment. The Gestapo captured Mikhail and Yevgeny Telenchenko and sent them to the Gestapo. The young men endured severe torture. They didn't give anyone away. On September 20, 1941, the patriots were shot.

The underground fighters learned lessons from this operation. They began to carry out preparations for operations and secrecy of their actions more carefully. The organization was restructured. It was headed by the headquarters, which included S. Shmuglevsky, V. Ogurtsov and L. Bukatik. A rule was established: those newly admitted to the organization should not know who is a member of it. After being tested in combat, M. Prudnikov, N. Velikoselsky, G. Eremenko, M. Pakhomenko, Z. Varlamova and others were accepted into the ranks of the underground.

The activities of the underground have intensified significantly. They in every possible way disrupted the Nazis’ efforts to restore the peat enterprise. In January 1942, a group consisting of N. Molokhovich, V. Ogurtsov and G. Tretyakov burned a peat pumping crane, four electric motors and other equipment. On February 24, 1942, underground fighters organized the escape of 31 Soviet prisoners of war from the camp, which was located in village No. 4. They transported the fugitives to the forest where weapons were hidden. Armed, the Soviet soldiers joined the partisan detachment.

The underground movement carried out a daring operation at the beginning of 1942. In March, a battered German regiment near Moscow arrived in the village for rest. The headquarters of the underground group instructed S. Shmuglevsky and P. Klimovich to destroy barracks No. 10, where the Nazis were housed. On a dark night, when the Nazis were sleeping, the guys crawled to the barracks, locked the door and set it on fire on both sides. In their underwear, shouting and screaming, the Nazis jumped out through the windows to escape the raging flames. As a result, 12 fascists received severe burns, and a significant part of the regiment's weapons, ammunition and uniforms were burned. The Nazis were forced to transfer the regiment to another location.

Some time after this operation, S. Shmuglevsky and E. Nefedova met with the Zaslonov partisans near the village of Ozertsy. Soon, in the forest near the village of Shcheki, Dubrovensky district, the famous commander of the partisan brigade, K. S. Zaslonov, was talking with young underground fighters. He set before them the task of expanding the garrison of the enemy auxiliary unit, which consisted of Soviet prisoners of war, collecting information about the number of enemy troops and their movements, taking into account the nature of the cargo and the number of trains passing along the Orsha-Smolensk railway. Carrying out the task of K. S. Zaslonov, the underground fighters in the fall of 1942 prepared a large detachment of soldiers of German auxiliary units, led by officer Ya. G. Lebed, to go over to the side of the partisans. 117 people arrived in K.S. Zaslonov’s brigade with full weapons. By the end of the winter of 1942/43, under the influence of the underground, a massive departure of personnel from auxiliary units to the partisans began. In February 1943, ammunition depots in the village were blown up, and about 40 Nazi soldiers and officers were killed. It was the soldiers of the auxiliary units who made a farewell “gift” to the Nazis and went to the 16th Smolensk Partisan Brigade.

After this, the partisans supplied the underground Komsomol members with explosives and gave them the task of carrying out a series of acts of sabotage. The underground blew up the railway bridge between Belgres and Osintorf, burned a warehouse at the Osinovka station and committed some other acts of sabotage.

To “establish order” in Osintorf, at the end of February 1943, a special representative of the Gestapo, Baron von Spavke, arrived in Osintorf and was appointed Sonderführer of Osintorf and surrounding areas. The underground members informed the partisans of the 16th Smolensk Brigade that on March 12, Shpavke was going to visit the water station. The partisans set up an ambush right next to the railroad bed. Soon a motor vehicle appeared with three platforms, on which there were more than 60 Nazis. When the locomotive came very close to the ambush, the partisans opened fire on the platforms. Shooting randomly, the Nazis rushed to run. The Sonderfuehrer was killed. In this battle, the partisans killed 50 Nazis and blew up a water station, which the invaders had to restore for about two months.

Frightened by the actions of the underground, the occupiers created a Gestapo commandant’s office in Osintorf. However, the young patriots continued to fight. And only in September 1943, when there was a clear danger of arrest of the underground fighters, all of them - 50 people - on the instructions of the command of the partisan unit went to the partisans. The leader of the underground, S. Shmuglevsky, became the commissar of the partisan detachment.

Komsomol members of Osintorf fought bravely for their homeland. But not all of them were destined to live to see complete victory over the enemy. V. Ogurtsov, L. Bukatik, I. Eremenko, N. Prokopenko, N. Nolbert, N. Molokhovich, G. Tretyakov, M. Pakhomenko, Mikhail and Evgeniy Telenchenko gave their lives in battles for the Motherland.

A remarkable example of courage in the fight against fascist invaders is the heroic activity of the Obol underground Komsomol youth organization “Young Avengers”. Its organizer and leader was Fruza (Efrosinya) Zenkova, an employee of the Vitebsk factory “Banner of Industrialization”.

Having received the task from the Sirotinsky underground district party committee to create an underground organization in the area of the Obol garrison, Zenkova involved Komsomol members M. Dementieva and V. Ezovitov in underground work. At the first meeting, Zenkova was elected head of the organization, and the organization itself was named “Young Avengers”. Then ninth-grader I. Ezovitov, M. Luzgina, N. Azolina, Z. Luzgina, V. Shashkova, and Leningrad schoolgirl Z. Portnova were accepted into the organization. When the organization had 10 people, a second meeting was held. The young underground fighters decided to get a radio and organize the dissemination of Sovnnformburo reports, destroy the telephone connection between Polotsk and the Obol commandant’s office, and obtain a telephone for carrying out sabotage. In the evening of the same day, members of the organization met with a group of partisans and took the oath.

Since that time, the organization has taken active steps. The partisans supplied her with mines and everything necessary for sabotage. One day, a partisan detachment was given a task: to disable the Polotsk-Vitebsk railway for at least a week. To do this, it was necessary to blow up the water pump, which the Nazis guarded around the clock. N. Azolina, who worked as a census taker in the German commandant’s office, volunteered to complete the task. The next day, citing a headache, she left work. With a purse in her hands, which contained a mine, the girl went down to the Obolyanka River and headed along the shore towards the water pump. The sentry stopped her, but, recognizing the census taker from the commandant’s office, he started talking to her. Taking advantage of the fact that the sentry was called into the water pumping building, the girl quickly mined it. On August 3, a day after mining, an explosion occurred, as a result of which the water pump was out of order for two weeks. This was followed by wire breaks at the Obol station, at the peat plant, near the village of Glushanino, and the arson of a warehouse with bread. Young underground fighters stole cows from a community organized by the invaders and transported them to the partisans, collected information about the enemy, and distributed leaflets. The organization was quickly replenished with new members. To make it easier to secrecy, some underground workers got jobs at a brick factory, a peat factory, a flax factory, and in an officer’s canteen.

In the summer of 1943, underground fighters blew up a car with an important Nazi official from Vitebsk visiting the Obol commandant, blew up a flax mill, a power plant, the engine room of a brick factory, a motor locomotive and an excavator on the railway, and several trains with fuel and ammunition. They have accounted for many blown-up vehicles on the highway and other military operations.

For a long time, the occupiers were unable to trace the organization. They were helped by the vile traitor to the Motherland, the provocateur Grechukhin. Before the war, he was a schoolmate of the underground fighter V. Ezovitov. He managed to gain Ezovitov’s trust and, at his suggestion, joined the organization in the summer of 1943. Gradually, Grechukhin found out everything about the underground fighters and handed them over to the enemy. Only A. Borbashov, whom Grechukhin did not know, and F. Zenkova, who was away, escaped arrest. The Nazis subjected the patriots to cruel torture and shot them on November 5, 1943.

Even before the arrest of members of the organization, underground member Z. Portnova, in connection with the failure of her friend I. Davydova, was sent along with her sisters Maria and Nadya Dementyev to a partisan detachment. Concerned about the arrest of the underground fighters, the command of the partisan detachment instructed Portnova to penetrate the garrison, find out the reasons for the failure, and establish new connections. The Komsomol member, having completed the task, returned back, but on the outskirts of the village of Mostishche she was arrested. Zina had a passport in the name of Maria Kozlova. The Gestapo rounded up the village population to identify the girl. Many people knew the girl, but there were no traitors. The underground worker was betrayed by the same Grechukhin. Torture and interrogation began, first in Oboli, and then in the Gestapo dungeon in Goryany. During one of the interrogations, Zina grabbed a pistol from the table and shot point-blank at the fascist, ran out into the corridor, killed an officer who was rushing to shoot with a second shot, rushed out the window, accurately shot at the sentry and ran to the Dvina. Another sentry began to catch up with her, Zina hid behind a bush and aimed a parabellum at the Nazi. Misfire…

The Nazis mocked Zina terribly. They gouged out her eyes, cut off her ears, forced needles under her nails, and twisted her arms and legs. The courageous Leningrad schoolgirl steadfastly withstood all the torture and died the death of a hero.

By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR dated July 1, 1958, Efrosinya Savelyevna Zenkova and Zinaida Martynovna Portnova were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Many of their comrades in arms were awarded orders.

The underground struggle grew in every city, in every settlement of the Vitebsk region. With their selfless struggle, the Vitebsk underground fighters caused enormous damage to the occupiers. They exterminated a large number of fascist soldiers and officers and destroyed a lot of enemy military equipment. The underground systematically supplied the command of partisan formations and Soviet troops with valuable information about the enemy, helped thousands of patriots move into partisan detachments, carried out extensive propaganda work among the population and enemy troops, and corrupted the police and auxiliary formations of the enemy. They mentally and physically exhausted the invaders, gave them no rest day or night, forced them to gather large masses of troops and police to “maintain order” in the “rear cities,” and to maintain numerous punitive institutions.

It is impossible to tell in one article about all the underground organizations and groups operating in the Vitebsk region. The facts presented here are only a small part of what was done by the Vitebsk underground. But they also convincingly indicate the high efficiency of their activities. There are many sources of this effectiveness. This is, first of all, the leadership of the underground struggle on the part of party bodies, which in many cases created underground organizations in advance and directed their activities. At the head of underground groups and organizations, in the most responsible and dangerous areas of the struggle, were communists and Komsomol members. An important circumstance was that the Vitebsk underground fighters were closely connected with partisan formations. The interaction of partisans and underground organizations immeasurably increased their capabilities in the fight against the enemy and made it possible to deliver targeted, devastating blows against him.

The successes of the Vitebsk underground workers were made possible thanks to popular support. Workers constantly joined the ranks of underground fighters and partisans. It can be said without exaggeration that the overwhelming majority of the population of the Vitebsk region took part in the partisan struggle against the occupiers, and underground organizations and partisan formations were the vanguard of the nationwide partisan movement.

The Vitebsk underground fighters fought the occupiers until the last drop of blood. Many of them laid down their lives in this struggle, gaining immortal glory for themselves.

In the days when the Soviet people celebrated the 20th anniversary of their great victory over Nazi Germany, the glorious names of another 175 underground fighters of the Vitebsk region appeared among those awarded orders and medals of the USSR.

PA IIP under the Central Committee of the CPB, f. 3793, op. 1, d. 201, l. 1–23.

See "Soviet Partisans". M., 1963, p. 466.

Partisans emerge from the forest

The clouds are gathering

The enemy is increasingly afraid of us. Afraid of our surprise attacks. He is afraid of sabotage on the railways. He is afraid that if the front breaks through, the partisans will create a critical situation in the immediate rear. The Nazis are still particularly concerned about the fate of the only communication line of the 3rd Tank Army - the road to the west through Lepel. The condition of this artery can be compared to the blockage of the veins of the limbs of a living organism - an irreversible process that constantly threatens the worst outcome. Intelligence reports confirm the same thing: the enemy is painfully looking for a way out of the situation. He continues to build up troops near our borders. One thing is not clear: why is the enemy hesitating, since any day now we must wait for the spring thaw?

These days, it seems, for the first time I so clearly felt the full weight of the burden, all the responsibility that was entrusted to me by the Central Committee of the CP(b)B. The Vitebsk underground regional committee of the party provided great assistance to the operational group. He closely monitored the situation in our zone. Through his representatives, who were with us almost all the time, he quickly supervised the activities of underground district committees and party organizations of the unit. The secretaries of the Vitebsk Regional Party Committee, I. B. Poznyakov and Ya. A. Zhilyanin, showed particular concern for the situation in our partisan zone. I. B. Poznyakov often spent long periods of time in brigades and took personal part in organizing and conducting combat operations. We were also helped by the instructors of the regional party committee I.T. Kititsa, A.A. Admiralov, the secretary of the underground regional committee of the Komsomol V.I. Luzgin and his instructors V.T. Radkevich, A.P. Zhavnerko and others.

I was once sitting at the headquarters of the task force. I thought about whether we had prepared everything for a new enemy offensive, whether we had overlooked anything. “By the way, we need to tell Sakmarkin and Romanov to take care of means of evacuating the population to the rear in case of an attack by punitive forces from the east.”

A slight scratching sound distracted my attention. I looked out the window: a bare white birch branch was beating against the window glass. Spring lived in the hollows, in the whitish fog trembling over the islands of black arable land, in the snowy slurry of winter roads destroyed by the heat and sun, in the lively fuss of sparrows, in the thoughtful slumber of the nearby forest. If only it were possible to adjust the spring so that the Nazis would not be able to come to us with equipment during the spring mud and impassable roads!

There was a knock on the door. This is Dmitry Alekseevich Frolov.

New intelligence?

Yes. Revival was noticed in the garrisons along the railway from Krulevshchina to Polotsk.

The nature of the revival?

Captain Frolov, an experienced, thoughtful commander who has studied the habits of the enemy well and has done a lot to improve the intelligence service, answers clearly and confidently:

The enemy is building up his forces here too. At the stations Zyabki, Prozoroki, Kulgai, Stelmahovo, the former garrisons were replaced by military unit number five hundred and seventy-three.

Where is this part from?

From near Narva. Equipment and manpower continue to arrive in the garrisons of Zyabki, Prozoroki, and Kulgai. The unit is armed with four forty-five-millimeter guns, one howitzer, two medium tanks and an armored vehicle. The German command is also strengthening the garrisons near Vetrin. Tyabut knows about this.

What Captain Frolov said confirmed the previous reconnaissance reports of the brigades. There was no doubt that the enemy had the firm intention to blockade the partisan zone in the very near future with such forces that neither we nor other partisan formations had yet to deal with.

As always, after receiving new intelligence information, I gathered the task force commanders to exchange opinions, discuss the situation, and outline solutions. Captain Frolov described the situation at the borders of the partisan zone:

Polotsk region. The numbers of military units and their numerical composition are becoming increasingly difficult to establish. However, the picture is clear for us here. Intensified preparations are underway for military operations against the partisans. The enemy continues to strengthen the right bank of the Western Dvina, building bunkers, trenches, and dugouts. Work is underway to restore the Polotsk-Indra railway destroyed by partisans. The railway battalion (field post 06 313) that works here is diverse in national composition, only Germans have weapons. Defensive fortifications are being built on both sides of the road. The enemy intends to use the road being restored not only in the interests of the front, but also to transport troops and military cargo to the borders of the partisan zone.

Is there new information about the redeployment of enemy troops in the Polotsk area?

Yes, I have. Suspicious movement of enemy troops from east to west has been noticed. For example, a military unit left the villages of Kupnino and Gorovye in the direction of Polotsk (field post 10 236). A military unit (field post 30 278-S) from the village of Zaborye and a military unit (field post 23 349) from the village of Glinno were redeployed in the same direction. In recent days, military units from near Vitebsk arrived in Polotsk. The concentration of enemy troops in the Polotsk region is accompanied by the supply of ammunition here. In a number of places, ammunition is stacked and camouflaged. The enemy created large warehouses of artillery shells in the village of Bolshie Lezhny.

Dmitry Alekseevich spoke about the difficulties of conducting reconnaissance associated with the increased movement of enemy units recently. Some of them arrived in villages for a short rest, stayed for two or three days and then headed towards the front again. Others stayed longer, others did not stop at all. In this chaos of the movement of people, equipment, all kinds of military cargo, and with them looted goods, it was necessary to grasp the enemy’s intentions, to distinguish military units sent against the partisans from all others.

The scouts learned to recognize fascist German units intended for the fight against partisans by various signs, including signs on cars and trucks. A goat was painted on the fender of passenger cars of one of the military units in the northern direction; the sides of trucks of the same unit had a sign - an eagle and a yellow triangle. With the help of these and other data, it was established that in the northern section of the zone the 156th reserve battalion, the 156th engineer battalion, the 640th infantry regiment of the 281st security division, the 168th infantry regiment of the 82nd infantry will operate against the partisans. division, part of the 56th Infantry Division.

A large concentration of enemy troops was noted in the Lepel area. The number of the city's garrison reached 2 thousand soldiers and officers. In Lepel there was the headquarters of the German division and the headquarters of the brigade of the traitor Kaminsky. The main enemy forces were located in the former military town and on the outskirts of the city, especially in the southeastern part. In the very center of the city, soldiers of the enemy army occupied the buildings of the former ten-year school, a teacher training school, a nursery and an orphanage, and the district executive committee.

Bunkers with a circular firing sector were built at almost all street intersections. The city was surrounded by wire fences. About a hundred meters behind the wire there were bunkers. They were connected to each other by trenches. Units of the 201st Security Division, commanded by Major General Jacobi, were stationed in the garrisons along the highway between Lepel and Bocheykovo. The division headquarters was located in Kamen. Here was the headquarters of the 601st regiment, which was part of the division, commanded by Colonel Gena. His deputy was Major Kruse. The regiment's battalions were stationed in the surrounding villages. Each battalion consisted of four companies, the number of companies was about 100 people each. The company was armed with about 7 light machine guns, 2–3 heavy machine guns, and 4 company mortars. Each company had 6 guard dogs. It was also possible to establish the age of the regiment's personnel. Soldiers born in 1905 and older served in it.

The 201st Security Division was part of the 7th Army (commanded by General Ainen), whose headquarters was in Vilnius. The division was transferred to the Lepel area from Polotsk and Drissa back in January 1944 to protect communications. However, recently, intelligence officers began to notice that the division had received another task. An airplane was allocated for the personal use of the division commander, Major General Jacobi, on which he repeatedly flew to inspect the partisan zone from the air. The garrisons in which units of the 201st Security Division were stationed were replenished with manpower and weapons. In Kamen alone at the beginning of April there were three 76-mm cannons, 5 battalion mortars, 5 heavy machine guns, 15 light and heavy machine guns. A dense network of bunkers, trenches, and wire fences surrounded the garrison. The Church Mountain, which dominated the area, was especially strongly fortified. All the cannons, mortars, and heavy machine guns were located here.

Artillery units arrived in other garrisons at the end of March - beginning of April. Unfortunately, their numbers, number and caliber of guns had not yet been established in the first ten days of April.

A number of other signs (strengthening smaller garrisons, building a new wooden bridge in Bocheykovo, accelerating defensive work along the Lepel-Kamen road with the use of explosives) indicated that the enemy was in a hurry. We were very annoyed that our scouts could not penetrate the garrisons along the Lepel - Berezino - Dokshitsy road: the local residents - our faithful assistants - were not there. And yet the approximate number of the enemy, weapons and the nature of the fortifications were known to us. In the south and southwest of the zone, in addition to the regiments of the traitor Kaminsky, units of the 6th Air Field Division, the 95th and 195th Infantry Divisions, the 501st Tank Battalion, the 2nd, 12th and 24th SS Police Regiments, and the Dirlewanger Special Battalion were concentrated and some other divisions.

Units of the 52nd reserve infantry division, two Latvian bourgeois-nationalist formations, the 26th regiment, and separate units guarding the Polotsk-Molodechno railway were brought to the western sector. Among the garrisons in the western section of the zone, the most numerous was the Dokshitsy garrison. Up to two thousand Nazis from the 52nd Reserve Infantry Division were stationed here.

Nazi troops were concentrated around the Polotsk-Lepel zone in seven areas. Their total number was more than 60 thousand people. Military units, security and SS units were assigned 137 tanks, 235 guns, up to 70 aircraft located at the airfields of Polotsk, Ulla, Beshenkovichi, Berezino, and two armored trains (one at Zagatye station, the second ran between Zyabki - Prozoroki stations).

This entire “armada” was given the task of crushing the partisans within a short time. By this time, there were 17,485 people in the partisan brigades of the Polotsk-Lepel zone. On April 1, the partisans were armed with 9,344 rifles, 1,544 machine guns, 626 light and 97 heavy machine guns, 151 anti-tank rifles, 143 mortars, 16 45-mm guns and 5 76-mm guns with such a meager supply of artillery shells that they only had enough for several days of fighting.

The total length of the partisans' defensive structures was more than 230 kilometers. The sites of individual partisan brigades, for example Lepelskaya, named after V.I. Chapaev, “For Soviet Belarus”, 1st Anti-Fascist, named after K.E. Voroshilov, named after P.K. Ponomarenko, were stretched over 25–30 kilometers.

The defensive lines of the partisans by April 10, 1944 were the main and intermediate lines of defense to a depth of 15–20 kilometers. Resistance units were especially carefully thought out and equipped in the sections of the partisan brigades named after S. M. Korotkin, named after P. K. Ponomarenko, Lepelskaya, “For Soviet Belarus”, named after V. I. Lenin (commander N. A. Sakmarkin), named after K. E. Voroshilov, named after the Komsomol, I. F. Sadchikov’s Smolensk regiment, “Alexey” brigade. The defensive positions of these brigades consisted of a system of trenches and mined fields, and bunkers on tactically advantageous lines for the enemy. By April, the approaches to the partisan zone had been destroyed even more thoroughly than before: bridges were destroyed, bypasses were littered and mined, roads were dug up, and rubble was made on forest roads. In tank-dangerous directions, hollows, scarps, counter-scarps were built, deep ditches were dug, convenient, well-camouflaged positions were equipped for crews of anti-tank rifles and enemy tank destroyers with anti-tank grenades. Each platoon trained three daredevils - tank destroyers. Carefully camouflaged firing points were set up for them 300–400 meters ahead of the partisan battle formations. When constructing resistance nodes, natural obstacles were skillfully used: rivers, systems of lakes and swamps, steep climbs and forests.

The experience of previous battles convinced us that poorly camouflaged bunkers are good targets for enemy artillery and mortars. Therefore, we abandoned their construction, replacing them with well-camouflaged full-profile trenches with ceilings. Bunkers were left only on the slopes, and special attention was paid to camouflage.

