One of the mythologized pages of the history of the USSR, which, unfortunately, is still perceived by many even now, but which has always been true. In mid-February 1943, after the liberation of Donetsk Krasnodon by Soviet troops, several dozen corpses of teenagers tortured by the Nazis, who were members of the underground organization “Young Guard” during the occupation, were extracted from the pit of the N5 mine located near the city...
Near an abandoned mine, most members of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard,” which fought against the Nazis in the small Ukrainian town of Krasnodon in 1942, lost their lives. It turned out to be the first underground youth organization about which it was possible to collect fairly detailed information. The Young Guards were then called heroes (they were heroes) who gave their lives for their Motherland. A little over twenty years ago, everyone knew about the Young Guard.
The novel of the same name by Alexander Fadeev was studied in schools; while watching Sergei Gerasimov's film, people could not hold back their tears; motor ships, streets, hundreds of educational institutions and pioneer detachments. What were they like, these young men and women who called themselves Young Guards?
The Krasnodon Komsomol youth underground included seventy-one people: forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls. The youngest was fourteen years old, and fifty-five of them never turned nineteen. The most ordinary guys, no different from the same boys and girls of our country, the guys made friends and quarreled, studied and fell in love, ran to dances and chased pigeons. They participated in school clubs and sports clubs, played stringed musical instruments, wrote poetry, and many drew well.
We studied in different ways - some were excellent students, while others had difficulty mastering the granite of science. There were also a lot of tomboys. Dreamed about the future adult life. They wanted to become pilots, engineers, lawyers, some were going to go to a theater school, and others to a pedagogical institute.

The “Young Guard” was as multinational as the population of these southern regions of the USSR. Russians, Ukrainians (there were also Cossacks among them), Armenians, Belarusians, Jews, Azerbaijanis and Moldovans, ready to come to each other’s aid at any moment, fought the fascists.
The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942. And almost immediately the first leaflets appeared in the city, a new bathhouse began to burn, already ready for German barracks. It was Seryozhka Tyulenin who began to act. One.
On August 12, 1942 he turned seventeen. Sergei wrote leaflets on pieces of old newspapers, and the police often found them in their pockets. He began to collect weapons, not even doubting that they would definitely come in handy. And he was the first to attract a group of guys ready to fight. At first it consisted of eight people. However, by the first days of September, several groups were already operating in Krasnodon, not connected with one another - in total there were 25 people in them.
The birthday of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was September 30: then a plan for creating a detachment was adopted, specific actions for underground work were planned, and a headquarters was created. It included Ivan Zemnukhov, the chief of staff, Vasily Levashov, the commander of the central group, Georgy Arutyunyants and Sergei Tyulenin, members of the headquarters.
Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissioner. The guys unanimously supported Tyulenin’s proposal to name the detachment “Young Guard”. And at the beginning of October, all the scattered underground groups were united into one organization. Later, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Oleg Koshevoy and Ivan Turkenich joined the headquarters.
Now you can often hear that the Young Guards did nothing special. Well, they posted leaflets, collected weapons, burned and contaminated grain intended for the occupiers. Well, they hung several flags on the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, burned the Labor Exchange, and rescued several dozen prisoners of war. Other underground organizations have existed longer and done more!

And do these would-be critics understand that everything, literally everything, these boys and girls did was on the brink of life and death. Is it easy to walk down the street when warnings are posted on almost every house and fence that failure to surrender weapons will result in execution? And at the bottom of the bag, under the potatoes, there are two grenades, and you need to independent view walk past several dozen police officers, and anyone can stop... By the beginning of December, the Young Guard already had 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand cartridges, 10 pistols, 65 kilograms of explosives and several hundred meters of fuse in their warehouse.
Isn’t it scary to sneak past a German patrol at night, knowing that you will be shot if you appear on the street after six in the evening? But most of the work was done at night. At night they burned the German Labor Exchange - and two and a half thousand Krasnodon residents were spared from German hard labor. On the night of November 7, the Young Guards hung out red flags - and the next morning, when they saw them, people experienced great joy: “They remember us, we are not forgotten by ours!” At night, prisoners of war were released, telephone wires were cut, German vehicles were attacked, a herd of 500 head of cattle was recaptured from the Nazis and dispersed to nearby farms and villages.
Even leaflets were posted mainly at night, although it happened that they had to do this during the day. At first, leaflets were written by hand, then they began to be printed in their own organized printing house. In total, the Young Guards issued about 30 separate leaflets with a total circulation of almost five thousand copies - from them Krasnodon residents learned the latest reports from the Sovinformburo.

