The first woman Hero of the Soviet Union, the 18-year-old partisan who cried 'Stalin will come!' from the gallows
With the noose around her neck, Zoya called out: 'Farewell, comrades! Fight, do not be afraid! Stalin is with us! Stalin will come!'
One of the most iconic war heroes of the Soviet Union. In October 1941, while still a high-school student, she volunteered for the front and was assigned to Unit 9903, a reconnaissance and sabotage detachment of the Western Front staff, where she mined roads and cut German communication lines. On 27 November she set fire to three houses used by German troops in Petrishchevo; captured the next day, she endured brutal torture and gave up no information, and was hanged on 29 November 1941. After Pravda journalist Pyotr Lidov uncovered her story, Stalin called her 'the people's heroine,' and in February 1942 she became the first woman awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union.
Career Timeline
- 1938Joined the Komsomol
- 1941.10Volunteered for the front; assigned to reconnaissance-sabotage Unit 9903, Western Front staff
- 1941.11.4–17Mined roads and cut communication lines in the Volokolamsk sector
- 1941.11.27Set fire to three houses used by German troops in Petrishchevo
- 1941.11.28–29Captured, tortured, and hanged — gave her name only as 'Tanya' and revealed nothing
- 1942.2.16Awarded Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously — the first woman so honoured