The preparation of defensive fortifications was not without some omissions. Thus, in the brigade commanded by A.D. Medvedev, the generally well-equipped first and second lines of defense had a significant drawback: they all faced only one direction - to the southwest; the Gornovo road leading into the zone was not destroyed - Bortnevichi, the features of the wooded and swampy terrain were not fully used to equip advantageous positions. The brigade command did not completely strengthen the joints with its neighbors. The “October” brigade limited itself to equipping strong points near the villages of Vitovka, Nakol, Zuinitsa, Gloty, Olkhovka. The distance between them was significant, making interaction between the strong points difficult. Much was corrected even before the occupiers began their offensive; some had to be completed during the fighting.

On the territory of the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone, enemy intelligence of all types intensified its activities: agent, combat, aviation. We promptly exposed and neutralized most of the spies who were sent into the zone under the guise of refugees who had suffered from the Germans and escaped from prisoner camps. Military reconnaissance was aimed at establishing the battle formations of partisan units, their grouping, clarifying the approaches to the defense line, the location of firing points and, as a rule, was carried out immediately before the battle. We responded with cunning for cunning: we moved firing points to false positions. It was more difficult with enemy aerial reconnaissance, which had aerial photography equipment. In certain directions, she managed to establish the outlines of the defense line, and in some places to find out the nature of our fortifications. But here, too, everything possible was done to confuse the enemy. We camouflaged the defensive lines and built false positions.

According to the testimony of the former chief of staff of the 3rd German Tank Army, Otto Heidkämper, the fascist German command aimed to liberate the territories they occupied by encircling and destroying partisan formations. In the period from April 11 to 17, during Operation Rainfall (Regenschauer), the punitive forces were supposed to push the partisans back to the western part of the zone. After this, in an operation codenamed "Spring Festival" ("Frühlingsfest"), the forces not brought into action until further notice, including von Gottberg's group, were to complete the encirclement of the partisans. The overall leadership of the punitive expedition was entrusted to the commander of the 3rd Panzer Army, Colonel General Reinhardt, and SS Gruppenführer von Gottberg, the leader of the failed punitive operation Cottbus.

Heidkämper writes very sparingly about the details of the plan for the punitive expedition. We knew that it was planned to be carried out in four stages. At the first, the Nazis had the task of breaking through the partisan defenses, capturing the left bank of the Western Dvina and capturing the Dvina partisan region. After this, a methodical offensive from all sides was planned to drive the partisans out of the forests, deprive them of maneuverability, and exterminate them in positional battles.

At the second stage, great hopes were placed on artillery, aviation, and tanks. The fascist German command was confident that as soon as the partisans were driven out of the forest, under the pressure of technology they would run without looking back, because they had nothing to oppose to German artillery, planes and tanks.

In the north-west of the zone, a strong barrier was set up as part of the 15th Infantry Division, a special SS regiment, and the 26th police regiment. These forces, with the support of armored trains, were supposed to complete the defeat of the partisans as they approached the highway. Having pressed the partisans against the railway in the Zagatye - Prozoroki section, setting up here, as one of the captured Nazis put it, a “meat grinder”, the invaders at the third stage hoped to completely destroy the partisan formations.

The fourth stage coincided in time with the three previous ones and consisted of the robbery, extermination and turning into slaves of the civilian population.

The entire operation was expected to take no more than 8–10 days. Everything had to be completed before the full spring thaw.

The clouds over the Polotsk-Lepel region were getting thicker and thicker.

On the very eve of the punitive offensive in our zone, an alarming message about the events on Brest soil arrived. On April 3, in the area of Ivanov, Drogichin, Bereza, Bronnaya Gora and Ivatsevichi, large forces of enemy infantry, reinforced with tanks, aircraft and other equipment, attacked the battle formations of the partisan brigade named after F. E. Dzerzhinsky. The Patriots held firm. They attacked the enemy from the rear, delivering unexpected blows to the concentration of fascists and their convoys. Only on the third day did the Nazis manage to break into the partisan defenses.

The command of the Brest partisan unit (S.I. Sikorsky) from the very beginning formed a perimeter defense, taking under protection about ten thousand residents from the Aptopol, Kobrin, Berezovsky, Kossovsky, Drogichinsky and Yanovsky districts. And when the Nazis tried to attack the partisan positions from the north, they were rebuffed. The partisans repeatedly went on the offensive themselves and inflicted significant losses on the enemy.

The partisans of the Brest Union fought with the punitive forces for 17 days and nights. Thanks to the assistance of ammunition and everything necessary, which was provided by the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement, the patriots passed this severe test.

It was smooth on paper...

This happened a few days before the start of the punitive expedition. A group of scouts from the detachment named after V.I. Chapaev of the partisan brigade named after V.I. Lenin (brigade commander N.A. Sakmarkin), led by N.V. Vorozov, penetrated the location of the 56th Infantry Division with the task of reconnaissance of the depth of the enemy garrisons. Near the old highway, the scouts disguised themselves. They began to watch. About three hundred meters away, behind a fork in the road, there were cars, trailers, and vans. A little to the side, under a pine tree, a camp kitchen was smoking. Soldiers scurried between the cars, unwinding reels and pulling wires. A short officer ran near the soldiers, nervously gesticulated, shouted something, but his voice could not be heard. The officer only interfered with the soldiers. They were in a hurry, they were also nervous, they quarreled among themselves, they pushed each other, and this made their work even more difficult. The partisans looked at each other: it turns out that even the notorious German pedantry does not protect against a pattern so well known to all students - lack of time before exams. The Nazis clearly did not manage to complete the preparatory work before the offensive. The scouts were tempted to interfere with the enemy’s preparations at the last moment: nevertheless, something would remain unfinished.

We returned to this thought again after completing the task. We decided to set up an ambush. There were no signalmen at this place anymore, but we didn’t have to wait long. Soon a column of Nazis appeared on the road. They approached us about fifteen meters and opened fire from all types of weapons. The fight was short-lived: those who were not caught by the bullets fled without even trying to resist. The scouts knew from experience that in a hurry it is very difficult to determine the strength of a well-organized ambush. It is even more difficult for those who have been attacked to accept the order of battle. 35 enemy corpses remained after the battle on the old forest highway. The partisans returned home unharmed. A corresponding entry was made in the file of the detachment named after V.I. Chapaev. It ended with a short traditional phrase about the most distinguished. Among them were: N.V. Vorozov, G.G. Kireev, I.I. Yakovlev.

On April 9, partisans of the V.I. Lenin brigade (brigade commander N.A. Sakmarkin) captured two soldiers from one of the units of the 56th Infantry Division. On these same days, scouts from I.F. Sadchikov’s regiment brought a Nazi from the Vetrino garrison. “Tongues” confirmed the intelligence officers’ assumptions that the punitive expedition should begin any day now.

The morning of April 11 dawned over the earth with a ruddy dawn, the roll call of village roosters, and a bluish haze of fog over the melted snow. The partisan sentries were on alert. They peered vigilantly into the dim distance, where the April thawed patches turned black and the edge of the sky merged with low-growing thickets of alder and vines.

When the first artillery salvos were fired at the enemy troops and shells flew howling through the air, the partisans thought with alarm about the danger looming over them. But they didn’t think more about themselves: behind them were hundreds of villages where tens of thousands of peaceful people lived.

Shell explosions mixed up snow and dirt. The fire grew from minute to minute. In the defense zone of the partisan brigade of N.A. Sakmarkin, it rumbled, groaned and trembled for about an hour. Then a battle broke out with the advanced units of the 56th German Infantry Division, which went on the offensive. The fight became fierce from the very beginning. The situation was especially tense near the villages of Krasnoye, Lyakhovo, and Zaluzhenye. Concentrating a lot of infantry with 35 tanks, artillery, and bombers in a relatively narrow area, the enemy launched four attacks one after another.

The partisans of the V.I. Lenin brigade held firm, although the superiority of the enemy forces was enormous. The well-trained personnel of the units, the skill of the commanders, and the high morale of the partisans played a role.

I would like to talk about the role and place in the organization of partisan actions of such a figure as the brigade commander. In the conditions of the enemy rear, a lot depended on the abilities, authority, and personal example of the brigade commander. In the area where the brigade was located and operated, he was the sole commander. Reviewed and approved plans for operations and resolved all other issues. It was our custom that orders issued from the operational group for brigades, as a rule, were not detailed. This gave the command, primarily the brigade commander, room to exercise initiative within the framework of a common task. The brigade commander was fully responsible for the implementation of the tasks of the broadband and operational group.

The commander of the partisan brigade named after V.I. Lenin, N.A. Sakmarkin, who began partisan activities back in August 1941, performed his duties flawlessly. Together with the former secretary of the Sirotinsky district party committee S. M. Korotkin and other patriots, he took part in organizing the partisan movement in the territory between Vitebsk, Polotsk and Lepel. In the summer of 1942, a partisan brigade was already operating here. It was led by the remarkable partisan leader Semyon Mikhailovich Korotkin (died in a plane crash in 1942). He was replaced by N.A. Sakmarkin. Subsequently, the brigade was divided into two: named after S. M. Korotkin (commander V. E. Talakvadze) and named after V. I. Lenin. The second brigade was headed by Nikolai Aleksandrovich Sakmarkin. Possessing organizational skills and solid experience of fighting behind enemy lines, he showed himself to be an outstanding partisan leader and a competent military commander. I especially appreciated his personal discipline and exactingness towards himself and his subordinates. The routine introduced in the brigade units and the systematic increase in combat training by personnel were carried out strictly. N.A. Sakmarkin was decisive, bold and at the same time intelligently courageous in battle, he was well versed in the most difficult situations, and never got lost. All this was very useful in battles with punitive forces.

The defensive lines of the V.I. Lenip brigade stretched along the front for 33 kilometers. There were an average of 52 partisans per kilometer of defense. The brigade commander was on the front line all the time, appearing where it was especially difficult. On the afternoon of April 11, the situation near the village of Krasnoye, on the site of the detachment named after A.V. Suvorov, became more complicated. Having learned about this, Sakmarkin hurried there. The enemy's numerical superiority at Krasny was very significant. Having assessed the situation, the brigade commander ordered, while continuing to repel enemy attacks, to simultaneously bring into action mobile groups of machine gunners on the flanks.

The tension of the battle was increasing. When it reached its limit, tanks appeared in front of the partisan positions. Threatening to envelop left and right, they crawled closer and closer in puffs of smoke, growing into ominous hulks, drowning out the roar of engines, the clanging of tracks, the crackling of machine guns and machine guns, and the pops of shots from anti-tank rifles. When the tanks were already creeping into the trenches like iron-gray shadows, the shadows of the soldiers became visible in the smoky darkness. Unexpectedly for everyone, the lead tank suddenly jerked and stopped about seven meters from the trench. His right side turned red, fire spread across the armor - the tank was burning. A cry of delight escaped the partisans, and a loud “hurray!” was heard. The punishers lay down behind the set fire to the tank and, backing away, snapped machine-gun fire.

Sakmarkin ordered the orderly to find out who set fire to the tank. Before he had time to move away, a strong explosion was heard from the left. The brigade commander looked in that direction through binoculars: the enemy tank had fallen into a minefield. Its turret was motionless, but fired from a cannon and machine guns.

Meanwhile, cast-iron-gray shadows continued to creep out of the darkness. It seemed as if the roar of their guns drowned out all sounds on earth. Explosions of shells in front and behind the trenches worsened visibility. It was impossible to continue to remain in the trenches. And so many partisans died: platoon commander Efim Smirnov, fighters Stepan Galuzo, Philip Egorov, Vasily Kotlyarov, the chief of staff of the brigade, Alexander Izofatov, and several other fighters were seriously wounded. “We need to conserve strength. We will fight again,” thought the brigade commander and gave the order to withdraw the detachment to a reserve line.

Other units of the V.I. Lenin brigade also fought stubbornly. The numerical superiority and the actions of enemy equipment created very difficult situations everywhere. In a number of places, enemy tanks managed to crawl across partisan trenches. But the punitive infantry still failed to capture the fortifications. More than once a powerful “hurray!” was heard in the fire and smoke. and the enemy's chains rolled back. At the line near the village of Lyakhovo, a group of fighters led by the chief of staff of the detachment named after K. E. Voroshilov, P. D. Puzikov, steadfastly repelled the attacks of enemy tanks.

Armor-piercer V. M. Feduro during one of the enemy attacks destroyed three Nazis, was wounded in the arm, but did not leave the front line. During the third attack, a brave partisan knocked out an enemy tank with an anti-tank rifle. Feduro did not leave his position even after the second wound.

The first day of fighting during the new enemy offensive was reflected in the six-volume “History of the Great Patriotic War”: “In battles with punitive forces, the partisans showed exceptional tenacity and dedication. The immortal feat was accomplished by armor-piercing partisans V. A. Volkov, V. M. Feduro, D. P. Khachel, V. P. Khachel, I. S. Khachel, S. N. Korzhakov and I. V. Chernyshev from the brigade named V.I. Lenin during the fighting in the Polotsk-Lepel partisan region in April 1944. Defending the areas assigned to them, they several times allowed enemy tanks to come within 30–40 meters and shot them point-blank with anti-tank rifles. When the cartridges ran out, fearless patriots rushed under the tanks with bunches of grenades.”

The fascist German command hoped to destroy the partisan defensive lines between lakes Berezovoye, Tetcha, Yanovo and Western Dvina with a strong blow on the right flank of the V.I. Lenin brigade and to seize the Dvina left bank with a swift throw in the direction of Polotsk. In the evening of April, the advanced German units sought to reach the area of large forests near the Dvina - Stralitsa. However, by the end of the day, the partisans occupied the line Berezovo - Shishchino - Prudy - Glinniki - Adelino - their second defensive line. On the night of April 12, the command of the brigade named after V.I. Lenin sent demolitions behind enemy lines, sabotage groups that mined roads and attacked the fascists from ambushes.

The right neighbor of the brigade named after V.I. Lenin, the partisans of the brigade “For Soviet Belarus,” offered strong resistance to the enemy. In the defense sector of the detachment named after V.I. Chapaev, the Nazis began their offensive at 7 a.m. in the direction of the villages of Usaya, Dubrovka, and Yagodki. Chains of infantry were accompanied by four tanks. In the battle, which lasted about three hours, the partisans inflicted serious damage on the invaders. The German battalion advancing here lost up to 50 people killed and wounded and one tank. By 10 o'clock in the morning, under pressure from a numerically superior enemy, the partisans retreated to the line of the villages of Podlipki - Malinovka, which is several kilometers from the first line of defense.

The calm was short-lived. Having brought up fresh forces, the enemy launched an attack on the village of Podlipki. It was an even tougher fight. Instead of a battalion, the detachment repelled the onslaught of an entire regiment, instead of four tanks - ten, artillery and mortar fire became more dense.

The partisans lost their comrades one after another, but held on. No one thought about leaving. Houses and even trees were burning, the sky and earth were roaring, and in the smoke of explosions and fire the broken lines of the trenches and the surrounding area were poorly visible.

Female partisans also took part in this battle. One of them is medical instructor Lena Moiseeva. She joined the partisan detachment back in 1942. In the file of the partisan brigade “For Soviet Belarus” about the sanitary instructor from the detachment named after V.I. Chapaev Lena Moiseeva, a laconic but telling entry was preserved: “She provided assistance to the wounded in battles.” How can these words really express the complexity of the work of a partisan medic? In a fleeting battle, you cannot always guess where your friends are and where the enemies are; it is not always possible to provide timely assistance to the wounded, to take him out of the danger zone. The battle is fluid, the line of contact with the enemy is unstable. Try to navigate this situation accurately! But you can’t make mistakes; mistakes pay with lives.

Lena was well versed in the vicissitudes of both night and day battles. She, like many of her friends, was not limited to the duties of a nurse. In difficult moments, the girl strove to where it was most dangerous, and there the situation often required direct participation in battle with weapons in hand. And Lena picked up a carbine more than once. This happened this time too. The explosion of the shell disabled the crew of the heavy machine gun. Lena carried out three wounded under the bullets. She bandaged it, sent it to the hospital, and returned to the line of fire. Here she noticed that another of the heavy machine guns had fallen silent. Something happened. She crawled. The bullets whistling overhead pinned the girl to the ground. She waited and moved on. Here's the machine gun. She raised herself up in her arms and saw that all three machine gunners were motionless. I checked the pulse of one, two, and three in turn. No signs of life. All that remained was to save the Maxim. It's not a girl's job to pull a heavy machine gun out of the battlefield. But Lena did not hesitate. In some places the machine gun mount was clinging to something. Lena made incredible efforts to free him, and she kept crawling and crawling. Soon the rescued "Maxim" was again in service, its fire mowing down the enemy chains.

It was not easy on April 11 for the detachment named after S. G. Lazo of the brigade “For Soviet Belarus”. Having launched the offensive at 8 o'clock in the morning, the enemy directed his main attack on the left flank of the detachment, where the first platoon was stationed. Three attacks that turned into hand-to-hand combat were repulsed. The partisans threw grenades at the chains of the advancing enemies. Armor-piercing officer Patapkov knocked out a tank with an anti-tank rifle. The repulsion of the fourth attack was led by the chief of staff of the detachment, V. N. Vinokurov. Having let the Nazis get close, he ordered the machine gunners to open fire and he himself began to shoot the punitive forces at point-blank range. Four occupiers fell dead from his well-aimed shots. At the decisive moment, the chief of staff roused the fighters to a counterattack, took the lead, but fell, struck by an enemy bullet.

Platoon commander Ershov and political instructor Maminchenko fought desperately in this battle. The political instructor was seriously wounded. Privates Pesotsky, Ilyichenko, Simonenko and many others on this memorable day destroyed five to ten fascists. And yet the punitive forces managed to break into the partisan trenches. There, the brutal Nazis came across the corpse of a partisan fighter and, in a rage, began to stab him with bayonets. A partisan machine gunner located nearby opened fire on the barbarians huddled around the body of the dead man...

A courageous act was committed on April 11 by the scout of the detachment named after N.A. Shchors (the detachment held the defense near the village of Susha) D.A. Piskunov. Here is how he is described in the case of the partisan brigade “For Soviet Belarus”: “While on patrol, Piskunov and his two comrades noticed a chain of Nazis. The chain in a semicircle approached the village of Batukolovo, where the patrol was located. “Let’s take the fight,” the partisan heroes decided and lay down with machine guns. Three against forty... In an unequal battle, two died. Piskunov was left alone. Heavily wounded, he did not let go of the machine gun. He shot fifteen fascists at point-blank range, but he himself lost consciousness. Enraged fascists rushed towards the almost helpless partisan. The hero opened his head, overcame himself, stood up and killed two more soldiers with shots. When Piskunov saw the officer in front of him, he gathered his last strength, hit him in the face with a backhand and fell himself. The Nazis, in a rage, burned Piskunov alive. He died a heroic death, as befits a Soviet patriot. His memory will live long."

The plans of the fascist German command to penetrate deeply into the partisan defense were also thwarted in the defense sector of the brigade “For Soviet Belarus”.

And in April, from the direction of Polotsk, parts of the 252nd German division went on the offensive against the partisan regiment of I.F. Sadchikov with tanks and artillery. The attackers were constantly supported from the air by aviation. Under the cover of heavy artillery and mortar fire, a company of Nazis tried to approach the village of Ulishche, but were surrounded by one of the regiment’s detachments. The result of the battle was 44 killed and wounded, 6 captured Nazis. The rest fled in the direction of Vetrin.

On the first day of fighting, the partisan units had to face a numerically superior, heavily armed enemy. Thanks to the boundless courage and exceptional tenacity of the patriots, the fascist German command was unable to take the initiative in combat operations into their own hands. At the cost of heavy losses, the Nazis occupied only certain areas of the partisan defense. This did not indicate success, but a failure of the plan for the first stage of the operation. The failure of the first day seriously puzzled the Nazis. They did not expect that, having created a numerical superiority, pitting tanks, artillery and aviation against light small arms, they would receive such a rebuff. It was smooth on paper, but they forgot about the ravines, and walking along them...

Days and nights

The task force headquarters worked around the clock. On the very first day of the fighting, I radioed the Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) B. P. K. Ponomarenko and the representative of the BSPD on the 1st Baltic Front I. I. Ryzhikova that the brigades were attacked by the forces of the 56th and 252nd Infantry Divisions and 161st Separate Infantry Regiment, supported by a large number of tanks, artillery and aircraft, and that the first attacks were repulsed. In response, I received instructions: to hold defensive lines for as long as possible, maneuver, use ambush attack tactics, and retreat to pre-prepared positions only on orders from the command. At the same time, the leadership of the BSPD reminded us of our main task - to maintain strength and take care of people.

Members of the task force were sent to the battlefields. A.F. Bardadyn and I.I. Zinenko were entrusted with coordinating the actions of the partisan brigades in the northeastern direction. On the evening of April 11, I. I. Zinenko reported that on the left flank of the brigade named after V. I. Lenin (brigade commander N. A. Sakmarkin), the enemy had occupied the villages of Adelino, Glinniki, Osinovka and that in this direction the brigade needed assistance, because there was a numerical superiority The enemy here is huge. I ordered to reinforce the left flank of the V.I. Lenin brigade with two detachments from the V.I. Chapaev brigade and at the same time move to the Sloboda Paulie line four detachments of the reserve 16th Smolensk brigade, which during these days and throughout the expedition was commanded by I. K. Alosenkov.

Unfortunately, in the history of partisan warfare, in addition to descriptions of exploits and victories, there are also pages telling about mistakes and losses. We couldn’t do without them either. One of the failures befell the partisans at the site of the brigade named after V.I. Chapaev near the village of Batyarshchina. This brigade had many glorious deeds in its combat record: numerous operations to defeat enemy garrisons, effective operations on railways and highways, destruction of bridges, rescue of children from German captivity. The Chapaevites were well known in Ushachi, Vetrinsky, Polotsk and other regions, and the population provided them with all kinds of assistance. By the beginning of the April operation, the brigade was the largest in the zone. There were 2,168 soldiers and commanders in its ranks; the units were armed with 35 mortars and two cannons. The length of the brigade's defensive lines was 35 kilometers. Its battle formations were located in close proximity to the front line, and, naturally, the German command sent significant forces to this area. The advancing units of the 56th Infantry Division were given medium and heavy tanks and self-propelled guns. It was, of course, not easy to resist such a force. In addition, the command of the V.I. Chapaev brigade failed to make the best use of anti-tank and other weapons to repel the onslaught of advancing German units.