In December, the first disagreements appeared at the headquarters, which later became the basis of the legend that still lives and according to which Oleg Koshevoy is considered the commissar of the Young Guard.
What happened? Koshevoy began to insist that from all the underground fighters a detachment of 15-20 people be selected, capable of operating separately from the main detachment. This is where Kosheva was supposed to become commissar. The guys did not support this proposal. And yet, after the next admission of a group of youth to the Komsomol, Oleg took temporary Komsomol tickets from Vanya Zemnukhov, but did not give them, as always, to Viktor Tretyakevich, but issued them to the newly admitted ones himself, signing: “Commissar of the partisan detachment “Hammer” Kashuk.”
On January 1, 1943, three Young Guard members were arrested: Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Ivan Zemnukhov - the fascists found themselves in the very heart of the organization. On the same day, the remaining members of the headquarters urgently gathered and made a decision: all Young Guards should immediately leave the city, and the leaders should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were notified of the headquarters’ decision through liaison officers. One of them, who was a member of the group in the village of Pervomaika, Gennady Pocheptsov, upon learning about the arrests, chickened out and wrote a statement to the police about the existence of an underground organization.

The entire punitive apparatus came into motion. Mass arrests began. But why did most of the Young Guards not follow the orders of headquarters? After all, this first disobedience, and therefore the violation of the oath, cost almost all of them their lives! Probably, the lack of life experience had an effect.
At first, the guys did not realize that a catastrophe had happened and their leading three would no longer get out of prison. Many could not decide for themselves: whether to leave the city, whether to help those arrested, or voluntarily share their fate. They did not understand that the headquarters had already considered all the options and took the only correct one. But the majority did not fulfill it. Almost everyone was afraid for their parents.
Only twelve Young Guards managed to escape in those days. But later, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless arrested. The city's four police cells were packed to capacity. All the boys were terribly tortured. The office of the police chief Solikovsky looked more like a slaughterhouse - it was so spattered with blood. So that the screams of the tortured would not be heard in the yard, the monsters started up a gramophone and turned it on at full volume.
Underground workers were hung by the neck from window frame, simulating execution by hanging, and by the legs, to the ceiling hook. And they beat, beat, beat - with sticks and wire whips with nuts at the end. Girls were hanged by their braids, and their hair could not stand it and broke off. The Young Guards had their fingers crushed by the door, shoe needles were driven under their fingernails, they were placed on a hot stove, and stars were cut out on their chests and backs. Their bones were broken, their eyes were knocked out and burned out, their arms and legs were cut off...

The executioners, having learned from Pocheptsov that Tretyakevich was one of the leaders of the Young Guard, decided to force him to speak at any cost, believing that then it would be easier to deal with the others. He was tortured with extreme cruelty and was mutilated beyond recognition. But Victor was silent. Then a rumor was spread among those arrested and in the city: Tretyakevich had betrayed everyone. But Victor’s comrades did not believe it.
On the cold winter night of January 15, 1943, the first group of Young Guards, among them Tretyakevich, was taken to the destroyed mine for execution. When they were placed on the edge of the pit, Victor grabbed the deputy chief of police by the neck and tried to drag him along with him to a depth of 50 meters. The frightened executioner turned pale with fear and hardly resisted, and only a gendarme who arrived in time and hit Tretyakevich on the head with a pistol saved the policeman from death.
On January 16, the second group of underground fighters was shot, and on the 31st, the third. One of this group managed to escape from the execution site. It was Anatoly Kovalev, who later went missing.
Four remained in prison. They were taken to the city of Rovenki, Krasnodon region, and shot on February 9, along with Oleg Koshev, who was there.

Soviet troops entered Krasnodon on February 14. The day of February 17 became mournful, full of crying and lamentations. From the deep, dark pit, the bodies of tortured young men and women were taken out in buckets. It was difficult to recognize them; some of the children were identified by their parents only by their clothes.
A wooden obelisk was placed on the mass grave with the names of the victims and the words:
And drops of your hot blood,
Like sparks, they will flash in the darkness of life
And many brave hearts will be lit!
The name of Viktor Tretyakevich was not on the obelisk! And his mother, Anna Iosifovna, never took off her black dress again and tried to go to the grave later so as not to meet anyone there. She, of course, did not believe in her son’s betrayal, just as most of her fellow countrymen did not believe, but the conclusions of the commission of the Komsomol Central Committee under the leadership of Toritsin and Fadeev’s artistically remarkable novel that was subsequently published had an impact on the minds and hearts of millions of people. One can only regret that in respecting historical truth, Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” did not turn out to be just as wonderful.
The investigative authorities also accepted the version of Tretyakevich’s betrayal, and even when the true traitor Pocheptsov, who was subsequently arrested, confessed to everything, the charge against Victor was not dropped. And since, according to the party leaders, a traitor cannot be a commissar, Oleg Koshevoy, whose signature was on the December Komsomol tickets - “Commissar of the partisan detachment “Hammer” Kashuk”, was elevated to this rank.
After 16 years, they managed to arrest one of the most ferocious executioners who tortured the Young Guard, Vasily Podtynny. During the investigation, he stated: Tretyakevich was slandered, but despite severe torture and beatings, he did not betray anyone.
So, almost 17 years later, the truth triumphed. By decree of December 13, 1960, the Presidium Supreme Council The USSR rehabilitated Viktor Tretyakevich and awarded him the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (posthumously). His name began to be included in all official documents along with the names of other heroes of the Young Guard.