Having captured the village of Batyarshchina, one group of enemy troops moved in the direction of the settlements of Vasilevichi, Peredovoy, Prudok and occupied them. Another group of Nazis from Batyarshchyna headed along the highway parallel to the Western Dvina River. The villages of Usvitsa-1, Glybochka, Antunovo, and Kiseli were occupied. Following this, Bogoroditskoye fell, where the brigade headquarters had previously been located. The threat of encirclement loomed over the detachments at the bend of the Western Dvina. The only way out of this situation was to withdraw troops to a defensive line near the town of Gomel. The partisans were forced to leave the forest. Subsequently, at the cost of heavy losses, the enemy managed to occupy the settlements of Doletsky and Zashchaty.

Detachments of the partisan brigade named after V.I. Lenin (brigade commander N.A. Sakmarkin) continued to wage heavy battles. On April 12, they courageously repelled attacks by enemy tanks and infantry. The partisan positions were continuously fired upon and bombed by 12 enemy aircraft. After the capture of Batyarshchyna by Nazi troops, the brigade named after V.I. Lenin was cut into two parts. The detachments whose positions were located east of Batyarshchyna were under threat of encirclement. The enemy was sure that the fate of the detachments pressed to the Western Dvina was predetermined; he considered the stubborn resistance of the partisans pointless. But arrogance cost the enemy dearly. The German units advancing here during the day were so exhausted by the partisans that they stopped fighting in the evening. The patriots took advantage of this. Without rest after heavy daytime fighting, carrying the wounded in their arms, they made a long trek along the route Pukanovka - White Pluses - Turzhets and avoided encirclement. During the night, making their way through deep melted snow, people walked up to 40 kilometers. And on April 13, they already fought at the line between Yanovo and Sloboda Paulie.

While the detachments pressed to the river were exhausting the enemy and at the same time preparing for a night raid, the main forces of the V.I. Lenin brigade fought stubborn battles with the enemy group trying to break into the area of large lakes. It seemed to the punishers that as soon as they drove the partisans out of the forests, the operation could be considered completed. The partisans will scatter in open areas on their own. But here, too, the Nazis miscalculated. The main forces of the V.I. Lenin brigade had to fight, so to speak, openly on April 12. Near the village of Peredovoy, located outside the forests, the partisans, together with units of the 16th Smolensk Brigade, repelled several frantic enemy attacks with the participation of tanks. The partisans allowed the enemy chains to reach 50–70 meters and shot the Nazis at point-blank range.

The punitive forces also failed to capture the bridgehead on the left bank of the Diva River. Trying to take advantage of the features of the rough terrain, the enemy crossed this water line on April 12 and occupied a convenient height. Two detachments - one from the V.I. Lenin brigade, the other from the 16th Smolensk - with a swift attack knocked out the Nazis from the heights and threw them across the river. The enemy suffered heavy losses.

Late at night, after returning from the front lines, I called N.A. Sakmarkin. The brigade commander reported on the situation.

How are people feeling?

Combat, comrade zone commander, fighters and commanders fight like lions. I would like to note the courageous actions of the chief of staff of the Kurylenko detachment, Bogdanov. Together with a detachment from the 16th Smolensk Brigade, he gave the Nazis so much trouble that not all of them found their way back across the Diva River.

So, the partisans are not afraid of punitive forces in open areas?

Don't be afraid, Comrade Colonel. Fairy tales say that we are only able to operate in the forest, from ambushes and at night. Now the punitive forces have convinced themselves of this.

Tell me, how did Chief of Staff Isofatov die?

You already know? A heavy loss... Alexander Kuzmich was the favorite of the brigade. At headquarters I considered him irreplaceable... It happened at noon near the village of Batyarshchina. There, under the cover of tanks, enemy infantry pressed hard. At a tense moment in the battle, Izofatov raised the partisans in a counterattack and was mortally wounded by a shell fragment. Several more partisans fell nearby. The fire was very strong, but there was a brave soul who, even in these conditions, carried the chief of staff from the battlefield. This was done by A.L. Shalaev.

Submit both for a government award.

I've already made the arrangements.

The brigade commander spoke about other feats accomplished that day - about the heroic death of platoon commander M. E. Smolnikov, platoon political instructor G. I. Skorikov, squad commander P. V. Morozov, fighters N. M. Kazakova, N. N. Korolev, N.N. Fedotova, N.N. Zaitsev, V.A. Sapego, M.A. Bychkov, N.P. Ivanov, who did not yield their positions to the enemy. Attaching particular importance to these kind of test battles, I instructed Sakmarkin to request lists of those who distinguished themselves from the detachments and submit them to the headquarters of the operational group. Nikolai Alexandrovich fulfilled this assignment, and I would like to mention their names here. Here they are: M. D. Gerasimov, M. K. Afanasyev, M. F. Rudov, S. P. Romanenko, M. N. Fedotov, N. N. Nikiforov, V. M. Nikiforov, A. V. Ivanov , I. K. Trapeznikov, V. G. Kogalenok, V. F. Ivanov, E. A. Matyushenko, P. P. Tarbeev, A. F. Korzun, T. P. Gusakov, V. V. Leonov, A . I. Orlov, A. I. Pukhnachev, G. T. Dashkin, I. M. Popov, G. K. Gusakov, E. I. Eletsky, A. A. Denisov, B. V. Sidorov, P. I Gavrilov, T. T. Gusakov.

Having given brigade commander Sakmarkin the order to take up defense at the Yanovo - Sloboda Paulie line, I asked for operational reports, unfolded a map on the table and began to study the situation in the northeast of the zone. To tell the truth, there was little joy in him. The failure of the V.I. Chapaev brigade was especially disappointing. The enemy captured the left bank of the Dvina and advanced to the line of the Diva River. In general, on the second day of the expedition the effectiveness of combat operations for the enemy seemed to be greater. In reality, even on April 12, the advance of the fascist troops did not even remotely resemble a blitz operation, which is what the fascist German command relied on. The enemy failed to achieve highly effective ground and airborne operations. The partisans, contrary to the calculations of the punitive forces, were not afraid of tanks, artillery and aircraft and quite successfully repelled their onslaught. It should also be taken into account that the occupied territory fell to the enemy at the cost of heavy losses. In the main sector of the partisan brigade named after V.I. Lenin, the 56th German division did not count up to 200 soldiers and officers killed and wounded that day. The losses of the punitive forces in other directions were also significant.

Summing up the events of the day, comprehending what happened, weighing all the pros and cons of the course and results of the hostilities, I came to the conclusion that there was no reason to be despondent. The exceptional courage and heroism shown by the partisans in the battles instilled firm confidence that in this unequal fight they would teach the punishers a good lesson. Many events of the day evoked an extraordinary feeling of pride in our partisans. For example, the 1st detachment of the 16th Smolensk brigade alone, led by detachment commander V.P. Kuryakov and commissar V.S. Stepichev, destroyed up to 90 Nazis in a fierce battle, showing truly high skill in battle. And how the partisans of I. F. Sadchikov’s regiment fought! In this sector, the Nazis also made an attempt to crush the partisan outposts and go to the rear of the regiment’s battle formations in the area of the village of Zaskorki, but they were unable to budge the partisans and retreated...

Wary silence behind the black glass windows guarded the sleepless night of the headquarters. From time to time it was disturbed by the roar of distant explosions. The footsteps of the sentry under the window were heard. Our radio operators were awake behind the partition. In the next room, Captain Zinenko was bending over maps and diagrams. Here again the explosions are heard. And all in the northeast. Is the enemy being cunning? Perhaps, just at this pre-dawn time, enemy chains in other directions are approaching our fortifications?

I asked the telephone operators to connect me with the commander of the Komsomol brigade, I. A. Kuksenko. This brigade was located in the western direction and occupied a seven-kilometer fortified strip between the settlements of Ryabchenki and Osinovka, not far from the Zyabki and Prozoroki stations. An enemy armored train was cruising in this very area. The Komsomol Youth Brigade is small, with only 340 fighters in its ranks.

Before the expedition, the partisans seriously harassed the invaders on the Polotsk-Molodechno railway.

On April 4, at the Khvoshchevo railway crossing, the Sibiryak detachment derailed an enemy train. As a result of the crash, a steam locomotive and six wagons with ammunition were destroyed. On the way back, the partisans fired at an enemy company moving along the railway track, killed more than a dozen Nazis, and the rest fled. On April 8, at the Borovye crossing, the KIM detachment blew up about fifty rails. The partisans of the detachment named after S.G. Lazo near Stelmakhov shot down a steam locomotive with an anti-tank rifle, partly destroyed it, and partly dispersed the guards. The next day, the KIM detachment blew up another 80 rails at the same Borovye crossing.

On the very eve of the expedition, partisans of the Sibiryak detachment attacked a railway crossing near the Zyabki station and blew up up to 50 rails. In response to this, the enemy, with a force of up to two companies, launched an offensive in the direction of the villages of Zapolye and Boyary, but, having lost more than 30 killed, retreated.

One could have expected that the occupiers, concerned about the safety of the railway, would launch an offensive in this area as well. In the west, however, there was no change. However, as the brigade commander reported, the partisans were not idle here.

Well done!

We also prepared a gift for the Nazis for tomorrow. I'll report when we perform the operation.

Okay, go ahead! Just keep your eyes open. Anything - report it in any way.

Don’t worry, Comrade Colonel, we will inform you about everything important immediately.

And indeed, on April 13, Komsomol members carried out a successful sabotage on the railway - they blew up an Austrian steam locomotive. This was done by the partisans of the detachment named after S. G. Lazo. On April 14 and 15, the KIM detachment blew up a nine-meter railway bridge near the village of Borovye, and near the village of Piskunovo, bombers from the Mikhail Silnitsky detachment destroyed a large section of the railway track. Four more days passed, and again explosions thundered near the Kulgai station, and a wagon loaded with ammunition blew up near the village of Yakushino.

The combat operations of the Komsomol brigade were a great help in conditions when the fighting in other areas was heating up. Committing sabotage on the railway almost every day, the brigade practically paralyzed traffic on one of the enemy’s most important communications. Neither “wolf pits”, nor wire fences with an alarm system, nor minefields and ambushes, nor increased patrolling of the canvas - nothing could stop the partisans. The 26th Regiment, units of the 52nd Infantry Division and other fascist formations, brought up to the railway area in early April, were also unable to protect the road from partisan attacks. One had to have exceptional ingenuity, nerves of steel and boundless courage in order to make their way to the railway under these conditions and commit sabotage.

The partisans knew neither sleep nor rest. The situation became more complicated. Every day it became more and more difficult. But we did not lose heart.

Tetcha is a quiet Belarusian village. She stands on a hill. Below is a chain of lakes and a small river. To the right is Berezovoye Lake, and behind it is the village of Krasnoye. To the left of the village there is another lake, much larger. The locals call him from the village of Tetcha. In Sloboda Paulie, on the opposite shore of the lake, it is known as Paulskoe. In other surrounding villages - Akulina, Gorodok, Gorbatitsa - it’s different. In general, it is accepted here that if in a conversation a lake is called Paulsky, then it means that we are talking about places close to Paul. If they talk about Lake Tetcha, this is a different side. The cartographers resolved the long-standing dispute peacefully. On the map of Belarus it says: “lake. Paulskoye (Tetcha)".

So be it. In April 1944, the lake was called nothing more than Tetcha. On April 14–17, stubborn fighting took place here. Just look at the map to understand why the Nazis were attracted to this unremarkable village. It stands as an outpost on a narrow isthmus between lakes. There are no other routes into the partisan zone nearby.

On April 12, two detachments from the 16th Smolensk Brigade occupied the isthmus between the lakes. To block the Nazis' path, the partisans burned the bridge across the Diva River and began to fortify themselves on the lakeside heights. All night they dug trenches, equipped machine-gun nests, cells for armor-piercing soldiers, and riflemen.

Before a fight, as before a meeting with the unknown, it’s anxiety-provoking. Everyone thinks about their own things. Thoughts about the past, distant and near, help to distract ourselves. Platoon commander Vasily Smolkotin probably remembers the nightmare of enemy captivity, the faces of his comrades blackened from hunger and torture, corpses in ditches, machine-gun fire from robotic guards. From those days I remember an acute feeling of hunger and thirst and an unusually strong feeling of hatred for enemies. Perhaps this feeling was the strongest. It was as if all human feelings were accumulated in him. Nikolai Berkutov thinks about Minsk, where he was going to go to college before the war. But instead of an institute there was a fascist dungeon, torture, then the death of his father...

The deputy brigade commander is more concerned than ever. A fierce battle is ahead, and Ivan Alesenkov goes over in his memory everything related to the upcoming battle. There is no brigade commander. Major Shlapakov is sick, he is behind the front line. Alesenkov almost physically feels the weight that has fallen on his shoulders. The brigade does not have heavy weapons, artillery or even mortars. 9 heavy machine guns and 4 anti-tank rifles - that’s all that can be opposed to the heavily armed punitive forces. In the narrow area between the lakes, the Nazis concentrated 12 tanks and 18 guns, including 6 Ferdinand assault guns.

It’s good, Alesenkov thinks, that the lakes are inaccessible to tanks and artillery: the ice won’t stand it.

Dawn had just broken when the first artillery shot fired across the river. A shell flew overhead with a howl and exploded somewhere behind the battle formations. Artillery preparation began. Enemy guns of various calibers hit the hastily constructed partisan fortifications with both overhead fire and direct fire. The partisans of the Kurylenko detachment, having posted observers, lay down in the trenches. When the cannonade subsided, the roar of engines was heard: enemy tanks went on the offensive.

It seemed that the outcome of the battle was a foregone conclusion. But just at the moment when the tanks, followed by the infantry, came close to the partisan fortifications, confusion occurred in the ranks of the punitive forces. Quite unexpectedly for the enemy, battle broke out on his flank. These partisans, having walked across the ice of the lake, broke into the enemy’s battle formations. The attack failed. Having come to their senses, the punishers tried to attack again, but also to no avail. The three-hour battle ended disastrously for the enemy: two assault guns knocked out by the partisans were left on the battlefield, and many were killed and wounded.

In the early morning of April 15, the angry enemy showered the partisan defense with shells for about two hours. The artillery fire was even denser than the day before. The attack began under the cover of guns and tanks placed in convenient positions. Following the example of the partisans, this time the enemy himself sent out patrol groups across the lake.

The Kurylenko detachment found itself in a very difficult situation. But the partisans fought to the death. Armor-piercer A. A. Karpov and his partner knocked out two enemy tanks. In the other direction, almost simultaneously, two assault guns were blown up by mines. The enemy was pushing ahead. The thunder of direct-fire cannons, the screeching and exploding mines, rifle-automatic and machine-gun fire, grenade explosions, the groans of the wounded - everything merged into the general deafening noise of battle.

On the same day, word of mouth spread the news of the selfless act of partisan Ivan Sysoev. He was wounded in the leg by a shell fragment. Grabbing an anti-tank mine in his hands, he threw himself under the tank. Sysoev's feat inspired the partisans. They vowed to die, but not to retreat a single step, to avenge the death of their comrade. Having let the surviving tanks pass, the partisans met the enemy infantry with well-aimed fire and repelled the attack.

It was the fourth hour of the battle. The partisans' forces were running out. At the most tense moment, enemy fire fell on their defensive fortifications from the direction of the cemetery heights. Ivan Alesenkov appeared in the most dangerous area. He lay down behind the machine gun and opened aimed fire at a group of fascists who had broken through to the cemetery. But these were already the last efforts. There was a threat of encirclement. Despite the tenacity of the defenders, the semicircle from the side of the village and the cemetery was shrinking, the Nazis were penetrating deeper and deeper, enveloping the partisan battle formations. Having assessed the situation, the deputy brigade commander ordered a retreat through the hollows towards the forest. Following the partisans, artillery struck the ice of the lake and hit the beams. The detachments retreated in an organized manner to the village of Veselaya Gorka, giving local residents the opportunity to evacuate deeper into the zone.

On April 17 the weather was warm and sunny. The snow was melting, the streams were babbling. The buds on the trees were swollen and looked heavy, they were bursting and threatened to be torn apart by the juices of the earth. Nature came to life after winter hibernation. Everything around was renewed, beautiful, calling to life. And what further intensified the hatred of the partisans and all residents of the zone towards the invaders and aroused the desire to expel them from their native land as soon as possible.

After the battle at Tetcha, the punitive forces became more careful and circumspect. Having discovered that the approaches to the front line near the village of Veselaya Gorka were mined, the enemy began methodically shelling every meter of the forefield in the morning. The artillery shelling continued for more than an hour. Then the infantry went on the attack. A considerable force fell on the partisans - up to an infantry regiment. To raise the “morale” of the punishers, they were pumped full of schnapps before the battle. The fact is that the units of the 56th Infantry Division and the 161st Infantry Regiment operating in this direction were essentially marking time. They did not complete the task of securing the right flank of the group advancing along the Cherstvyada-Sorochino-Ushachi highway, and thus caused great discontent among their command. An almost joyful spring walk through the rich region that was promised to the enemy soldiers turned into daily mass funerals and did not arouse any enthusiasm. The fascist command had no choice but to encourage them with vodka.

Drunken soldiers huddled in heaps, screamed wildly, bawled, and rushed forward, under the fire of partisan machine guns and machine guns. The sun-darkened snow at the front line of the defense was thickly strewn with the bodies of the dead and the wounded left behind. The wounded moaned and asked for help, but the survivors hurried to escape. This clearly demonstrated the decomposition of Hitler's army, which the senior officers and generals were still trying to hide from the soldiers, junior commanders, and from themselves.

The battle at Veselaya Gorka died down in the afternoon. Only 6 bombers did not leave the partisan positions alone. They thought that the enemy would limit himself to this. But after a short respite, the enemy launched a new attack.

This time, four tanks and two assault guns were thrown into the attack. No matter how hard the enemy artillerymen tried in the morning, they were unable to clear all the minefields. An assault gun and one tank were blown up by mines. But three tanks and one assault gun still came close to the partisan trenches. Hiding behind the tanks, the infantry moved to attack. The partisans met her with heavy fire. The machine gun barrels began to overheat, and one after another they failed. The time came when the partisans only had half their machine guns left in the line of fire.

One of the tanks entered from the left flank and opened fire along the trenches with a cannon and a machine gun. By this time, the situation was such that remaining in the trenches was tantamount to death. The brigade command, in agreement with the headquarters of the operational group, decided to withdraw the detachment to a new line. But the tank that broke through threatened to cut off the escape route. Vasily Smolkotin's platoon was ordered to cover the detachment's withdrawal. The brave men continued to lie in the trenches even when an enemy tank was approaching them, threatening to crush them. Noticing that the detachment was retreating, the Nazis rushed after them. But their ardor was cooled by well-aimed rifle and machine-gun fire. Guerrilla “pocket artillery” - grenades completed the job. The battle at Veselaya Gorka cost the punitive forces heavy losses.

This day was also hot in other sectors of the 16th Smolensk Brigade. The 1st detachment withstood a difficult battle near the village of Gorbatitsa, a few kilometers from Veselaya Gorka. This is evidenced by a recording made by an eyewitness: “Close to the screaming Nazis, the partisans beat them point-blank with rifles, machine guns, machine guns, and blew them up with grenades, courageously withstanding heavy artillery and mortar fire and incessant raids by German bombers.” Platoon commander I.F. Bubnov distinguished himself in battle. The fearless partisan killed up to ten Nazis. The partisan machine gunners also distinguished themselves.

After the memorable January battle of the partisans of the 16th Smolensk brigade in the villages of Krasnoe and Krasnaya Gorka, the punishers began to call it “Smolensk-zonder” (“Smolensk special”). The April battles raised the prestige of the brigade even higher.

It is curious that in 1943, in January and February 1944, when the fascists hoped to easily defeat the partisans, they addressed us in leaflets only “from a position of strength.” Threats were poured out, expressions were not chosen. In April 1944, the punitive forces tried to flirt with us: “Partisans! You are the best Russian people, for only the best can endure all the hardships of your partisan life. Come join us..."

The events of April 14–17 in the Tetchya region played an important role in changing the form and tone of the fascist occupiers’ appeal to us. It was a recognition of our strength and our own weakness. Repulsing the punitive forces in the northeastern direction also had a direct military and operational significance: the enemy stopped the offensive here.

On April 18, the deputy commander of the 16th Smolensk brigade, I.K. Alesenkov, and I inspected new positions on the line of the villages of Polovinniki - Aksyuty - Gorovatka - New and Stary Rog.

But still, our guys beat the punitive guys hard,” said Ivan Kuzmich, his eyes sparkling.

It looks like they won't come here for now, and maybe never again. This is a victory, and not a small one. But it was won in a fierce battle, obtained with considerable blood.

Well, our losses cannot be compared with the losses of the Nazis, Comrade Colonel.

That's not what I mean. You write sparingly about the heroes - that’s what I wanted to say. I heard that machine gunner V.P. Aleinikov distinguished himself in battle. It is unknown what feat he accomplished.

That's right, we had a problem with this. We don’t have time, there’s no time. Do you want to know how machine gunner Aleinikov distinguished himself? He covered the detachment's retreat. The punitive forces tried to intercept the fourth detachment on the escape route, and if not for Aleinikov, it would have been difficult for him. With well-aimed fire, Aleinikov detained the Nazis, put them down and pinned them to the ground. The detachment made a maneuver and broke away from the advancing enemy. Enemy artillerymen spotted a machine gun point and opened fire on it. The shells fell thickly, but did not hit the target. The machine gun fell silent. When the Nazis rose, Aleinikov opened fire again. He put a lot of fascists there.

Are you safe?

He carried out the order and left safely.

Well done twice for this. This is how it should be reported.

I agree, Comrade Colonel. But there are many heroes, but no one wants to write.

What does “nobody wants” mean?

You understood me wrong. During battles, everyone rushes to the front line. And you know, there are few people.

And yet, one should not get away with the word “distinguished.” Now you have a break, so write.

Let's do it. It is perhaps necessary to talk in more detail about the machine gunner N. Ya. Paus. A man of amazing endurance. You see, the punishers are nearby, but he doesn’t shoot. He'll let you get within 15-20 meters and then open fire at point blank range. He destroyed many Nazis. And in the fifth detachment, fighters P.N. Krasovsky and I.G. Kalugin knocked out a tank. They also deserve an award.

So, has the “fear of tanks” gone?

Gone! They have learned to fight back against tanks in such a way that enemy tankers no longer push ahead, they are careful.

The new line of defense of the 16th Smolensk Partisan Brigade was located in a kind of triangle between lakes Yanovo, Tetcha, and Cherstvyadskoye. This is exactly in the center of that very original figure, which on the map resembles a wedge of cranes flying to the northwest, a little to the left of Polotsk. These are the largest among the Ushachi lakes. They have a significant impact on the climate of the surrounding area. When it gets cold in the summer, warmth comes from the lakes. But on warm spring days they breathe damp cold air for a long time. Here, spring comes later than in other places.

The partisans were in a cheerful, even upbeat mood. They were proud of their military deeds and were ready to continue the unequal struggle. Jokes and laughter were heard here and there. In one of the groups of partisans there was a conversation about the fish wealth of the local lakes. The mustachioed partisan smoked mercilessly and spoke with dignity and great knowledge of the matter:

Fish - she is also educated, she will not live anywhere, she is looking for a more satisfying and quieter place. Take Cherstvyadskoye Lake, the largest among the local ones. Why does crucian carp, carp, roach, pike and even burbot love it? Because the water in the lake is warm, gentle and there is more than enough food for fish. To be honest, you won’t find better satisfaction. There is something to pamper both pike and crucian carp. In the summer, how reeds and reeds grow along the shore and around the islands is a wondrous wonder. Below, under the water, there are entire underwater meadows, where fish fatten. Crucian carp and shroud dabble in plankton, and pike hunt for small fish. One thing is wrong. During frosty winters there is little air in the lake, and the fish suffocate. In the first war winter, in forty-two, how it poured into the rivers, towards the ice holes. They pestered her with everything - sacks, sieves, and old buckets with holes in them! They were transported by carts.

The soldiers sit and listen to their senior comrade, and it seems that there is no more important concern for them than the problem of saving fish in the harsh winters in Lake Cherstvyadskoe.

Why don’t there be death tolls in Paulskoe? “It’s also shallow,” asks the young partisan with the fluff on his upper lip still untouched by the razor.

The narrator does not answer immediately. He squints his right eye, takes three deep drags and, making sure that no one is able to answer such a serious question, says in a professorial manner:

The Diva River flows through Paulskoye, as well as through Berezovoe Lake. It flows in near Tetchya, flows out in the northern part and runs further into Lake Yanovskoe. The river almost never freezes. Therefore, it constantly supplies fresh air to the lakes, like a pump.

Oxygen, someone adds.

That’s it,” the narrator agrees and reaches into his pocket for a pouch.

And the partisans have been talking for a long time about the problem of improving the climate in the shallow lakes of Ushachchina, expressing ideas about artificially pumping fresh air into them. It seems that people have forgotten where and in what environment they are. In reality, this conversation, like hundreds of other similar ones, was an outlet that helped, at least for a short time, to escape from the spectacle of death and destruction, from the hardships of war, and to come into contact with ordinary peaceful life for which the partisans fought and died.

Wherever we were, in any company, in any platoon and section, we met such a ringleader, an interesting storyteller or a mischievous prankster - in a word, the partisan Vasily Terkin, without whom it was difficult to while away our free minutes. And what was not discussed at the halts, in the respites between battles!

When meeting with the command staff, the partisans were mainly interested in two questions: what was happening with ammunition and what was the situation in the areas of other brigades. Thanks to the attention and assistance of the command of the 1st Baltic Front and the BSPD representative office on this front, we have significantly replenished our stocks of cartridges, mines and other ammunition. Most of the partisan airfields were still operational. As for the situation on the defensive lines, by the end of the second ten days of April, after the failure of the attempt to cut through the partisan zone along the Ulla-Ushachi-Kublichi line, the enemy left the northeastern sector alone and began hastily preparing for an offensive in other directions.

Baturinsky Bridge

A horseman was racing along a muddy spring road at full speed. The horse was tired and wet from running so fast, but the rider kept pushing on. In the villages through which he flew like a whirlwind, without stopping, crowds gathered, watched the passing cavalryman with anxious glances and turned in the direction from which he was coming. From the artillery cannonade one could understand that somewhere out there, in the forests, a fierce battle was breaking out.

The messenger galloped up to the headquarters of the operational group at the flax mill near Ushachi, tied his horse to the fence and, running up the steps of the porch, slammed the door.

Allow me to report,” he turned to Captain I.I. Zinenko, “an urgent package from the headquarters of the V.I. Lenin brigade.

Began? - asked the captain, accepting the package.

That's right, Comrade Captain, it has begun. Such power is creepy.

Calmly. The punitive forces in all directions have gathered considerable forces. However, we beat them.

At least there was one gun. And then there’s nothing to answer. The fire is the strongest.

Wait a minute,” Captain I.I. Zinenko scanned the report.

Can I see the commander?

He's not at headquarters, but he should be there soon. Can you tell me the details in order?

Certainly. I just came from the front line.

I'm listening to.

On the Berezina, one and a half kilometers from the Baturinsky Bridge, the enemy is preparing rafts and other watercraft. Apparently, he is planning to cross the river. We can’t do anything to interfere: you know, we don’t have artillery or mortars. They set up surveillance. They report: to the left of our defense, in the village of Biryuli, the punitive forces brought up eight guns, and on the south side along the highway not far from the Baturinsky Bridge they installed heavy mortars. Today at dawn German reconnaissance approached the bridge.

Number?

To the company. Our bunkers opened fire, and the reconnaissance retreated. And at eight o'clock it began. The enemy opened a hurricane of artillery, mortar and machine gun fire and simultaneously launched an offensive from three directions in groups of 30–50 people. They began to drag rafts to the river and launch them into the water. We made an attempt to cross, but our people literally mowed down everyone who was on the rafts. The others retreated. The fight stopped. Observers noticed that the enemy was changing artillery positions and moving it closer to the Berezina. Brigade commander E.I. Furso and commissar V.S. Svirid went to the Baturinsky Bridge. Do you hear what's happening?

Battle raged in the southwest. The glass in the windows rattled slightly during the explosions. The mounted messenger listened, and his face became more and more frowning. He refused to eat, drank a mug of milk and, while Captain Zinenko was making a phone call, examined the horse, which had begun to cool down. The captain called a messenger and conveyed the order agreed upon with me over the phone: to hold the occupied lines by all means, to disrupt the enemy’s crossing of the Berezina.

In the southwest, along the Berezina River, the defense was held by the partisan brigades named after V.I. Lenin (commander E.I. Furso, commissar V.S. Svirid) and the 1st Anti-Fascist (commander V.V. Gil-Rodionov, commissar I. M. Timchuk). To the left of them, near Pyshno, stood the Alexei brigade, to the right, to the north of Lake Medzozol, was the TsKKP(b)B brigade, and even further away was the Oktyabr brigade.

The brigade named after V.I. Lenin was small. In its ranks, together with economic and other services, there were 340 soldiers and commanders. It was armed with 140 rifles, 85 machine guns, 8 light machine guns, three anti-tank rifles and a light mortar. The brigade specialized primarily in sabotage operations and had many successful operations to its credit. Despite the small number and light weapons, the unit stubbornly resisted the punitive forces.

The 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade had significantly greater forces. At the beginning of the expedition, its number was 1,413 people. It was armed with one 76-mm and four 45-mm guns, 12 light and medium mortars, and 53 machine guns. In cementing this partisan brigade, the old communist appointed as its commissar, an active participant in the civil war, I.M. Timchuk, played a major role. He was one of the organizers of the partisan movement in Logoisk, Pleschenitsky and other areas, the party underground in Minsk, and took part in many military operations. Under the leadership of an experienced partisan leader, political and educational work was carried out exceptionally well in the brigade units.

Ivan Matveevich Timchuk was directly involved in the preparation and conduct of combat operations of the brigade. One of them was an attack on the Kolodishchi-Smolevichi section of the railway in September 1943. Then the partisans blew up 2,485 rails, destroyed the bridge on the Volma River and two military trains at the Smolevichi station, set fire to the station warehouses and barracks with artillery fire, and destroyed all the sidings on the stretch. Following this, the partisans of the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade made daring attacks on the enemy in Vileika and on the Logoisk-Pleshchenitsy road. Not a single battle with punitive forces, not a single combat operation of the brigade against the invaders took place without the leadership and personal participation of I. M. Timchuk. For his courage and heroism, he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Enemy troops who were part of the Gottberg group acted against the brigades named after V.I. Lenin and the 1st Anti-Fascist. They were predominantly special police and punitive units.

The core of the group was the SS battalion under the command of the notorious fascist thug, the executioner of Khatyn Dirlewanger. Created on Hitler's personal orders, this special SS terrorist unit was staffed by traitors, criminals and morally corrupt elements. Dirlewanger's youths committed cruel and bloody reprisals against civilians. During one of the cartel expeditions they killed five thousand people. Among them were many women and children.

In the southwestern sector there were also two SS regiments, two battalions from the group of the traitor Vetvitsky and a regiment from the brigade of the traitor Kaminsky. The main task of the southwestern group was to occupy the area between lakes Sho and Medzozol, take possession of the Chernitsa - Lesiny - Vesnitsk road and open the way to Ushachi.

The area around Lake Medzozol is a vast swampy and forested lowland. The roads here wind through a seemingly endless forest. They either run into small villages nestled in the thicket, or lead along roads through a swamp, where, surrounded in the summer by the sharply smelling wild rosemary, dark twisted pines grow, gray blueberry bushes peek out, and bright cranberry flowers glisten on moss cushions.

The punishers cursed these “damn places” inaccessible to tanks. They had to limit themselves to artillery, mortars, and aviation. The enemy intended to compensate for the lack of tanks by sending groups of machine gunners to the rear of the partisans. But this idea, as the prisoners later showed, was greeted coldly among the soldiers.

The enemy had been conducting preparatory combat operations, designed to improve the initial positions, in the southwest since April 15 in the area of the villages of Shalagiry and Kovali. The partisans gave an organized rebuff to the enemy. In the following days, the enemy, with relatively small forces, attempted to advance from Berezino to Berespolye - Novoe Selo, but thanks to counterattacks from the flanks and the strong defense of the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade on the Prodoynitsa River, he was detained.

Now the enemy, having concentrated significant forces in the southwest, launched an offensive against the partisans. The battle on the Berezina flared up. The enemy relied on artillery. Having placed their guns on direct fire, the Nazis opened heavy fire on the partisan bunkers. The artillery attack was supported by enemy mortars. But the infantry did not appear. Nevertheless, I.A. Smunev, who commanded the 2nd detachment of the brigade named after V.I. Lenin in defense, realized that somewhere there, beyond the Berezina, to the right of the dry lichen forest, in the depths of the withered aspen and birch forests in spring, the punitive forces were accumulating for the final shot. He transmitted an order through the chain to the anti-tank rifle crews to open fire on the enemy artillery.

The tank destroyers began firing at the enemy guns, which fired at the partisan fortifications for about an hour. Great was the joy of the partisans when the armor-piercing troops, in a duel with the fascist artillerymen, one after another disabled two guns. But the rest continued to fire intensely, destroying bunkers, uprooting young trees, scattering sticky swamp mud in all directions.

The time came when it became impossible to stay in the bunkers. Some of them were destroyed, others had loopholes blocked, and others had exits. Smunev ordered to leave the firing points that had become unusable and move to the trenches and trenches. The riflemen and machine gunners took up new positions: some adapted in freshly dug craters, others lay down in the trenches.

The partisans waited for the artillery fire to weaken. But it kept growing. More than an hour has passed since the shelling began. Machine gunners began to support the enemy artillerymen. Everyone realized that the decisive moment was approaching - the attack. And indeed, infantrymen soon crawled out of camouflaged shelters and headed towards the river. To disperse the attention and strength of the partisans, the punitive forces moved towards the Berezina in three directions.

The situation became more complicated. Watching through binoculars the fascists moving towards the river, I. A. Smunev heard that the battle had broken out to the left, somewhere beyond the junction of his detachment with the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade. The shooting moved into the depths of the partisan defense. There was no doubt that, having broken through the defenses, the enemy was covering the left flank of the detachment and threatening to encircle. But Smunev decided to hold on. A battle ensued at the crossing.

The Baturinsky Bridge was covered in thick smoke. The ground around was plowed up by shells, bombs, and mines. It seemed that there was not a single living soul left on the partisan lines. But as soon as the Nazis launched a new attack, the hillocks suddenly came to life and poured machine-gun and machine gun fire on the enemy chains.

In the afternoon, the Baturinsky Bridge fell. The bridgehead on the left bank of the Berezina was in the hands of the enemy. There was a threat of disunion of the brigades of the southwestern group.

Just at this moment, the commander of the brigade named after V.I. Lenin, E.I. Furso, and Commissioner V.S. Svirid arrived at the Baturinsky Bridge. They took command of the battle and led the partisans into the attack. The first was followed by the second. It was not possible to knock the enemy off the bridgehead he had captured either head-on or from the flanks without artillery. Having settled in the destroyed partisan fortifications, in the ruins of bunkers, the Nazis fired heavily from there. I had to retreat and gain a foothold on a new frontier.

On the approaches to the defensive line deep in the forest, the demolitionists mined forest paths and the road, and prepared to meet the enemy. Restoring broken communications with neighbors and repelling the enemy on the right flank, the main forces of the brigade fought until nightfall. In the forest, the partisans managed to seize the initiative from the enemy and destroyed up to 100 punitive forces and took trophies.

The partisan brigade named after the Central Committee of the CP(b)B also had to withstand a strong onslaught of punitive forces.

“The morning found me in the fifth detachment,” says former assistant brigade commissar for Komsomol N.N. Polozov. - The day before, brigade commander A.D. Medvedev visited the detachment. I reported to him about the mood of the fighters and assured him that the Komsomol members would not let us down. Before the offensive of the punitive forces, the brigade checked the condition of the material and technical part, strengthened the line of defense, and carried out a lot of political work among the personnel of all five detachments. At the beginning of April, a special meeting was held at the brigade headquarters dedicated to preparations for the upcoming battles. After the meeting, the brigade command checked the readiness of the units. Komsomol meetings were held everywhere with the participation of detachment commanders and commissars. The patriots who spoke at them swore an oath not to spare themselves for the sake of protecting civilians from the Nazis. Everyone was in an extremely fighting mood. And then came the day of the decisive battle with the punitive forces.

Intelligence reported that the Nazis were moving in the direction of the defensive positions of the fifth detachment. Soon the mortar attack began. The first ranks of the Nazis were mowed down by our machine gunners and submachine gunners, but the enemy threw in new forces. Hot battles continued throughout the day in the areas of all detachments of the brigade. Twice a day, fascist planes bombed partisan positions and surrounding villages. By the end of the day, the punitive forces managed to break through our defense line on the left flank: a direct hit from an enemy mine knocked out one of the main machine-gun points. Under cover of darkness, the brigade command ordered the partisans to be withdrawn to the positions of the second line of defense. In order to cover the right flank of our neighbors, in the area of the settlement of Gornovo-Belyashi, on the orders of the task force, we set up military guards on the paths leading north from the village of Peresechino.”

On April 17, the enemy became especially active in the defense sector of the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade. From Berezino and Chernitsa, he launched an offensive in the direction of the village of Lesina. Fierce fighting broke out near Svistopol and Lesin. The enemy brought artillery, mortars, and aircraft into the battle. 12 aircraft made four raids on only one village of Lesina. The punitive forces attacked the same settlement four times, but were repulsed with heavy losses. In the Svisstopol region, the partisans with a swift attack repulsed a group of punitive forces trying to enter the flank. Retreating, the Nazis fell into a swampy swamp, threw away their weapons, and tried to hide in the bushes. Partisan bullets hit everywhere. The partisans seized not only weapons, but also documents as trophies.

From April 20 to 24, the partisan brigades named after V.I. Lenin and the 1st Anti-Fascist fought heavy battles near the villages of Lesina, Khramenki, Zarubovshchina. The punishers managed to take possession of Zarubovshchina.

But if Dirlewanger had known how temporary success would turn out, he would never have stayed in this locality...

Alekseevtsy

In the southern sector near Pyshno, the Alexey brigade, led by A.F. Danukalov, held the defense.

I remember well my first meeting with Alexei Fedorovich Danukalov at the end of 1943. The brigade commander entered the headquarters of the task force, saluted in a military manner and said quietly but clearly:

Comrade Colonel, Brigade Commander Danukalov has arrived on your orders!

The young brigade commander had strong-willed facial features and a quick, but attentive, squinting gaze. Hair with a forelock at the left temple and a mustache made him look like a Cossack. Danukalov was dressed modestly but neatly. The collar of the protective tunic sparkled with impeccable whiteness. He spoke with restraint, highlighting the main thing in the topic of conversation. And the main thing was concern for the partisans, their weapons, life, clothing, food in the new area where the brigade moved.

I have long heard about the military operations of the partisan brigade “Alexei”, about the courage, resourcefulness, and military skill of its commander A.F. Danukalov. Bold attacks on garrisons, daring battles in ambushes, sabotage on railways, deep raids on enemy rear lines, active actions of underground fighters in Vitebsk and other cities - all this was spoken about with great warmth and admiration.

It was all the more interesting to listen to Alexey Fedorovich’s story about his life over tea. He was born in the village of Mikhailovka, Dergachevsky district, Saratov region. Father Fyodor Kuzmich was a collective farm blacksmith. The villagers respected a strong, stern, but fair man. Alexey was the eldest son in the family. The younger sisters and brother loved their brother, who learned a lot of good things from their father. Alexey graduated from the seven-year school and the Balashov Agricultural School. I went to work at MTS, then went to military school. There he joined the ranks of the Communist Party.

Alexei Danukalov began the war as a political commissar of a tank battalion. He took part in battles on Belarusian soil, then in the Smolensk region. Somewhere on the Dnieper, near Smolensk, a tank battalion was surrounded. They retreated across the river in battle. Danukalov led the covering platoon.

At the most intense moment of the battle, Danukalov lay down behind the machine gun and fired from it until he was convinced that the battalion was out of danger. Battalion commander Leonid Khlystov was seriously wounded. Alexey bandaged him. The approaching soldiers helped carry the wounded man to the river. However, there was no point in thinking about crossing the battalion commander across the fast Dnieper without a boat, and Danukalov sent the soldiers to look for the boat. They didn't return.

Alexey Danukalov spent several days with a wounded battalion commander not far from some German unit.

He was hungry, cold, and covered in stubble. The difficult trials that befell Danukalov these days prepared him for the difficult everyday life of the partisans, taught him to control himself in times of danger, and to navigate the most difficult situations.

Soon, Alexei, along with the battalion commander, was accidentally discovered by Valery Imangulov and Grigory Koshelev, who also failed to get out of the encirclement. The four in green tunics, perhaps, themselves did not think that it was from this handful that a partisan brigade would begin, which would actively fight the enemy for almost three years.

The battalion commander was slowly recovering, the wound on his leg was healing, but he still could not walk. And when more than two dozen people had already gathered around Danukalov, it was decided to send Khlystov and several Red Army soldiers to one village where there were no Nazis. Danukalov himself, with 19 soldiers and commanders, went into the forests to begin hostilities.

Before moving on to the story of the first partisan actions, Alexey Fedorovich cordially thanked for the tea with sugar - a rather rare delicacy in the partisan region, lit a cigarette and, with a nice “okay” in Gorky’s way, continued:

There is a Slobodskaya district in the Smolensk region. The forests there, however, are not very large, but they suited our detachment quite well. Exactly 28 of us gathered in that forest, like Panfilov’s men. Everyone found that fate had not spared me my organizational skills. He was promoted to commander. I agreed. Alexander Gribovsky became Commissioner, Alexander Petrov became Chief of Staff. Pyotr Antipov and Dmitry Korkin were appointed to other command positions. These are all fighting, reliable guys. It’s not scary to go on any mission with them.

At first we had no bases, no communications, no permanent camp. We walked through the forest. They attacked individual enemy vehicles, small convoys of occupiers, and procurement points. They destroyed policemen and German servants.

The cold has begun. We decided to move to the Liozno district of the Vitebsk region. The forests are more reliable there, and communications are nearby. By the spring of 1942, our detachment had grown into a fairly large partisan unit. In the Liozno region, we were joined by a detachment operating separately in the Khotemlyansky and Dymanovsky forests under the command of N. N. Selivanenko. The commissioner of the detachment was V. A. Blokhin. In the summer, our brigade was already an impressive force. The occupiers were afraid of us: every day the detachments attacked garrisons, vehicles, bridges, warehouses, railways...

Alexey Fedorovich told me about the very difficult combat path of the brigade from the first simple operations to deep raids on enemy rear lines. The defeat of a large German unit from an ambush near the village of Fokino, the undermining of enemy trains with food supplies in the area of the Vydreya station, the destruction by a sabotage group of seven vehicles on the roads Yanovichi - Ponizovye and Yanovichi - Surazh, an attack on the Nazis in the village of Klevtsy, the dispersal of the Unovo volost government, a successful sabotage on the highway Vitebsk - Smolensk near the villages of Vorony and Krivaya Versta - these are just the most significant operations of the Alekseevites carried out in August 1942.

In just August 1942, the partisans of Alexei Danukalov's brigade defeated 3 enemy garrisons, killed and wounded several hundred Nazis, derailed 4 military trains, knocked out an airplane, destroyed an armored vehicle, a tank, 75 vehicles, 6 bridges, a tank truck with fuel, a tractor-tractor, a garage with cars, destroyed about 11 kilometers of telegraph and telephone communications, during which time the Alekseev partisans captured a mortar, an easel and 7 light machine guns, 8 machine guns, 109 rifles, 12 revolvers, about 50 grenades, 15 thousand cartridges and other military property.

In September 1942, Alexei Danukalov was summoned to Moscow. For active combat operations behind enemy lines, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Danukalov returned from Moscow inspired. It wasn't just about the award he deserved. Alexey Fedorovich was proud that the military labors of the entire brigade, his military friends, were so highly appreciated. It was during these days that the brigade commander proposed a whole series of new military operations. In October alone, the detachments derailed 7 enemy military echelons, blew up 30 cars and 6 motorcycles, destroyed and captured a lot of military property.

The winter of 1942/43 was spent in heavy fighting. The Germans tried to oust the partisans from the front line. It was especially difficult in the spring, when punitive forces blocked the partisans in the Shchelbovo forest. Having fought his way out of encirclement, the brigade commander decided to confuse the trail and escape persecution. To do this it was necessary to disperse. Danukalov decided to withdraw the brigade to the west, to the area of the Adamovsky forests, which are located in the Sennensky district, in two groups. The group whose task was to bypass Vitebsk on the left side was led by the brigade commander himself. The second part of the brigade was supposed to make a deep raid, bypassing Vitebsk on the right. This group was led by brigade commissar I.I. Starovoitov.

The path to the west was not easy. Danukalov’s group had to cross the Western Dvina, which was very stormy during the spring flood, and cross the railway in a dangerous place. May nights are short, dawn meets dawn. And here there are still wounded on hand, including the detachment commissar Nikolai Sherstnev. Near the railway embankment, the group was forced to lie down by a flare that soared almost vertically upward. Reconnaissance sent ahead reported that the posts had been reinforced and there were machine guns on the towers.

This is not the first time for Alekseev residents to cross the railway. But today we must cross it without a fight: it will be difficult with the wounded. Alexey Danukalov and detachment commander Dmitry Korkin went on reconnaissance themselves. They were convinced that the approaches to the road were littered with dry branches, and it was impossible to get through without making noise. But there was no other way. We decided to transport the detachment with a swift rush between the towers. The maneuver was a success. The Nazis only realized it when the partisans were no longer in danger. Machine gun fire and mine explosions could still be heard in the surrounding area for a long time.

We stopped for a day's rest in the forest. The enemy tracked down the partisans. Silently removing the sentry, the Nazis attacked the camp. Some partisans rushed to run, but they were stopped by the loud voice of the brigade commander. Danukalov and Korkin led the people into the attack. The enemy wavered and retreated. He was pursued to the edge of the forest. In this battle, the Alekseevites lost several comrades. After the battle the group moved on.

I. I. Starovoitov’s group also had to overcome many difficulties: crossing the Western Dvina, crossing two highways and two railways. In the area of the village of Lushchikha, with a bold attack, the partisans so successfully broke through the enemy chain that they completely disoriented the enemy. The Alekseevites were already far away, and the Nazis were still pouring heavy machine-gun and mortar fire on the well-targeted place, but long abandoned by the partisans. We spent the day in the forest, over which the hated “frame” - an enemy double-fuselage reconnaissance aircraft - was circling almost all the time. The partisans were well camouflaged, and the enemy was unable to detect their camp.

At night we crossed the railway and highway Vitebsk - Nevel. Suddenly, with a hiss and whistle, a flare took off and the enemy machine guns hit. Strong return fire and a sharp rush forward of the partisan chains silenced the main fascist firing points. A group of scouts led by Mikhail Landychenko rushed towards the machine guns that were still firing.

Soon, several explosions of anti-tank grenades thundered one after another. The enemy machine guns fell silent. But just at this time, an armored train crawled towards the battlefield, illuminating the path with powerful beams of searchlights. The command flew along the chain to push armor-piercing guns onto the canvas. Partisan anti-tank rifles opened fire on the black body of the locomotive. The bark of heavy machine guns and rapid-fire cannons of the armored train drowned out everything around, including the hiss of powerful jets of steam that escaped from the broken boiler of the steam locomotive. But the partisans, skillfully maneuvering on rough terrain, were already leaving the firing range.

At the Western Dvina, the partisans were attacked by enemy tanks. Yakov Gladchenko, Makar Fedoseenko and other armor-piercing soldiers concentrated fire on the lead tank and knocked it out. The remaining vehicles stopped pursuing the partisans, but continued to shoot. We had to cross the river with a fight.

In Adam's forest, as agreed, both groups met. However, the enemy managed to discover this place. At sunset, it became known in the camp that the forest was surrounded by fascists. The brigade commander frowned and thought. The worst thing is that the places are unfamiliar, you don’t know how to maneuver more deftly, in which direction to break through. What if?..

Who are the locals here?

I'm local.

An inconspicuous guy approached. Danukalov looked in disbelief. The boy noticed, sniffled, and was offended.

Do you know the road well?

I’m not leading you first.

Then here's what: you will lead them through the swamp to get behind the Germans' rear.

It's possible.

We walked all night. The Nazis did not expect an attack from the rear. They ran and didn’t even pick up the dead.

The brigade began to act even more organized. It’s amazing how the Alekseevites managed to deliver so many sensitive blows to the enemy. After all, this often required making rapid, tens of kilometers, transitions.

In the story of Alexei Fedorovich himself, the fighting looked somehow everyday, usually:

It was in June '43. Scouts from the Progress detachment established that the punitive forces intended to attack the detachment in the village of Dudary. Both numerically and technically, the Nazis were superior to our forces. To intercept the enemy, the detachment commander sent a combat guard consisting of half a company. A fight ensued. The punitive forces opened heavy fire from a cannon, battalion mortars, and machine guns. The combat guard had to retreat. The detachment located in the village boldly met the enemy. The battle dragged on. I sent reinforcements from the "Sailor" detachment. The company arrived on time. The Nazis stopped the offensive. They lost more than 25 soldiers in the battle.

In the same military laconic manner, Danukalov spoke about the June operations of 1943: a successful ambush attack on punitive forces by young partisans of the “Sailor” detachment under the command of the chief of staff N. G. Denisov, the explosion of the bridge on the Chashniki-Lukoml highway, the attack of the detachment named after N. . N. Selivanenko on the Nazi garrison in the village of Slidchany, the defeat of the enemy garrison guarding the paper factory in Chashniki by the 4th detachment. The brigade commander spoke, and I easily imagined in detail what he told me about only in general terms. And the further, the better it was possible to discern behind the facts, figures, names the extreme tension of nerves, muscles, vision, hearing of hundreds of people, their amazing stamina, endurance, courage in the face of danger, when death is hovering around, and at the same time extraordinary love to life.

It is characteristic that the Alekseevites, in the most difficult conditions, moving from place to place, did not weaken, but increased their attacks on the enemy. In September alone, they destroyed 34 cars, 12 bridges, several kilometers of telegraph and telephone communications and one and a half kilometers of high-voltage power lines.

As the front line moved west, the partisan brigade changed its locations. Residents of the villages where Alekseev’s troops stayed welcomed the patriots cordially. Unfortunately, the Alekseevites could not complain about “inattention” on the part of the occupiers. The brigade barely had time to arrive at the new location before the Nazis prepared a punitive expedition against it. This forced the brigade to lead an active lifestyle almost all the time, which greatly exhausted the partisans. On the move, it was necessary to carry out combat and sabotage operations, replenish food supplies, train young partisans, carry out mass educational work in the detachments and among the population, and treat the wounded.

Former Alekseevites remember well October 1943, when they had to endure very heavy fighting in the Beshenkovichi district. Danukalov personally led the operation. The brigade, consisting of 10 detachments, was stationed in the area of the villages of Mokhnevo and Zakhodnoye. On October 16, two punitive regiments came out against the partisans. They were given 6 tanks and 4 armored vehicles. Two infantry battalions, under the cover of a tank and two armored vehicles, occupied the village of Rubezh. The brigade commander made a bold decision - to attack without waiting for new forces to arrive. Alexey Danukalov himself led the partisan attacks. The fighting continued for almost four days straight. The Nazis paid a heavy price for every meter of territory.

After such battles, the Alekseevites often had to make long night marches, smashing enemy garrisons along the way. The respites between battles were short. People were very tired, but morale and discipline in the units were high.

With the transition to the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone, Alexei Danukalov’s brigade had to change the nature of its combat activities. Due to the fact that the enemy planted garrisons around and did not stop trying to dislodge the partisans, they began to use positional methods of fighting. The new tactics of warfare required the construction of defensive fortifications - trenches, rifle and machine-gun cells, bunkers with communication passages, anti-tank ditches and rubble on the roads and approaches to our defensive line.

Having taken up defensive positions, brigade detachments carried out systematic forays to sabotage enemy communications and set up ambushes in the Lepel-Berezino area. The brigade continued to deliver significant blows to the enemy.

During the entire period of their military activity, the Alekseevites captured as trophies 8 cannons, 15 heavy and 110 light machine guns, 78 machine guns, 1041 rifles, 286,000 rounds of ammunition, 14 mortars, 796 hand grenades, 66 cars, 370 bicycles, 10 telephones and more. These figures are a convincing indicator of the brigade's high combat activity.

This was the combat path of the partisan brigade of Alexei Danukalov. In the spring of 1944, there were up to 2 thousand people in its ranks. The Alekseevites had good weapons: 3 guns, 11 mortars, 14 anti-tank rifles, a lot of automatic weapons - machine guns, machine guns. The length of the defensive lines of the connection was over 20 kilometers. The brigade organized a deeply echeloned, well-camouflaged defense. To the left of it stood the Lepel Partisan Brigade, to the right was the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade.

At the junction with the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade, the “Sailor” detachment held the defense. They agreed that they would help each other in the event of a Nazi attack.

The so-called assault brigade of the traitor Kaminsky acted against the Alekseevites. The partisans carried out successful work to disintegrate this brigade. They sent newspapers, leaflets, and helped those who were lost and forcibly mobilized to get on the right path. The number of defectors kept increasing. So, on September 15, 1943, an entire company led by Captain Provatorov went over to the partisans. At the end of the month, up to 150 more people arrived. However, despite the process of decomposition, Kaminsky’s brigade still remained a fairly strong enemy formation. She was well armed and outnumbered the partisans.

The punitive forces began fighting in the zone of the partisan brigade “Aleksey” with reconnaissance in force in the direction of the villages of Vetche and Kazimirovo, where the first battalion held the defense. At 10 o'clock in the morning, an enemy infantry battalion, supported by two tanks, artillery fire and mortars, attacked the front line of defense of the 17th detachment. The battle went on for four hours. The enemy launched three strong attacks, but they all choked. Then the enemy concentrated his forces in the direction of the village of Vetche. The partisans abandoned the village and took up defense on the heights north of Vetche. At 20:30, having received reinforcements, the detachment counterattacked the enemy, drove him out of the village of Vetche and forced him to dig in near the village of Khramenki. During the counterattack, armor-piercing officer Ivanov set fire to a German tank. This determined the success of the offensive of our troops.

Up to 300 Nazis, supported by two tanks, advanced on the village of Kazimirovo, where the 13th detachment held the defense. For three hours in a row they attacked the positions of the Alekseevites, but were thrown back behind the Sukharevichi farm.

This is how the first day passed. In the evening, brigade commander Alexei Danukalov called the task force headquarters:

I am glad to report, Comrade Colonel, all attacks have been repulsed. The Nazis ran away like hares. On the battlefield they left up to forty corpses and many wounded.

Thank you, Alexey Fedorovich. Tell everyone that the task force highly appreciates your military actions. What did the enemy want today?

Reconnaissance in force. The goal is to identify the location of the firing points of our front line. But we are not blindsided either: I ordered only part of the firing points to be put into operation, was the brigade commander’s response.

Can you tell me more details?

The fact is that this was not quite an ordinary reconnaissance in force. If a weak point was discovered in our defense, the enemy was ready to go on the offensive. He introduced large forces into the gap that had formed. The tank attack, in repelling which the armor-piercing officer Ivanov played such a large role, was intended to break through the defense. The situation was very dangerous.

Submit armor-piercing officer Ivanov to the order. The fight against tanks in our conditions, Alexey Fedorovich, requires special heroism. Your losses?

Three wounded.

In the following days, the enemy continued to intensify the onslaught. On April 18, large forces with tanks were brought into battle. After unsuccessful attacks in the first half of the day in the direction of the villages of Vetche and Khramenki, the enemy used aviation. For three hours, 15 aircraft conducted a concentrated bombardment of the positions of the 17th detachment. When the raid ended, the infantry went on the offensive under cover of artillery and mortar fire. The unequal battle went on for two hours. Only in the evening did the partisans leave Vetche and Khramenki. But not for long. On the night of April 19, the 17th detachment suddenly attacked the village of Vetche and captured it. At the same time, the 14th detachment carried out a raid on Khramenki. “On this day, not only were the enemy’s fierce attacks repulsed, but in some places he had to retreat under the pressure of the partisans,” says the entry in the combat log of the 13th detachment. - One of the heights changed hands five times. By the end of the day, she still remained behind the detachment.

In some areas, our troops launched counterattacks. Having received reinforcements, the enemy, supported by three tanks and artillery, launched a new offensive. Detachment No. 17 had to retreat to their previous positions and occupy the southern outskirts of the village of Vetche. But the enemy didn’t get any further.”

The battles in the sector of Alexei Danukalov’s brigade were distinguished by the particular tenacity and tenacity of the partisans. The enemy went on a rampage: five days on the offensive, and the partisans did not move.

The day of April 21 was especially difficult. Tired, exhausted from daily battles, the Alekseevites stood on the defensive in the forest to the right of the village of Vetche. Early in the morning, 8 enemy planes flew into the partisan positions. During the day, 16 attacks were repulsed. The enemy's persistence was unprecedented. And yet the Alekseevites survived.

True, there was a moment when some hesitated and almost began to leave. And here an event occurred that was talked about for a long time. Valya Shlyakhticheva suddenly appeared among the partisans. She calmly and efficiently set up a machine gun and opened fire on the Nazis who burst into defensive positions. The enemy's attack failed.

The diary of the commander of the Progress detachment, Grigory Gavrilovich Ogienko, testifies to the tenacity of the partisans of the Alexey brigade:

"April 19, 1944. The detachment went to the Logi-Bushenki highway area. An entire defensive system has been installed here: 18 machine gun nests and cells for each soldier. A forest with a frontal depth of 200 meters and a width of up to one and a half kilometers has been cleared.

Armor-piercer Yakov Gladchenko, near the village of Kazimirovo, knocked out a German tank with an anti-tank rifle...

A group of scouts mined the Pyshno-Berezino highway near the village of Kodluishche. A four-kilogram mine placed by Akhmet Togushev and Ivan Olshanikov blew up a car, killing 4 Germans...

April 21, 1944. The detachment fought heavy defensive battles with superior enemy forces. Within 12 hours, 11 enemy attacks supported by artillery, tanks and aircraft were repulsed. The Nazis dug in 300 meters from our defense along the highway...

April 22, 1944. The detachment fought heavy battles in the area of the Logi-Bushenki highway. In 10 hours, the detachment repelled 6 enemy attacks, supported by massive artillery fire and aviation against our defense. Of the 7 attacks, 2 were “psychic”... Up to 35 fascists were killed by rifle and machine-gun fire...”

Among the battles that the Alekseevites had to fight, the battle for the village of Kazimirovo was especially difficult. It began at dawn on April 23. The partisan positions were attacked by infantry totaling more than a thousand people. The offensive was supported by 4 tanks and 2 assault guns. The partisans repelled two attacks. The enemy stopped the offensive. Soon about 50 attack aircraft appeared over the partisan positions. Three times they brutally bombarded partisan fortifications. During the day, vultures dropped at least 300 bombs on the village of Kazimirovo and its surroundings. Among them were bombs designed to destroy powerful long-term defensive structures and kill manpower. They also dropped special cassettes filled with two dozen small fragmentation bombs, which the partisans called “frogs.” The cassettes opened at a height, the bombs scattered to the sides and exploded in the air, showering the ground with fragments. Fortunately, the mechanism of operation of the cassettes was not flawless. Often, either they did not have time to open in the air and buried themselves in the ground, or the clock mechanism of the “frogs” did not work. In both cases, the partisans rejoiced at the trophies. The bombs were then used as explosive material.

After intensive “processing” of the defensive lines of the Alekseevites from the air, the fascists went on the offensive. They were sure that the partisans were no longer capable of long-term resistance. However, from the fortifications thoroughly destroyed by bombing, the punitive forces met strong, organized fire. Only after a six-hour battle did the Alekseevites leave the fortifications.

The Alekseevites withstood many such battles - near the villages of Logi, Tserkovishche, Malye Doltsy, Velikiye Doltsy. Each of them is a glorious page in the chronicle of the military affairs of the Alexey brigade. Those local residents who remember April 1944 never cease to admire the courage of the Alekseevites, their art of maneuvering and delivering sensitive blows to the enemy in the most difficult combat situation. In all this one could discern the great intelligence and iron will of the gifted partisan leader Alexei Fedorovich Danukalov, whose name during his lifetime became synonymous with courage and selfless devotion to the Motherland.

Not only their comrades in arms, but also their enemies marveled at the resilience of the Alekseevites. It is no coincidence that the traitor Kaminsky, in his order in connection with the completion of the expedition, notes the particularly fierce nature of the fighting in the sector of the Danukalov brigade. True, Danukalov’s surname remained unknown to him: in the order the brigade commander is called Alekseev. This testifies not only to the poor organization of intelligence by the enemy, but also to the brilliant organization of the secret service of the Danukalovites.

From the villages of Vetche and Khramepki to Velikie Dolets are ten kilometers. And the enemy troops, despite the large numerical superiority, the support of motorized mechanized, artillery, mortar and aviation assets, moved forward at such a low speed, as if there was a duel of approximately equal forces.

Danukalov was the soul of the defense in the southern sector of the partisan zone. These days I had to talk with the brigade commander on the phone many times and meet with him. Despite the very difficult situation, I have never heard any complaints about difficulties. In leading combat operations, the brigade commander was distinguished by personal courage, initiative and resourcefulness. He promptly figured out the plan of Kaminsky, who was trying to make a breach at the junction of the Alekseevskaya and 1st Anti-Fascist brigades, go to their rear and develop an offensive. In the utter hell of fire, gunpowder smoke, and explosions, the partisans demonstrated examples of resilience.

“The fields were covered with fragments of exploding shells and mines of all calibers,” we read in the file of the Alekseevsk brigade. - Aviation completed this hellish symphony with a hail of heavy and small bombs. Explosions of bombs and shells plowed the ground. In some places, entire companies were covered with earth, and defensive structures were destroyed. The whole day from dawn until dark passed in fierce battles. The little April night was only a temporary respite for eating, resting and erecting destroyed defensive structures, cleaning and repairing weapons, mining approaches...

Despite all the hardships and hardships, the morale and fighting spirit of the partisans were high and stable. Every fighter, commander and political worker was armed with the firm consciousness that with his stubborn resistance and heroism, smashing and destroying the enemy in the rear, he was making a valuable contribution to the liberation of the Russian land, accelerating the complete defeat and destruction of the treacherous fascist beast.

The brigade, while fighting heavy defensive battles, was subjected to systematic and heavy air bombing. From April 18 to April 30, 1944, the enemy made 520 sorties. During the fighting, the brigade headquarters was located in the village of Velikie Doltsy. On 27 April, the brigade headquarters came under air attack by ten dive bombers and three heavy bombers. The bombardment lasted about an hour. The enemy bombarded the entire village with small bombs and riddled all the houses. During this bombing, our combat brigade commander Alexey Fedorovich Danukalov was killed.”

The day of April 27 was well remembered by the former Komsomol assistant commissar of the Alexey brigade, Joseph Vladimirovich Menzhinsky. “In the morning it was quiet on the front line,” said I. V. Menzhinsky. - We managed to reproduce the latest report from the Sovinformburo and took it to show it to Danukalov. The brigade commander met us near the house where he lived. Alexey Fedorovich was in a good mood. He, as always, joked and laughed. Suddenly the hum of an aircraft engine reached our ears. Danukalov looked towards Lepel. The large red disk of the sun blinded his eyes, and he covered them with his palm. “Gritsko,” shouted the brigade commander to the detachment commander G. G. Ogienko, “bring the armor-piercers here, let them treat the vulture!” Armor-piercers appeared. They barely had time to fire a few shots at the fascist plane when we heard the thick hum of many aircraft engines. Junkers were flying towards the village at a considerable altitude from the direction of Polotsk. Approaching Velikiye Doltsy, the lead plane suddenly left the chain and, exposing its sparkling planes to the sun, slid into a dive. Behind him, also falling to the side, the second Junkers went steeply towards the ground, followed by the third. Above the village, filling the space with the howl of dropped bombs and mines, the satanic barking of heavy machine guns, a carousel of fascist vultures was spinning.

At Danukalov’s command, we took refuge in a bunker. At the same time, the brigade commander ordered to open the gates of the barns and let the horses out of them. Above our heads, choking on machine-gun noise, the belly bodies of Junkers, cruciform with non-retractable curved landing gears, rushed low. Danukalov could not sit in the shelter. Seizing the moment, he climbed up. Machine-gun bursts pierced the roofs and walls of houses and dug into the liquid spring mud of the streets. The brigade commander pressed himself against the wall of the barn.

Suddenly all sounds were drowned out by the deafening roar of exploding air mines. Houses and streets were covered in a suffocating stench. The smoke of the fires tightly covered the sun's disk. Everyone jumped out of the bunker and did not believe what they saw: staggering, Danukalov approached the apple tree, grabbed its trunk and sank heavily to the ground. We ran up: a mine fragment pierced the chest right through...”

The brigade commissioner, Ivan Isakovich Starovoitov, ordered that the incident be reported to the front line, where the battle was already flaring up. At the firing lines they didn’t believe that Alexey Danukalov was no more. Representatives were sent from the units. The veterans stood silently over the lifeless body and left for position. Neither this nor the following days the punitive forces were able to move the Alekseevites from their place.

Alexey Fedorovich Danukalov was buried with full military honors. Experienced partisans saw a lot. We're used to everything. We learned to face the worst with courage and endure the worst. And then they couldn’t help but cry.

It is difficult to express in words what a great loss the death of brigade commander A.F. Danukalov was for all of us. Nobody wanted to believe what happened. After all, he turned only 28 years old in February of that year. He could still do so much...

Tanks are burning

In the defense sector of the Alekseevskaya brigade, it was especially difficult for the partisans to repel the advancing tanks. We foresaw that the punitive forces would not fail to take advantage of the peculiarities of the local terrain, which was relatively accessible to the action of motorized mechanized troops, and promptly created anti-tank structures - gouges, scarps, counter-scarps, anti-tank ditches, and minefields. The Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement and the command of the 1st Baltic Front provided us with great assistance in mastering the methods of fighting tanks. They gave us the appropriate instructions. They contained a description of various types of fascist tanks and other motorized vehicles, indicated their most vulnerable places, and gave advice on how and from what distance it would be easier to hit them. These army instructions, in fact, summarized the rich experience of Soviet soldiers accumulated in numerous battles at all stages of the war.

My own experience, gained mainly during the autumn-winter battles, was a great help. Before this, a phenomenon called “tank fear” was quite common in partisan detachments. To be honest, the fighters were timid at first. It happened that at the sight of tanks, some even left their positions. And it is not surprising: we did not have enough skills and even less material resources to fight the enemy’s motorized mechanized troops. Psychologically, the partisans were greatly depressed by the fact that in fights with tanks we could not use the means that were used in front-line conditions. An anti-tank rifle, an anti-tank grenade, mines and structures on the ground - that, in fact, was all that the partisans could usually oppose to the armored monsters.

During the battles, as it was possible to knock out fascist tanks in one case and set fire to them in another, timidity gradually disappeared, and the conviction grew that the devil was not as terrible as he was painted. And when they began to recruit armor-piercing crews, there were many more volunteers than required. The command of the detachments entrusted anti-tank weapons, and above all guns, to the most courageous and experienced partisans who had proven themselves well in the past. In the brigade of Alexei Danukalov, who attached particular importance to the fight against tanks, partisan Grigory Ivanov, among others, received an anti-tank rifle.

He was a brave partisan, a participant in a number of serious acts of sabotage, and a sharp shooter. Thus, as part of a Komsomol group, Grigory participated in a daring ambush on the Polotsk-Molodechno railway. Going on a mission, the partisans expected to fire at a train carrying equipment and other cargo. Having made an ambush, they began to observe. At that time, trains did not risk reaching high speeds in these places. For safety reasons, a platform loaded with ballast was driven in front of the locomotive. If the train was with soldiers, it was unsafe to fire at it: the Nazis opened strong return fire, cordoned off and combed the area adjacent to the railway track.

The partisans did not have to wait long. Soon, a steam locomotive crawled around the bend, puffing and puffing, as usual with a platform in front. Speed - 20–30 kilometers per hour. The carriages appeared. On the platforms there is equipment covered with tarpaulin. Next is living force. Fearing the partisans, the Nazis try to keep a low profile, they behave quietly, you can’t even hear harmonicas.

The partisans look at each other: should we expect the next thing?.. Ivanov makes a decisive gesture with his hand: we’ll hit, don’t let us through. All agree. The armor-piercer falls to the gun and takes aim. In this position, he somewhat resembles a harpooner who has taken aim at a whale. The “Whale” puffs like fountains of water, throws up clouds of smoke, and jets of steam escape from under the wheels.

A shot thunders, another - and the “whale” locomotive shudders with its black body. Steam shoots out from the holes in the boiler - the locomotive “gives up the ghost.”

The partisan ambush launched targeted fire at the echelon from head to tail. The Nazis opened fire indiscriminately. Having recovered, they left the carriages and, ducking, went on the attack. The partisans had to retreat. But the goal was achieved: the movement was temporarily stopped, the locomotive was out of action for a long time, and the Nazis suffered losses in manpower.

Grigory Ivanov was inexhaustible in inventions. When they left, he proposed the following plan:

They should send a steam locomotive from Polotsk - they need to somehow hold out the train. I propose to quickly march out across the locomotive and make an ambush. It would never even occur to the Nazis that we would risk intercepting him.

Everyone found the idea tempting and agreed. The transition was not easy: we were in a hurry. Having walked several kilometers towards Polotsk, the partisans, being careful, crawled to the railway and made another ambush. An hour and a half later, a towing locomotive appeared from the direction of Polotsk. Ivanov aimed especially carefully. The bullet he fired pierced the boiler and this locomotive. Traffic on the highway froze for a while.

Grigory Ivanov's combat record included many destroyed Nazis, blown up cars, and damaged steam locomotives. Therefore, it cannot be considered an accident that it was he who became a threat to German tanks during the April-May operation. He applied his accumulated experience in battles near the villages of Vetche, Khramenki, and Kazimirovo.

Grigory Ivanov knocked out the first tank on April 16 during a partisan counterattack. That's how it was. For some reason, the enemy considered the defense sector in the area of the villages of Vetch and Kazimirovo to be the most vulnerable and attacked especially fiercely. The Nazis apparently hoped that by breaking through the defenses in this area, they would more easily overcome the resistance of the partisans in other directions. At the cost of heavy losses, by the evening the enemy still managed to occupy the village of Vetche.

Brigade headquarters ordered the situation to be restored. Having received reinforcements, the partisans launched a counterattack. To the left of the village we noticed the slow movement of some squares, poorly visible in the evening twilight. Merged into a huge shadow on the melting snow, in appearance they seemed completely harmless. The danger was realized only when a dull trembling rumble came from the village. As the chain approached the village, the partisans heard the vibration of powerful engines more and more clearly, and more clearly distinguished the outlines of the ominous squares of tanks. Suddenly the front car, roaring menacingly with its engine, rushed forward towards the chain. It was visible how shaggy whirlwinds of lumpy snow rose from under the tracks, and bunches of sparks flew from the exhaust pipes.

Armor-piercers!.. - sounded along the chain.

Meanwhile, the tanks were picking up speed, approaching, increasing in size, filling everything around with an iron clang and grinding sound, menacingly shaking their guns. The front car suddenly threw out a sheaf of fire from the barrel. The first gun shot gasped, a shell flew overhead with a howl and exploded somewhere behind the partisans' battle formations. The flashes on the muzzles of tank guns became more frequent. They were accompanied by sharp impacts of shots and dull explosions of shells. Intertwined with the roar of the cannon was the muttering noise of tank machine guns and the patter of machine-gun bursts from the infantry following the tanks.

The partisans lay down. Again and again it echoed across the field:

Bro-oh-heaven-oh-oysters!..

The fire from tanks and enemy infantry increased. He pressed people more and more tightly to the ground, not allowing them to move forward or backward. The counterattack failed. People lay on the ground in front of the approaching tanks and waited, tensing their muscles to stone and their heads ringing.

The gray bodies of the two leading vehicles were already very close when, somewhere on the right flank, several clicks from an anti-tank gun were heard one after another. No one heard them in the roar of machine guns. And only when the lead tank suddenly made a sharp jerk forward and to the side, and twists of flame slid like nimble snakes on its armor, did the chain gasp with joy. The remaining tanks turned back.

This team was ahead of the rapid attack of the partisans.

The battle cry rolled across the field, growing, capturing everyone. Great is the joy of victory. The feeling of this joy is three times stronger when you even defeat tanks.

After this battle, the name of the armor-piercing fighter Grigory Ivanov became widely known among the partisans. He continued to count the number of destroyed enemy tanks. The second fight took place on April 19. On this day, after a respite, having brought up fresh forces, the enemy launched persistent attacks on the battle formations of the 13th detachment in the area of the village of Kazimirovo. A small height in the vicinity of the village changed hands five times. The 14th detachment with a swift attack drove the punitive forces out of the village of Khramenki. The partisans gained a foothold on the outskirts of the village.

In conditions of fierce fighting along the entire defensive line of the brigade, armor-piercing units were transferred from one area to another. The enemy launched a new attack on partisan positions near the village of Khramenki with the support of three tanks. Grigory Ivanov was on the front line.

The menacing vehicles, their engines roaring, crawled straight towards the partisan trenches. There was a barely noticeable movement in the ranks of the fighters, revealing their excitement and impatience. The tanks moved in a triangle. The hum of the machines shattered the silence, strained my nerves to the limit, and squeezed my temples painfully. Suddenly, from somewhere out of the darkness behind the tanks, a red rocket soared into the sky, and the side vehicles began to crawl away to the sides with the obvious intention of pincering the squad. The middle car, suddenly flashing its headlights, roared loudly with its engine and accelerated.

Ivanov leaned down to the sight of an anti-tank rifle and pointed the barrel at the gray body of the left car, which was moving forward obliquely. The pop of a shot - and at the same time, somewhere very close, a shell explodes. Nauseating clouds of burning smoke covered the trench, and crushed lumps of earth mixed with snow doused those lying nearby.

Reloading the anti-tank rifle, Ivanov looked ahead. The left tank, as if it had encountered an obstacle, stopped and began to rotate in one place, unraveling the flat caterpillar strip.

Hurray! - thundered over the trenches.

The armor-piercer looked to the right. The outermost tank also moved halfway towards the crew's firing position. So he began to take it as he went to the right. Ivanov realized that the tank had spotted his position, and began to aim even more carefully. A push in the shoulder, but then the rapid explosions of shells on the right and left covered the trench with gunpowder dregs. It was becoming increasingly difficult to make out what was happening there ahead. From the right in the trench, Ivanov heard shouts:

Tanks are bypassing!..

So it didn't hit. Just thinking about it, I felt a blow to my side. And I immediately felt weak in my body and dizzy.

Ivanov is wounded!

Ah, that’s it... I felt the padded jacket on my right side with my hand. Warm blood poured into my palm. The orderlies ran up and began to bandage the wound. A stretcher was brought. Grigory pushed them aside with his hand:

No, I'll stay here!

He reached for his anti-tank rifle. They helped him lie down more comfortably. On the right flank, the tank continued to approach the partisan battle formations, firing at the trenches with a cannon and a heavy machine gun. When the curtain of smoke cleared, Ivanov saw that the gray square was already very close to the trench. Overcoming the pain, he took aim and pulled the trigger. An armor-piercing incendiary bullet pierced the armor just under the white swastika. Another shot and another shot. The tank stalled, shuddered and stopped.

Jets of fire burst out through holes and cracks, spreading over the surface of the armor.

The third tank, roaring at full engine power, throwing clods of dirt and snow with its right caterpillar, began to turn sharply. The exhaust pipes of the car threw fireworks of sparks. The tank quickly moved away. Grigory Ivanov sent an armor-piercing incendiary bullet after the retreating tank. She struck the armor, a short flash flashed and a bunch of sparks went out.

The last battle between armor-piercing soldier Grigory Ivanov and fascist tanks took place on April 23. It was a very difficult day for the Alekseevites. The punishers advanced under the cover of tanks, which this time did not risk making maneuvers to bypass the partisan positions from the flanks, but went straight to the center of the defense with the clear intention of punching a hole on the move and allowing the infantry to break through into it. The gun barrels of the tanks flashed with flames, and machine guns crackled. From the position of the PTR crew on the right flank, it was convenient to shoot at the side armor of the vehicles, and Ivanov did not miss the opportunity. A soaring torch above one of the tanks forced the others to turn back. But the enemy did not calm down. Soon he launched a new attack. And again under the cover of tanks. Having lost another car, the Nazis stopped their attacks.

The news that the tanks were burning, that we could fight them with the modest means we had, inspired the patriots, raised morale in the units, and instilled hope in civilians. The name of Grigory Ivanov was repeated with pride.

Armor-piercing officer Ivanov died in battle in the sector of the 14th detachment, repelling another tank attack. Enemy tankers spotted his firing position and concentrated all their fire on it. A shell fragment pierced the chest of the brave partisan. Grigory Ivanov was buried near the places where he accomplished his exploits.

Gregory's example was followed by many. Another armor-piercing officer from Alexei’s brigade, Yakov Gladchenko, distinguished himself with courage and bravery in those difficult days. On April 22, he had to be both an armor-piercing man and a machine gunner. The partisan occupied a firing position in the center of the defense and, when the enemy attack began, he began to “hunt” the tank, followed by the infantry. The car, rounding the hill, flashed a swastika on the side armor. This was enough for the armor-piercing gun to hit the target. A plume of smoke rose above the stopped tank. The Nazis lay down and opened heavy fire from mortars and machine guns. A machine gunner was killed next to Gladchenko. The Nazis launched an attack and there was a threat of a breakthrough in the defense. The armor-piercer crawled up to the machine gun and opened fire. The punishers retreated back. The partisans rushed into a counterattack and drove the enemy back. Three days later, another damaged tank was recorded on Yakov Gladchenko’s combat account.

In the April-May operation, armor-piercing partisans became famous for their deeds. During the battles, they destroyed and knocked out 59 enemy tanks and 7 armored vehicles.

Commissioner Korenevsky

It’s not for nothing that Ushachchina is famous for its lakes. The map of the area is decorated with them like a necklace. The Ushachi lakes are admired by everyone who has been here. They have long inspired writers, artists, and musicians. Fishing enthusiasts find shelter in the magical twilight of the coastal reeds. After a tiring journey, the ubiquitous tourists take rest on the picturesque lake shores. Researchers became interested in the history of the origin and life of the lakes, their fauna and flora.

However, during the Great Patriotic War, the Ushachi lakes attracted the attention of the partisans for another reason. The fact is that the labyrinth of lakes with wooded and swampy areas surrounding them is a convenient natural barrier, difficult to access by technology.

After heavy fighting, the partisans in the main directions found themselves in open areas, and the lakes to some extent compensated for the lack of forests. The chains of lakes significantly eased the position of the partisans, in particular in the northeastern and eastern directions. In a number of places, natural barriers helped the partisans not only successfully repel the attacks of the Nazis, but also strike back.

One of these areas was located between lakes Gomel and Suya. The Gomel heights were of particular importance on this defensive line. They are located at the exit from the interlake defile deep into the partisan zone, towards Ushachi. The heights defended by the brigade named after V.I. Chapaev covered the rear of the brigades that operated in the eastern and southeastern sections of the defensive line. The fascist German command made a lot of efforts to drive the partisans out of the Gomel heights. More than once a critical situation was created here. One day, the Nazis almost made it to the rear of the brigade named after V.I. Chapaev, but the brigade named after K.E. Voroshilov came to the rescue. The chief of staff of the brigade, A. A. Kukhto, and assistant commissar L. I. Dervoedov, who were in the town of Gomel, sent reinforcements to the heights.

“In April 1944, we held the defense on the right bank of the Turovlyanka River in the Gomel Turzhets sector,” G. A. Kriulin, commander of the subversive group of the detachment named after G. I. Kotovsky of the brigade named after V. I. Chapaev, later recalled. - Returning from a mission to mine the railway track on the Zyabki - Zagatie section, we took up defense in fortifications adapted for this purpose, which were built in pre-war times. The fortifications helped us thwart the punitive forces’ attempts to cross Turovlyanka and reach the road to Ushachi. In the village of Pushno, the Nazis concentrated a large number of light tanks and artillery and kept our defensive line under fire all the time. The enemy also used aviation. My group and I mined the likely enemy breakthrough sites with anti-tank and anti-personnel mines. Many enemy vehicles were blown up by our mines. Later we fought in the area of Plino and Paperino. On the highway Kubliki-Ushachi defeated a large convoy and captured trophies. We managed to transport some of the wounded to Selishchanskaya Pushcha.”

One of the organizers of the defense in the northeast was the first secretary of the Ushachi underground district party committee, commissar of the partisan brigade named after V.I. Chapaev, Ivan Fedorovich Korenevsky. The son of a poor peasant from near Ulla, he went through a great school of life. Served in the Red Army. He studied at the military academy. After graduation, he served in cavalry units in the Far East, in Kyiv, Petrozavodsk, and Belarus. During an exercise, he fell from his horse and was demobilized from the army for health reasons.

Of the civilian professions, he liked the work of a teacher. The children became attached to the teacher, who knew so much and was able to understand them so much. Ivan Fedorovich was appointed director of the school. But he soon had to part with the school: he was elected second secretary of the Drissensky (now Verkhnedvinsky) district party committee. A little time passed, and Korenevsky was already the first secretary of the Gorodok district committee. He devoted himself entirely to party work, as to everything he did. He tried to understand the intricacies of the work of collective farms, MTS, state farms, took the needs of schools and the intelligentsia to heart, and cared about the Komsomol and pioneers. In a word, I tried to cover everything on which the growth of national wealth, the education of Soviet people as ardent patriots of their Motherland, and their happiness depended.

With all his busyness, Ivan Fedorovich did not forget about his family. “In the evening, after work, dad loved to walk along the streets of Gorodok,” recalls Korenevsky’s daughter Olga Ivanovna. - He will take my hand, and we wander around the city. He told me a lot. I remember I really wanted to have blue eyes. Dad laughed and said that since I wanted it so badly, my eyes would definitely be blue.

Dad loved songs very much. We walk along a deserted street, watch the sunset burn with a crimson flame, dad thinks about something of his own, frowns slightly and quietly sings:

The beloved city can sleep peacefully, And see dreams, and turn green in the middle of spring..."

With the invasion of fascist hordes, Ivan Fedorovich’s family was evacuated to the east, to the city of Aksubaevo, north of Kazan, and he himself remained in underground work behind enemy lines. Since July 1942, I. F. Korenevsky headed the Ushachi underground district committee of the party. Under his leadership, the district committee carried out multifaceted organizational and political work in partisan units and among the local population. In the spring and summer of 1942, communists and Komsomol members gathered volunteers for the Red Army in the villages and transported them through the famous “Surazh Gate”. Much has been done to involve young people in partisan warfare and to organize hidden reserves.

In the summer of 1942, the struggle for bread was a subject of special concern for the underground district committees of the party and Komsomol, and all patriots. In connection with the mass robbery of peasants by the Nazi invaders, the Vitebsk Regional Party Committee addressed the population with a leaflet that said:

“The occupiers brought grief and suffering unprecedented in history to our Motherland; our people are shedding rivers of tears and blood from the Nazi invasion.

Hitler means starvation for the people.

To rob the peasants, Hitler created detachments of German, Romanian, Austrian fascists and local traitors - the police, and this whole pack of dogs wants to pounce on you and rob you.

Peasants! Don't give a single gram of bread to the jackal Hitler. Collect your bread and hide it yourself.

Remember! Bread is life. Fight and defend your life and the lives of your children, protect yourself from starvation. Kill Nazi soldiers and policemen with everything you can! Beat them not only with weapons, but also with axes, stab them with pitchforks! Know that every fascist is your mortal enemy, your death. So kill this death mercilessly if you want to live yourself and save your children and your Motherland!

Comrade peasants and peasant women!

Remember that every gram of your bread donated to the hungry Nazi beast helps him destroy your husbands and brothers, wives and children, helps the Nazis in the war with the Red Army. And the one who hands over bread to the Nazis does not fulfill the duty of a patriot of the Soviet Motherland and helps its oppressors. Disrupt the delivery of bread by all means.

Sabotage threshing for the invaders, destroy procurement points. Burn warehouses and grain cars. Smash the carts with your bread looted by the German fascists. Do everything in your power to not give bread to the fascist brutal gang.

Bread must be defended through struggle!

Take up arms, beat the fascists and their henchmen. Keep in touch with the partisans, together with them and the Red Army, destroy the fascist invaders."

The partisans of the brigade named after V.I. Chapaev, local residents of the villages of the Ushachi and Vetrinsky districts controlled by the detachments, emerged victorious in the struggle for bread in the summer of 1942. The Nazi occupation authorities, who were still in Ushachi at that time, failed to rob the peasants. They saved all the grain they removed and shared their supplies with the partisans. Thanks to this, not only the brigade named after V.I. Chapaev, but also the brigade named after K.E. Voroshilov formed in the summer of 1942, as well as the partisan detachments that came to the Ushachi region in the winter and spring of 1943, did not feel any particular shortage of food.

The relationship between local residents and partisans of the V.I. Chapaev brigade was based on understanding, mutual assistance, and friendship. This was the case during the days of relative calm. This was the case when the Nazis blocked the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone. The population took an active part in all events held by the underground district party committee and primary party organizations. It contributed to the fund for the construction of aircraft and armored trains “Soviet Belarus”, for two years in a row it replenished the ranks of the partisans, and supplied the detachments not only with food, but also with clothes, linen, and shoes. In difficult days for the partisans, when they fought heavy bloody battles, in order to cheer up the soldiers, to remind them that they were always with them in their thoughts and hearts, ordinary Soviet people sent their modest gifts to the trenches - handkerchiefs, mittens, socks, tobacco pouches. These gifts touched the warriors.

The Commissioner was the organizer and soul of the entire Ullite underground. Back in December 1942, the underground warned the command that the Nazis were preparing for a punitive expedition against the partisans. Commandant Ulla Held ordered the use of all policemen free from guard duty and the engineering and technical personnel of the airfield against the partisans. The offensive was supposed to be carried out in three groups, each of them was assigned three machine guns. The fascist officers were located on an armored personnel carrier. The partisans set up an ambush in the forest. Having missed the first column of the Nazis, they attacked the headquarters group and defeated it. About ten German officers were killed.

An underground group, which, in addition to I. A. Rybakov (later the head of the brigade hospital), included his sister Nadezhda, sisters Nina and Lyubov Lednik, Ivan Rodin, the commissar’s brother Pyotr Korenevsky, his wife Sofya Korenevskaya, sisters Anna and Evgenia Sidler, sisters Lydia and Valentina Bedritsky, not only transmitted intelligence information to the partisans, but also provided assistance with medicines and dressings.

The partisan brigade named after V.I. Chapaev operated deep behind enemy lines for more than two years. During this time, her troops accomplished many military deeds. Korenevsky raised a whole galaxy of capable detachment commissars, their Komsomol assistants, company political instructors, political officers, and workers of the underground district committee of the party, selflessly devoted to the cause of the Communist Party. His associates and assistants Gennady Lapshenkov, Vladimir Vasilevsky, Valentina and Yulia Beresnevy and many others say that, working under the leadership of Korenevsky, each of them went through a great school of life and received good training.

I. F. Korenevsky was among the first to be awarded the Order of the Red Banner. Congratulating the commissar on his award, his comrades wished him new successes and began to pump.

“This is not the time, friends,” the commissar stopped them. - After all, I hope you understand that the most difficult thing is ahead.

The hardest part was indeed yet to come. And he prepared for the most difficult things actively, selflessly. He understood that the outcome of future battles largely depended on the political preparation of the partisans and local residents. But political preparation is an extremely painstaking task, requiring daily attention, and cannot tolerate indifference or callousness. The tenacity, courage and understanding of the situation shown by the partisans and residents of the Ushachi district are largely explained by the truly enormous political work carried out by the underground Ushachi district party committee under the leadership of I.F. Korenevsky. Newspapers, leaflets, reports from the Soviet Information Bureau, amateur evenings, just conversations - all the variety of forms of work with people was adopted by underground party organizations and used effectively, purposefully, as required by the situation and conditions of the struggle in the occupied territory.

The brigade commissioner I.F. Korenevsky was at the forefront all the days of the April-May 1944 expedition. Just as carefully as all other operations, he prepared a strike against the punitive garrisons located in the area of the Gomel heights.

Geidkämper is indignant

Otto Heidkämper, the former chief of staff of the 3rd German Panzer Army, was very outraged by the nature of the partisan actions against the punitive forces in the April-May expedition. In his book “Vitebsk. The struggle and death of the 3rd Tank Army,” he complains that the fight was not conducted according to the rules, that partisan methods allegedly “were a mockery of all international norms and humane methods of struggle.” Even while working on his book, that is, almost 10 years after the war, he could not calmly, without irritation, remember how the partisans destroyed punitive detachments in various ways, “dealing treacherous blows where they could.” The calculations of the command of the punitive expedition, you see, did not include repelling small partisan groups that infiltrated to the rear through German barrage detachments. On the other hand, the headquarters of the 3rd Tank Army did not think that the partisans would be able to move “to a well-organized defense.” “There are no words,” exclaims the general, “that could describe the devilish and formidable actions of the partisans these days.”

Our countermeasures taken in the combat zones must have seriously interfered with the implementation of the enemy’s plans if they were so deeply ingrained in the memory of the former chief of staff of the 3rd Panzer Army. The partisans really did not give the punishers rest day or night, and in this sense, Heydkämper has good reason to be indignant. Guerrilla units began to use active defense methods more boldly and with great effect: high maneuverability, counterattacks, unexpected combined attacks on the enemy’s flanks and rear. Mobile groups of partisans increasingly made their way into enemy rear areas, destroyed headquarters, manpower, and communications equipment, disrupted the command and control of enemy troops, sowed panic in the enemy camp, and continuously weakened it. As for Heydkämper’s accusation of the partisans for the “lack of humanism” in military operations, a well-worn trick was used here - shifting the blame from a sore head to a healthy one. Facts indicate that it was the fascists who trampled on the elementary norms of humanism and humanity.

In the area of the Gomel Heights, detachments of the brigade named after V. I. Chapaev repeatedly carried out surprise raids on the enemy. After the punitive forces managed to push back the partisans in this area, their main bases were located in the villages of Doletsky and Zashchaty. On the night of April 16, a detachment under the command of A. Ya. Konev launched a surprise attack on the enemy garrisons. The village of Doletsky was taken by storm. In Zashchaty the partisans were met with heavy fire. The enemy managed to occupy the old bunkers, and the garrison managed to hold out. In the battles for Doletskie and Zashchaty, the enemy lost up to 80 people killed and wounded. Documents captured in battles were of great value.

The detachments of the V. I. Chapaev brigade under the command of I. S. Boreyko, I. S. Vorzhev, A. I. Turov skillfully combined defensive battles with counterattacks. Near the village of Zaozerye and in other places, the Chapaevites exterminated many enemy soldiers and officers.

In the defense sector of the partisan regiment I. F. Sadchikov, two battalions of Nazis, supported by 6 tanks, launched an offensive in the direction of the villages of Kosarevo and Bely Dvor. The attacks were supported by artillery and mortar fire. The enemy managed to destroy some of the bunkers, the wire fence and even individual anti-tank posts, but the Nazis advanced only 200 meters. Two tanks destroyed by partisans had to be towed back. Before the Nazis had time to recover from the day's battle, a stunning blow fell upon them. Masters of night attacks, the Smolensk partisans on the night of April 17, with a sudden counterattack, knocked the Germans out of the zone they occupied. The enraged punitive forces brought up fresh forces early in the morning, reinforced them with equipment and moved forward again.

“At 5.30 our observation noticed a column moving from the Latishka garrison in the direction of the 4th battalion,” says the entry in the file of the Smolensk regiment. - Observation allowed the enemy to come to 150 meters, fired at him and retreated to a height of 148.1, where our military outpost was located. After a short firefight, the enemy launched an attack on our outpost in deployed formation. This was reported to the battalion headquarters and regiment headquarters. Reinforcements were sent to the combat guard - one platoon. The reinforced military guard fought for forty minutes. Having mined the height, we retreated to the main line of defense.

At 11.00, the enemy concentrated up to 1,500 infantry, up to 2 artillery divisions, 8 medium tanks, 3 armored vehicles in front of the front of the 4th battalion, and after bombing the front line of our defense with 6 aircraft, went on the offensive. Tanks were in front, infantry was behind the tanks.

The main attack was restrained by the 12th detachment, which, having brought the tanks to three hundred meters, opened fire from the anti-tank rifle. One tank was hit, the rest of the tanks stopped when they reached the anti-tank obstacles. The advance was stopped by fire from our troops. Then the enemy, bringing up artillery, destroyed part of our bunkers with direct fire and again, with the support of tanks, went on the offensive. As a result of a five-hour battle, the enemy managed to slightly penetrate our defenses and occupy the villages of Bely Dvor, Belkovo and Tsarevo.”

Subsequently, events in the sector of the Smolensk partisan regiment unfolded as follows. On the night of April 18, the regiment's command sent six groups behind enemy lines with the task of mining roads and setting up ambushes. Mines were placed on all approaches to the defensive line. On April 18, the enemy once again tried to crush the partisan defenses. The enemy's heavy artillery, tanks, and armored train entered the battle, and the number of bombers doubled. The 4th Battalion repelled six infantry and tank attacks during the day. The partisans launched counterattacks several times and overturned enemy chains. After this battle, the German command stopped attempting to advance in the northern sector.

The news of the courage and tenacity of the partisans of the Smolensk regiment spread throughout the zone. The names of those who distinguished themselves were passed down from mouth to mouth: detachment commander A.P. Bobrov, commissars I.M. Dredun and S.S. Demin, liaison A.I. Poznyak, battalion commander Kh.K. Bzykov, commissar N.E. Konyukhov . Let's talk about two of them.

The detachment commander, Anatoly Pavlovich Bobrov, is a villager. He endlessly loved his native nature, the expanse of fields, the azure surface of lakes, the smell of fresh furrows. He liked dashing dances and daring fun. A cheerful disposition, cheerfulness combined with resourcefulness and the will to win made Bobrov the favorite of the squad.

The commissioner of the detachment, Ivan Mikhailovich Dredun, was a calm and taciturn person by nature. He was loved for his unostentatious courage and endurance. While still a squad commander, Dredun was wounded in one of the battles with punitive forces, but refused to hand over command of the squad to anyone and leave the battlefield. “The Dredun squad bravely defended itself for almost 12 hours, holding back the onslaught of an enemy many times superior,” this event is recorded in the history of the regiment. “The wound ached, the hand did not obey, but Dredun continued to command and fire from his rifle.”

In the partisan brigade "October", which held the defense north of Lake Medzozol, there was a small detachment commanded by Fyodor Petrovich Zyryanov. The detachment showed tenacity in battles even when repelling punitive expeditions in 1943. The detachment had many combat operations. When the situation on the Berezina became complicated and it became known about the stubborn defense and then the fall of the Baturinsky Bridge, F.P. Zyryanov volunteered to make a foray into the enemy’s camp. He proposed, taking advantage of the calm in the brigade’s sector, to cross the no-man’s land at night and “make noise” in one of the garrisons. The brigade command agreed to such an operation.

From the detachment’s location to the village of Yukhnovshchina, where, according to intelligence data, the newly arrived German unit was located, it is 8–10 kilometers. A group of partisans led by the detachment commander secretly made their way to the village and began to conduct observation. The occupiers felt completely safe. They lit a fire near one of the houses, cooked dinner, ate, and laughed. Having had enough, we went to the house to rest. There was only one sentry left at the dying fire. Heavy from food, he showed little interest in what was happening around him. The rifle stood against the wall of the house, the sentry himself was squatting, warming his hands over the coals and muttering something under his breath. At Zyryanov’s command, the partisans divided into three groups and silently crawled towards the house. The conditional signal for the attack was the commander's machine gun fire. She was supported by the fire of 4 machine guns, 5 machine guns and 36 rifles. Grenades flew through the windows. Screams were heard from the house. The punishers began to jump out of the windows. Here they came under partisan bullets. A group of Nazis still managed to open indiscriminate fire, but the partisans suppressed it. Zyryanov gave the signal to retreat. And just in time: reinforcements were coming from the neighboring village of Zashchesli.

A successful operation near the village of Nezhevshchina was carried out by a group of partisans from the “October” brigade under the command of E.P. Korolkov. In an ambush battle, the patriots scattered the Nazi column. Leaving the dead and wounded on the road, the occupiers fled. A day later, on April 19, a new surprise was prepared for the punitive forces in the same direction. “Having pulled up forces and installed three guns in the forest area northwest of the Klenovka farm,” it is written in the brigade combat log, “the enemy advanced in a deployed front in the direction of the Klenovka-Chistoe road. At the crossing of the Chistyanka River, the commissar of the 4th detachment, I.A. Kobryanov, set up an ambush with two platoons. Approaching the ford, the enemy lay down and opened fire at the edge of the forest. The partisans did not reveal themselves. Soon the Germans stopped shelling and began to ford the Chistyanka River. In the middle of the river, the Nazis were covered by the destroying fire of the partisans. A fight ensued. It ended in the shameful flight of the enemy.”

I would like to tell you about one more of the many partisan battles. Trying to break through to Ushachi from the south, the enemy persistently attacked the positions of the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade near the village of Zarubovshchina. The Nazis concentrated 18 guns in a narrow area. Aviation attacked from the air. With the support of equipment, 3 punitive battalions attacked Zarubovshchina from the village of Pakhomenki and 3 from the Voloki area. The enemy advanced to the tar factory, which is two kilometers east of Zarubovshchina. The 3rd and 5th detachments of the 1st Anti-Fascist Brigade stopped his advance with a surprise attack. However, under the pressure of superior forces of the Nazis, the partisans were still forced to retreat into the forest north of the village.

All this happened on April 24, in the morning. The punishers settled down to rest. The partisans used the opportunity to launch a surprise attack. The 1st and 2nd detachments unexpectedly attacked the enemy’s left flank from the edge of the forest:

Beat the fascists!

An avalanche of partisans crushed enemy barriers, burst into the village and, in a short fierce battle, inflicted significant losses on the 35th battalion of the 12th Grenadier Regiment and the Dirlewanger battalion, forcing them to flee the village.

The counterattack in the Zarubovshchina area was one of the most effective. The partisans destroyed many Nazis, captured 3 guns, 3 mortars, 8 machine guns, 150 rifles and other property. Prisoners, ammunition, and food were taken. Of particular value were staff correspondence, codes, maps and other documents.

One of the orders for the special SS Dirlewanger battalion is of interest. It said, in particular, that a large area in the Ushachi region is an extremely dangerous area, that “everything here is mined, there are strong fortifications and one must count on strong resistance.” When attacking this area, it was recommended to take into account that the partisans were receiving assistance from the Red Army. According to Dirlewanger, the partisans had especially strong fortifications “on the sector of the front where our battalion should advance. This was established by aerial photography and SD agents.”

The order further stated the objectives of the first and subsequent days of the offensive in the area of Lake Medzozol. As can be seen from the order, the Nazi command was especially afraid of the actions of small groups of partisans in the rear of enemy troops. “I order,” demanded Dirlewanger, “to completely clear this territory of the enemy, to carry out this operation carefully so that no small groups remain.” The order strictly prohibited burning fires after dark: the Nazis, like wolves of fire, were afraid of Soviet air raids.

Familiarity with enemy documents confirmed our conclusions that the enemy’s initial plans were thwarted. The occupiers hoped to quickly deal with the partisans. But our activity grew day by day.

Material about Vladimir Eliseevich Lobank(for educational activities)

Vladimir Eliseevich Lobanok (07/03/1907 – 11/04/1984)

Born into a peasant family in the village of Ostrov, Pukhovichi district, Minsk region, Belarusian, statesman and party leader, one of the organizers and leaders of the communist underground and partisan movement in Belarus during the Great Patriotic War, member of the CPSU since 1930, Hero of the Soviet Union.

V.E. Lobanok began his career in agriculture. In 1924 he entered and in 1927 graduated from the Maryinogorsk Agricultural College. In 1931 he graduated from the Belarusian Agricultural Academy, and in 1956 from the Higher Party School under the CPSU Central Committee.

Since 1931, he worked as an agronomist at the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the BSSR, and since 1933 as an agronomist-economist at the authorized People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR for the Belarusian SSR.

In 1934, V.E. Lobank was appointed director of the Belitsky, and in 1940, the Smolyansky Agricultural College in the Vitebsk Region.

In May 1941, V.E. Lobanok was elected to partisan work as the first secretary of the Lepel district party committee.

During the Great Patriotic War, by decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b), V.E. Lobanok was left behind enemy lines to organize the communist underground and partisan movement.

From July 1941 to October 1943, he was the first secretary of the Lepel underground district party committee, at the same time, from March 1942, he was the commissioner of the underground “Dubova” brigade, and from July 1943, he was the commander of the Polotsk-Lepel partisan unit, which included 16 large brigades.

Under the leadership of V.E. Lobank and with his direct participation, many military operations were developed and carried out to defeat the Nazi garrisons, including in Pyshka, Kamena, Borovtsy, Umaty.

Here are some battle scenes.

The Polotsk region is engulfed in a terrible fire. Ushachi, Glubokoe, Dunilovichi and other villages were burning.

The German barbarians have already managed to hang and shoot hundreds and thousands of innocent people. It became known that a new punitive expedition had arrived at the Zyabki station with the task of exterminating the civilian population. The same expeditions arrived in the city of Glubokoe, the village of Bureki, etc.

In response to the atrocities of the Germans, people went into the forests, became fighters on the invisible front, took up arms, and entered into the fight against the invaders. Lobank's partisan detachment was already known for its military operations. It consisted of 30 people.

In the summer of 1942, V.E. Lobank’s detachment and other combat groups united into a partisan brigade, the commander of which was appointed one of the former directors of MTS, F.F. Dubrovsky, later a major general. Hero of the Soviet Union. V.E. Lobanok was appointed commissioner of the brigade.

The brigade began its first battle with enemies at the beginning of August 1942 on the Ushachi-Lepel highway near the village. Royal.

The highway was mined in several places. Ambush and observers are on the ground. The brave commissar Lobanok is among the partisans. He gives advice and guidance. A long column of German vehicles appeared on the roads, transporting ammunition and soldiers to the front line. Machine gun, machine gun and rifle fire rained down on the enemy. Gun salvoes struck. Several vehicles at the head of the column were immediately hit. The Germans jump out of their cars in panic, but death overtakes them everywhere. Twenty vehicles were missing from the enemy that day, and 69 Nazis fell at the hands of partisans.

Brave by nature and dashing, Commissar V.E. Lobanok loved to go on reconnaissance missions or lead a group of reconnaissance officers. One day it became known that a German garrison was located in the borough of Kublichi, the commandant of which the German authorities appointed officer Tsyms. It was known that this beast Tsyms mocked Soviet people and drank a lot. The partisans decided to act. The combat group for the raid was headed by V.E. Lobanok. The decision was made to carry out the operation “peacefully.” The partisans entered the town and occupied the indicated place. Lobanok was the first to burst into the commandant’s house and “politely” suggested laying down his arms and going to “visit” the partisans. Tsims went wide-eyed. Despite the fact that he was drunk, he tried to resist. But he was immediately disarmed. Together with 12 other prisoners from the commandant's office, Tsyms was taken to brigade headquarters.

Soon after this operation, Lobanok led a more complex operation to defeat the German garrison in Kamen.

The brigade was divided into three detachments. Under the cover of darkness, the partisans silently approached the German fortifications along the town of Sichnoye and all rushed to the attack. German pillboxes and bunkers flew up. One after another, the German barracks and communications rooms burst into flames. An explosion occurred not far from the garrison - bridges were blown up to cut off the road to the retreating Nazis.

The Germans rushed madly in panic, not having time to grab their weapons. The well-aimed fire of the partisans mowed them down, pinning them to the ground. There was no trace left of the garrison.

First in one place, then in another, the partisan brigade of Dubrovsky and Lobank inflicted significant blows on the invaders, attacked and destroyed the fascists.

The year was 1943. The partisan movement grew and expanded. Two brigades were created from one. Dubrovsky and V.E. Lobanok were appointed brigade commanders, and each acted independently.

Vladimir Lobanok led his heroes into heavy battles with the enemy. The Germans were defeated in Chashniki, the town of Kamen. The combat group of Lobanka partisans reached Lithuania itself, destroying the German occupiers along the way.

It was the spring of 1944. Colonel V.E. Lobanok is appointed commander of the partisan brigade formation in the Polotsk-Lepel zone. The Germans sent a 60,000-strong group of partisans, commanded by V.E. Lobanok, armed with 150 tanks, 235 guns, two armored trains, and 75 aircraft, to attack the partisan formation.

In just 26 days of continuous and heavy fighting, the partisans of the formation, consisting of 7,485 people, killed 8,298 German soldiers and officers and wounded 12,800. The glorious armor-piercing partisans knocked out 59 enemy tanks, 111 vehicles, 7 armored vehicles, 22 guns and 2 aircraft in these battles.

In all battles, Lobanok himself was not only the soul of this great struggle, but also a warrior and fighter; he personally destroyed 17 German soldiers and officers, 3 German trains, 5 vehicles, 11 bridges.

For the heroic feat shown during the performance of combat missions of the command in the fight against the Nazi invaders behind enemy lines, and for special merits in the development of the partisan movement in Belarus, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, by decree of September 16, 1943, awarded V.E. Lobank the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

After the expulsion of the occupiers from the Belarusian soil, V.E. Lobanok worked as a deputy for some time. head of the agricultural department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party (b), and in 1944-1946. - Chairman of the Polotsk Regional Council of Workers' Deputies.

In 1946, V.E. Lobanok was elected second secretary, and in June 1948 - first secretary of the Polesie regional party committee, from January 1954 - chairman of the Gomel regional executive committee, and from September 1956 - first secretary of the Vitebsk regional committee of the CPB.

From 1962 to 1965 V.E. Lobanok - first deputy. Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the BSSR, at the same time - Minister of Production and Procurement of Agricultural Products of the BSSR, and from April 1974 to November 1985 - Deputy Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the BSSR.

V.E. Lobanok - deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the second to eleventh convocations, member of the Central Audit Commission of the CPSU Central Committee, member of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, delegate to all congresses of the Communist Party of Belarus, starting with the 19th, member of the presidium and deputy. Chairman of the Soviet War Veterans Committee.

V.E. Lobanok was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of Friendship of Peoples, two Orders of the Red Banner of Battle, the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree, the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor, and twelve medals of the Soviet Union.

VLADIMIR LOBANOK: STROKES TO THE PORTRAIT

It seems that so much is already known about the Great Patriotic War, but people’s consciousness still does not leave the feeling of some kind of understatement about that dashing time of 1,418 years, like gunpowder days and nights lived in a dream. They want to fully understand why and how that unimaginably tightly twisted at the very beginning, multi-sacrifice, oversaturated with grief and heroism, honor and dishonor, valor and baseness, loyalty and betrayal, mortal battle, to the joy of peaceful earthlings, was crowned with the May Victory of 1945.
One of the organizers and leaders of the partisan movement in Belarus, Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Eliseevich Lobanok, also brought Victory closer as best he could. I, an ordinary fighter in a partisan unit under his command, want to add a few touches to the portrait of this wonderful man...

The briefing before being sent from Gomel behind enemy lines also clarified little. There were not even maps of the required scale, and using the old ones that were found, it was almost impossible to navigate the area.
It’s good that even before the German invasion they managed to select volunteers for underground work and hide something in Sosnyagovskaya Pushcha. The arrival of Lobank in Lepelshchyna as an authorized representative of the party and Soviet power inspired the participants in the local underground: he was already known from his first confident steps in the area.

It was extremely difficult to work; life often hung by a thread. Extreme tension in conditions of constant danger, moments of anxious sleep somewhere in the hayloft, in a haystack or on the bunks of a dugout in Sosnyagovskaya Pushcha, secret but such fruitful meetings with underground activists - these anxious everyday life were soon crowned with practical actions to defeat the volost councils, points for the procurement of food, and then the enemy’s military garrisons.

In the positions of group commander, detachment commander, commissar, and brigade commander, V.E. Lobanok was the soul of all patriotic endeavors. “He not only led partisan detachments,” his combat description testifies, “but also with a weapon in his hands, with grenades, with a “fishing rod” from a mine planted on a “piece of iron,” he carried fighters to heroic deeds by personal example.
There was not a single operation in which he did not take part. An ambush on the Lepel-Berezino highway (where Lobanok was wounded), the destruction of the Ivansk zemstvo economy, a major battle with Nazi robbers near the village of Zeleny Ostrov, the defeat of German garrisons, a campaign in Lithuania, diversionary actions during the punitive expedition of 1943 - this is not a complete list only his major operations.”

Nothing consumes a person more than war. And no school teaches as quickly as the school of war. Not much time has passed since the first armed actions of Lobank’s Lepel detachment, and his growth as a commander in this living movement towards the truth of life attracted attention immediately.
Generously gifted with the kindness of his soul, Vladimir Eliseevich was very attentive to people, never allowing himself to raise his voice to a subordinate, although sometimes the situation demanded it. A respectful attitude towards others, corrected only by a demanding gaze, combined with the unquestioning obligatory nature of commander’s orders, created that outwardly invisible fabric-atmosphere of stewardship and subordination, which is commonly called “iron discipline” and which was an indispensable means in a duel with a fierce and insidious enemy. Never forget the deep raid into Lithuania...

After the destruction of two landowners' estates, where Lobank's group acquired horse-drawn transport, they began to be mistaken for a military unit with a convoy. Fear has big eyes. Rumor outpaced the movement of the “red landing”; enemy garrisons scattered along the way. Moving forward, the partisans destroyed telephone and telegraph communications, burned the bridge over the Disna River, and destroyed a train with provisions and officer property. Near the Ignalina station, a freight train was blown up, and a train rushing from the opposite direction crashed into the cars blocking the tracks.
The indiscriminate shooting of the surviving occupiers only intensified the panic in their camp...

Moving further, the partisans defeated eight enemy garrisons, inflicted serious damage on the enemy in manpower and equipment, burned bridges, swept away township councils, creameries, and food warehouses. Having traveled more than 400 kilometers across Lithuania, repelling all punitive attacks, Lobank’s group returned to their camp near Lepel at the end of April 1943. In the raid, Lobanok showed himself to be a commander with brilliant military training, as if he had graduated not from an agricultural academy, but from the highest military academy. The growing activity of the partisans knocked down the arrogance of the occupiers from ceremonial marches “across Europe.” Something began to undermine, erode, little by little deform such a strategically important factor in war as time - the main element of maneuver. Something somewhere shifted, was done at the wrong time, causing confusion not only in the operational, but also in the strategic plans of the headquarters.

Mastery of time—one cannot dream of anything more in war. The strengthening of the punitive measures of the occupiers, who occupied up to 50 divisions on the Soviet-German front, also did not help. The countermeasures of the partisans, as a rule, nullified all punitive attacks.

Lobanok rose to the occasion here too. In May '43, during the punitive expedition "Cottbus", the Nazis managed to surround the partisans and civilians at the Domzheritsky and Palik lakes. A combined group of detachments under the command of Lobank broke through the encirclement, rescued all those blocked, and captured weapons and other trophies from the enemy. And word spread throughout the detachments and villages about “Volodya” (his underground nickname) as a “savior”.

In the conditions of the forested and swampy terrain of Belarus, the difficult task of organizing the organizational building of partisan forces was creatively solved. The most convenient – mobile, flexible – we had was a brigade of three to seven detachments. The brigade form corresponded to the territorial form - partisan regions and zones. This is 60 percent of the Belarusian land cleared of foreigners. People said: “The land is peasant, the forests are partisan, the highway is German, and the government is Soviet.”
And it turned out in total: the Belarusian Partisan Republic is a military form of Soviet power. It was personified and carried out by the main partisan commanders - commanders and commissars of brigades and detachments.

The protection of civilians was, as it were, a cross-cutting priority for the partisans at all stages of their actions. In the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone (3,245 sq. km of territory, 1,220 settlements, about 80 thousand inhabitants) at the end of forty-three, 16 brigades were stationed. By order of the TsShPD of November 28, 1943, they were brought into a formation headed by the authorized representative of the Central Committee of the CP(b)B and the BSPD, already then a Hero of the Soviet Union, Colonel V.E. Lobank. Under his leadership, life in villages and towns, including the regional center of Ushachi, began to boil. Despite the snowy winter, defensive structures and, for some reason, additional landing sites were built. All 3 power plants, 6 mills, 20 factories for the production of linseed oil, turpentine and tar, carpentry and cooperage enterprises worked under intense conditions. Telephone and radio communications worked clearly. Getting ready...

What they were preparing for - only one person, who had taken refuge in a snow-covered forest dugout near Ushachi, knew everything about it. Colonel Lobanok knew this...

Decisive battles were ahead for the complete liberation of Belarus...

We will never forget the invasion of the partisan zone by a 60,000-strong punitive group. The Lobank partisans had to fight incredibly difficult battles in April-May forty-four...

For the sake of saving civilians and diverting enemy forces from front-line affairs, they accepted a battle that was incredibly unequal in defense, with the only chance of making up for the inequality only with the entire accumulated rich arsenal of specific partisan means and actions, military skill and valor of patriots.
There were two words on everyone’s lips in those days: “Partisan Stalingrad.” Yes, in terms of the intensity of the almost month-long battles, the battle of Ushachi was very close to this, the reddest mark of the Great Patriotic War.

The brigade commanders A.F. Danukalov, P.M. Romanov, D.T. Korolenko, V.V. Gil-Rodionov, the first secretary of the Ushachi underground district committee, the commissar of the partisan brigade named after V.I. Chapaev I. died the death of the brave in those battles. F. Korenevsky. On the slabs of the mass grave of the “Breakthrough” memorial are the names of 1,450 who fell in battles with the Nazis. The main result of the battle was the salvation of the bulk of the population. Not only those 15 thousand who, together with the partisans, made the breakthrough on the night of May 4-5, but also those who had been saved from being taken into captivity even earlier, who, with the help of the partisans, managed to disperse during the fighting and secretly return to their villages. Although there were some casualties among them.

The military, operational and strategic significance of the duel near Ushachi lies in the fact that during a month of heaviest fighting, despite more than three times the numerical and other advantages of the punitive forces, the partisans, skillfully combining positional battles with specifically partisan methods and means, which the former chief of staff of the 3rd TA Otto Heidkämper in his memoirs will call “diabolical and formidable actions”, so exhausted the troops removed from the front that this significantly weakened their resistance during the soon-to-begin battle for Belarus in the zone between Vitebsk and Polotsk. Not to mention the serious direct losses of the Nazis in manpower: the partisans killed 8,300, wounded up to 12,000 soldiers and officers - the number of almost two divisions, destroyed a lot of equipment - tanks, artillery, vehicles, aircraft.

What kind of “Spring Festival” is this for the enemy, as the punitive expedition was called? As a participant in the battles with punitive forces in the spring of forty-four near Ushachi, seriously wounded and shell-shocked at the last lines of defense, I dare to say: without Lobank, without his endurance, patience, courage, resourcefulness, personal example, and finally, simply without his naked honesty, all this a heroic epic, like the amazingly daring and precise breakthrough itself, would have been simply impossible.
But he remained a very modest, seemingly not at all militant person “with a quiet voice and a shy smile” (M. Svetlov). Participants in the breakthrough later joked with pride and admiration: “Field Marshal Paulus would have surrendered.” As he particularly distinguished himself in battles with punitive forces, and at the same time showed brilliant qualities as a military leader, the commander of the formation, Colonel Lobanok, was deservedly awarded the highest military commander, essentially the general's Order of Suvorov, first degree. And that says it all. It is significant that one of the participants in the breakthrough near Ushachi, Mikhail Egorov, was destined, together with the Georgian Meliton Kantaria, to hoist the Victory Banner over the Reichstag.

Lobank’s personal friend, Hero of the Soviet Union, fighter pilot Alexei Maresyev, who already without legs, with prosthetics instead of them, shot down 7, and a total of 11, enemy aircraft, spoke with his heart in June seventy-four at the opening of the “Breakthrough” memorial complex near Ushachi: “I, When I come to Belarus, every time I feel that I am indebted to it... Apparently, under the influence of the surging impressions-memories “about fires, about fires, about friends and comrades,” Vladimir Eliseevich made the following entry in the notebook of a deputy of the Great Union Power: “You know when was I born? On the night of May 5, 1944, at 22:30. When we made a breakthrough.” Blessed is the person who, instead of a dash between two dates, has another significant milestone, equal to a second birth for the sake of Life and Happiness of people on Earth.

FROM MEMORIES Anatoly Semenovich KHONYAK, partisan of the Lepel brigade

– Lobank was loved more than Dubrovsky. Why?

- Certainly. He was highly educated, erudite, humane. Once they took the city of Glubokoye. Well, it didn't work out. Dubrovsky shouted: “What did you come here for?!” Bread for the g... remake! Take!" Lobanok took him away. Where possible, it is possible. Through force - it is impossible.

« OH, BIAROSES AND PINES…»

Agree, there is something significant in this symbolic coincidence. We will once again solemnly celebrate our most dear, bright holiday - Independence Day of the Republic of Belarus (Republic Day). And at the same time let us remember Vladimir Eliseevich, who has done so much for our country. a renowned organizer and leader of the partisan movement in Belarus, a major party and government figure, whose life became an example of high patriotism, perseverance and courage, deep devotion to his Motherland, his people.

I never saw my father

This essay contains some of the most important touches to the portrait of Vladimir Lobank. The author knew him well and was friends for almost 30 years. I still cherish the memories of our meetings and conversations. In the fate of Vladimir Eliseevich is the fate of many thousands of his peers, Belarusian boys, who suffered the most difficult trials. But there are very remarkable moments in his biography that, I think, are not known to the general public of Belarus.

Born in the village of Ostrov, Pukhovichi district. His father Elisey Nikolaevich in 1909 - Vladimir was only two years old - went to America to seek a better life and took an active part in the labor movement. After the war, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Belarus, Kuzma Kiselyov, found the unfortunate Belarusian in America and helped him return home. But not fate: he died suddenly the night before departure. The son never saw his father. By the way, after the war, when V. Lobanok worked as the first secretary of the Polesie regional party committee, the all-powerful Tsanava wanted to arrest him for... his father in America. But the brave partisan was reliably protected by the then equally strong P. Ponomarenko.

More interesting details. Immediately after graduating from the Belarusian Agricultural Academy in 1931, Vladimir Lobanok worked as an agronomist at the People's Commissariat of Agriculture of the BSSR. And since 1933, he was already an agronomist-economist of the authorized People's Commissariat of State Farms of the USSR for Belarus.

The most important period of his life, of course, was the partisan years. Vladimir Eliseevich always talked about them willingly and interestingly; such an inner need lived in him. One day he suggested to me:

Let's go to the Lepel and Polotsk regions. If time permits, we’ll take a detour to Ushachchina. Let's visit the places where I was a partisan. Thank God, many of my fighting friends still live there, and, in spite of everything, they are holding up well. You know, I am always very drawn to those lands...

...Then on the way we stopped in Khatyn. It was a magnificent July, smelling of honey, clear, light clouds floated in the high sky, the iridescent trills of carefree larks intertwined like living ligature into the ringing silence of a summer day.

We stopped at the bronze Joseph Kaminsky. They stood and were silent. The heavy blows of the bells of Khatyn resonated in the soul with deep sorrow and pain, they sounded sadly over the burned village, over the surrounding lush forests, over the entire earth as an eternal requiem for the dead defenseless women, children, and old people.

I didn’t ask Vladimir Eliseevich anything. He knew that he was now remembering those distant years, scorched by a distant war, partisan battles.

“And how many such Khatyns are there in the Vitebsk region,” he sighed heavily. - What wild atrocities the Nazis committed there. It’s as if now before our eyes there are burned villages, the corpses of innocent women and children, whom the fascist fanatics mocked so much. The partisans took revenge on them mercilessly.

Partisan commander

On that trip, during other meetings, Vladimir Eliseevich spoke in detail about the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone. She is a unique phenomenon in the partisan movement in Belarus. Its territory exceeded three thousand two hundred square kilometers. There were over a thousand settlements in the region, where up to one hundred thousand people lived. The length of the defense zone was 287 kilometers, including 25 kilometers along the bank of the Western Dvina.

At that time, the following song was still circulating among our partisans: “We are standing on the left bank, we will not let the enemy pass here,” recalled Vladimir Eliseevich. - And they didn’t give it. By the end of 1943, 16 partisan brigades were stationed here, numbering 17 thousand fighters.

Vladimir Lobanok first commanded a brigade, then a partisan unit in this zone. Recalled:

Let's not forget that all this happened under the noses of the Nazis. The Polotsk-Lepel zone was the near rear of the 3rd Tank Army, and we did not allow the enemy to live day or night. Sudden raids destroyed their garrisons, blew up bridges and warehouses, disabled important communications, and disrupted enemy transportation along railways and highways. Thus, the Nazis could not use the Lepel-Berezino-Parafyanovo highway and the Lepel-Orsha railway at all. In the fall of 1942, we liberated the regional center of Ushachi from the invaders, which turned into the capital of our vast partisan region.

Vladimir Eliseevich,” I asked, “what was required of you at that time, the commander of such a huge partisan formation?”

Firstly, I was personally responsible for everyone and everything. And not only for the partisans, but also for the civilian population. Secondly, we were all fully aware: we and only we in the current situation, deep behind enemy lines, can and must show the Nazis: they are not the masters here, but the partisans, the Soviet people. If we talk about courage, then it was truly massive and consisted in the fact that at this particular time the partisans showed perfect and complete readiness to assess the extent of the danger, a high moral readiness to withstand it.

Vladimir Eliseevich did not like to talk about himself. Although his military brothers-in-arms recalled that he directly participated in almost all the battles carried out by the forest soldiers of his formation. And he was always distinguished by his extraordinary personal bravery and courage. And he received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union in October 1943 - during the most fierce battles with the enemy. And what does the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree, mean to him, a Belarusian partisan? What about other military awards?

It was a personality

Vladimir Lobanok held high and responsible positions in our republic for several decades in a row. Elizaveta Chagina, who worked as secretary of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the BSSR, recalls:

Immediately, in 1975, Vladimir Eliseevich was elected deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of our republic, he showed himself to be an experienced statesman, a real personality. His role in the development of territorial public administration in Belarus is great. In 1977 alone, 70 thousand gatherings and meetings of citizens took place in the republic, attended by five and a half million people. Vladimir Eliseevich was keenly interested in the thoughts expressed and used them in his work. In all his affairs, he put the interests of the people and their well-being above all else. He knew well, firsthand, about the needs and problems of people, and with extensive experience working in the thick of the population, he made many valuable proposals on legislation, the style of work of our parliament and deputies.

Elizaveta Petrovna, what most distinguished him as a statesman?

Accessibility, humanity, simplicity, modesty. I don't remember the deputy chairman's office being empty. Always people - deputies, partisans, ordinary citizens. Vladimir Eliseevich loved them. Moreover, he was a man of the highest culture. In ten years of working together, I don’t remember him raising his voice or communicating tactlessly with his subordinates. And he was always very objective in assessing officials and specific events.

Not only for me, but also for all the deputies of that time, employees of the apparatus of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the BSSR, Vladimir Eliseevich remained in memory as an image worthy of imitation. Until the last day he was in service, serving his native Belarus, which he loved so dearly.

Well, it is not without reason that it is said that modesty is the main condition of moral beauty. And the best pedigree is the services rendered to the Motherland and humanity. Patriotism cannot be separated from a person’s high personal morality, from his best spiritual qualities.

He did good without getting tired

...We are sitting in our editorial office with Elena Lobanok, the youngest daughter of Vladimir Eliseevich. I ask her to tell me at least a little about what kind of father he was, a family man, how he treated his children.

He was always distinguished by exceptional kindness, he did it to people, and never got tired. We children never heard bad words from him. He loved us very much, and even more - his grandchildren. There are three of them. My two sons and the son of my older sister Nelya, who lives in Moscow. And we, his daughters, respected and loved our father and grew up obedient. We entered college and received higher education.

My father was always extremely busy, with frequent business trips even on weekends. He was interested in fishing and hunting, but he was attracted not by prey, but by the opportunity to observe nature. And further. Wherever we lived, my father always planted trees and raised flowers.

I will say: the author of these lines also felt the amazing kindness of Vladimir Eliseevich. When I was in the hospital for a long time and took a lot of antibiotics, he gave me several cans of natural blueberry juice. He advised: “Drink a glass a day - and everything will be fine.”

Were you pleased with your sons-in-law?

Yes, especially Nelya’s husband, the famous test pilot Valentin Mukhin. He traveled all over the world. He successfully tested our vertical take-off aircraft, for which he was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. So it turned out that there were two heroes in our families. And my husband Valery Gurin is a professor, academician of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus, member of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences. Our mother, Maria Nikolaevna, studied with her father at the agricultural academy. We got married and lived very friendly, in love and harmony.

I know that Vladimir Eliseevich loved the famous “Forest Song”.

Yes. Not only did I listen to it with pleasure every time, but I also sang along. And he was always worried, we saw that even tears appeared in his eyes.

This song is part of the life of the legendary partisan leader. Let's listen: “Oh, birch trees and pines - partisan sisters // Oh, you noisy, young forest!

How could he not worry...

CHAVALIER OF THE ORDER OF SUVOROV

The Military Order of Suvorov was awarded to marshals and generals - commanders of fronts and armies, representatives of the high military command and the General Staff. In total, over 390 people were awarded the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree, during the war years. Few people know that among them was the famous partisan commander - Hero of the Soviet Union Vladimir Eliseevich Lobanok. In the history of the partisan movement on Belarusian soil, this is the only case where a partisan commander was awarded a high military order.

In the history of partisan wars, there was, perhaps, no such stubborn and bloody battle as the one that unfolded in the spring of 1944 on a large territory of the Polotsk-Lepel zone. This happened on the eve of Operation Bagration.
According to the testimony of the former chief of staff of the 3rd German Tank Army, Otto Heidkämper, the German command set the task of pushing back, encircling and destroying partisan formations to liberate the territory they occupied. In the period from April 11 to April 17, with Operation Regenschauer (“Rain”), the Nazis intended to push the partisans back to the western part of the zone. After this, in an operation codenamed “Frühlingsfest” (“Spring Festival”), the troops not brought into action until further notice, including von Gottberg’s group, were to complete their encirclement.
The operation was carried out by large enemy forces. The German command brought here 12 SS and police regiments, three infantry, security and reserve divisions, as well as many other units and units of their troops. In total, about 60 thousand soldiers and officers, 137 tanks, 235 guns, 70 aircraft, and two armored trains took part in the hostilities against the partisans of the Polotsk-Lepel zone. The punitive operation was led by the commander of the 3rd Panzer Army, Colonel General Hans Reinhardt, and the General Commissioner of “Belarus,” SS Gruppenführer and Police Lieutenant General Kurt von Gottberg.
The enemy had multiple superiority in forces. In the zone there were only 17,485 partisans, 21 guns, 143 mortars, 723 machine guns, 1,544 machine guns and 9,344 rifles.
The Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement urgently created its own operational group to coordinate the combat operations of the partisan brigades in repelling the enemy offensive. This group was assigned to be led by the commander of the Lepel partisan brigade, Colonel Vladimir Lobank, who was appointed commander of all partisan forces in the Polotsk-Lepel zone.
By order of the operational group, the partisans built defensive positions with a system of trenches, minefields, and bunkers with a total length of more than 287 kilometers. To make it difficult for the enemy to use military equipment, all the bridges on the rivers were blown up, the roads were dug up and mined, rubble was placed on the bypass routes and gouges were installed. The bloody battles of the partisans of the Polotsk-Lepel zone against superior punitive forces lasted 25 days.
The punitive forces went ahead. On April 11, in nine hours of fighting, the Lenin Brigade repelled four fierce attacks by enemy infantry and tanks.
Then the punitive forces became noticeably more active in the south of the partisan zone, where the Lepel brigade under the command of V.E. Lobank and the “Aleksey” brigade (commander A.F. Danukalov) were defending.

On April 21, units of the 95th Infantry and 6th Field Division attacked the Lepel partisan (or as it was called “Lobankovsky”) brigade. The battle immediately took on an extremely difficult character for the partisans. Already during the first day, the enemy pushed them several kilometers into the interior of the zone. True, this advance cost the punitive forces heavy losses. Machine gunner K. Ponizovsky destroyed twenty-five enemy soldiers and officers in just one battle near the village of Staroye Selo.
Heavy fighting took place almost along the entire border of the partisan zone. The 60,000-strong punitive army, supported by artillery, aviation and tanks, was squeezing the ring ever closer. By April 30, the area in which thousands of partisans held a perimeter defense had been reduced to eight square kilometers.
On the morning of April 28, 1944, the BSPD received a radiogram from V.E. Lobank. He asked for permission to break through the encirclement in a northeastern direction with access to the Western Dvina.
From the memoirs of the chief of the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement P.Z. Kalinin, it is clear that on the evening of April 29, Vladimir Eliseevich Lobank was sent a radiogram: to prepare to break through the enemy ring in order to withdraw the personnel of the partisan group and the population to the northern regions of the Minsk region. But the situation made changes to the planned plan. The breakthrough began on May 3. On the night of May 4, the brigades named after Ponomarenko and named after Danukalov emerged from the breakthrough with heavy fighting, and on the night of May 5, all the remaining forces of the partisans of the Polotsk-Lepel zone. With them, more than 15 thousand civilians escaped from encirclement and went into the forests southwest of the town of Ushachi.
Thus, Operation Spring Festival did not live up to the hopes of the German command. The Nazis, having lost 8,300 people killed and about 12,900 people wounded, a lot of different military equipment (59 tanks, 7 armored vehicles, 166 vehicles, 22 guns, 2 aircraft) did not achieve their intended goals.
In honor of the legendary feat of the partisans of the Polotsk-Lepel zone, who broke through the enemy blockade in April-May 1944, the “Breakthrough” memorial complex was erected in 1974 on the site of former battles, seven kilometers from the urban village of Ushachi, between the villages of Dvor, Plino and Paperno. .
We talked about only one operation under the command of Vladimir Lobank, for which he was awarded the Order of Suvorov, 1st degree. And the partisan commander became a Hero of the Soviet Union earlier - on September 16, 1943. In fact, his combat biography began already in the first days of the war.
Researchers V.D. Selemenev and V.V. Skalaban discovered in the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus a folder with documents about the events in Mozyr at the end of 1952 - beginning of 1953, which reveals how they wanted to make the partisan hero Vladimir Lobank an “enemy of the people.”
In August 1941 - June 1944, V.E. Lobanok was the first secretary of the Lepel underground district party committee. At the same time, from March 1942, he commanded partisan detachment No. 68, and from August he was commissar of the Chashniksky partisan brigade “Dubova”. Since June 1944, Vladimir Eliseevich was in responsible party and Soviet work.

At that time V.E. Lobanok was the first secretary of the Polesie regional party committee. A letter was sent to the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus, N.S. Patolichev, from the head of the Party Cabinet of the Polesie Regional Directorate of the Ministry of State Security, F.S. Novoseltseva. It said: “...A large group of Zionist criminals is operating in the Polesie region, whose goal is to assist the United States of America in organizing the mass extermination of people during the war...”
Novoseltsev further wrote that at the head of the Polesie “rebellion” was the Hero of the Soviet Union, the first secretary of the Polesie regional committee of the CPB V.E. Lobanok. And all because Vladimir Eliseevich’s father lived in the USA (he went overseas, apparently, even before the revolution - E.I.). In addition, the first secretary of the regional committee was accused of “surrounding himself with sycophants, mediocre people.”

In 1956-1962, Vladimir Eliseevich worked as the first secretary of the Vitebsk regional party committee. Since 1962, Lobanok served as first deputy chairman of the Council of Ministers of the BSSR, and since 1974 - deputy chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Belarusian SSR. In addition to the Order of Suvorov, he was awarded three Orders of Lenin, the Order of the October Revolution, the Order of the Red Banner, the Order of the Patriotic War 1st degree, and three Orders of the Red Banner of Labor.
A special commission of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus found out that behind Novoseltsev was the “gray cardinal” Ivan Lugovtsov, the former propaganda secretary of the Polesie regional party committee, director of the Vitebsk Pedagogical Institute, who dreamed of taking revenge on Lobank.
At a meeting of the Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPB, the absurdity of the accusations against V.E. became clear. Lobanka. In the resolution of the Central Committee, the facts reported by Novoseltsev were recognized as “presented in a distorted form or simply fictitious.”

V.E.LOBANOK. The partisans take the fight

The book by Hero of the Soviet Union V. E. Lobank “Partisans Take the Fight,” first published by a publishing house of political literature in 1972, is dedicated to one of the major battles of the people's avengers of Belarus with the Nazi invaders during the Great Patriotic War. For six months (from December 1943 to May 1944), the front-line Vitebsk group of partisans in the Polotsk-Ushachi-Lepel region attracted several enemy divisions from the reserve of Army Group Center. The story of the heroic struggle of the partisans of the Vitebsk region against the punitive forces is the basis of the book. Using extensive documentary material and his personal impressions, the author - head of the operational group of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belarus and the Belarusian headquarters of the partisan movement in the Polotsk-Lepel zone and a direct participant in the events described - talks about the main combat operations of the partisans, about the heroes of the battles. The author has supplemented this edition with new materials and made a number of corrections.

V.E.LOBANOK. In battles for the homeland

The book tells about the partisan movement in the Vitebsk region during the Great Patriotic War: about its causes, the main actions of the partisans, portraits of the most prominent and famous leaders of the national struggle against the Nazi invaders are given (K.S. Zaslonov, M.F. Shmyrev, etc. .)