Anna Iosifovna, Victor’s mother, who never took off her black mourning clothes, stood in front of the presidium of the ceremonial meeting in Voroshilovgrad when she was presented with her son’s posthumous award.
The crowded hall stood and applauded her, but it seemed that she was no longer happy with what was happening. Perhaps because the mother always knew: her son was an honest person... Anna Iosifovna turned to the comrade who was rewarding her with only one request: not to show the film “The Young Guard” in the city these days.
So, the mark of a traitor was removed from Viktor Tretyakevich, but he was never restored to the rank of commissar and the title of Hero Soviet Union, which was awarded to the other dead members of the Young Guard headquarters, was not awarded.
Concluding this short story about the heroic and tragic days of the Krasnodon residents, I would like to say that the heroism and tragedy of the “Young Guard” are probably still far from being revealed. But this is our history, and we have no right to forget it.

Crimea, Feodosia, August 1940. Happy young girls. The most beautiful, with dark braids, is Anya Sopova.
On January 31, 1943, after severe torture, Anya was thrown into the pit of mine No. 5. She was buried in the mass grave of heroes in the central square of the city of Krasnodon.
...now "Young Guard" is on television. I remember how we loved this picture as children! They dreamed of being like the brave Krasnodon residents... they swore to avenge their death. What can I say, the tragic and beautiful story of the Young Guards shocked the whole world, and not just the fragile minds of children.
The film became the box office leader in 1948, and the leading actors, unknown students of VGIK, immediately received the title of Stalin Prize Laureate - an exceptional case. “Woke up famous” is about them.
Ivanov, Mordyukova, Makarova, Gurzo, Shagalova - letters from all over the world came to them in bags.
Gerasimov, of course, felt sorry for the audience. Fadeev - readers.
Neither paper nor film could convey what really happened that winter in Krasnodon.

Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old
"...a five-pointed star is carved on the back, right hand broken, broken ribs" (KGB Archives of the USSR Council of Ministers).

Lida Androsova, 18 years old
“...extracted without an eye, an ear, a hand, with a rope around the neck, which cut heavily into the body. The baked blood is visible on the neck” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 16).

Anya Sopova, 18 years old
“They beat her, hung her by her braids... They lifted Anya out of the pit with one braid - the other broke off.”

Shura Bondareva, 20 years old
"...extracted without the head and right breast, the whole body was beaten, bruised, and black in color."

Lyuba Shevtsova, 18 years old (pictured first on the left in the second row)

Lyuba Shevtsova, 18 years old
On February 9, 1943, after a month of torture, she was shot in the Thunderous Forest near the city along with Oleg Koshev, S. Ostapenko, D. Ogurtsov and V. Subbotin.

Angelina Samoshina, 18 years old.
“Traces of torture were found on Angelina’s body: her arms were twisted, her ears were cut off, a star was carved on her cheek” (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331)

Shura Dubrovina, 23 years old
“Two images appear before my eyes: the cheerful young Komsomol member Shura Dubrovina and the mutilated body raised from the mine. I saw her corpse only with the lower jaw. Her friend Maya Peglivanova was lying in a coffin without eyes, without lips, with her arms twisted... "

Maya Peglivanova, 17 years old
"Maya's corpse was disfigured: her breasts were cut off, her legs were broken. All outer clothing was removed." (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331) She was lying in the coffin without lips, with her arms twisted.”

Tonya Ivanikhina, 19 years old
"... taken out without eyes, head bandaged with a scarf and wire, breasts cut out."

Serezha Tyulenin, 17 years old
“On January 27, 1943, Sergei was arrested. Soon his father and mother were taken away, all his belongings were confiscated. The police severely tortured Sergei in the presence of his mother, they confronted him with a member of the Young Guard, Viktor Lukyancheiko, but they did not recognize each other.
On January 31, Sergei was tortured for the last time, and then, half-dead, he and other comrades were taken to the pit of mine No. 5..."

Funeral of Sergei Tyulenin

Nina Minaeva, 18 years old
“...My sister was recognized by her woolen gaiters - the only clothes that remained on her. Nina’s arms were broken, one eye was knocked out, there were shapeless wounds on her chest, her whole body was covered in black stripes...”

Tosya Eliseenko, 22 years old
“Tosia’s corpse was disfigured, tortured, and she was put on a hot stove.”

Victor Tretyakevich, 18 years old
"...Among the last, they raised Viktor Tretyakevich. His father, Joseph Kuzmich, in a thin patched coat, stood day after day, clutching a pole, not taking his eyes off the pit. And when they recognized his son, he was faceless, with a black face. blue back, with shattered arms - he fell to the ground, as if knocked down. No traces of bullets were found on Victor's body - which means they threw him out alive..."

Oleg Koshevoy, 16 years old
When arrests began in January 1943, he attempted to cross the front line. However, he is forced to return to the city. Near the railway Kortushino station was captured by the Nazis and sent first to the police and then to the district Gestapo office in Rovenki. After terrible torture, together with L.G. Shevtsova, S.M. Ostapenko, D.U. Ogurtsov and V.F. Subbotin, on February 9, 1943, he was shot in the Thunderous Forest near the city.

Boris Glavan, 22 years old
“He was pulled out of the pit, tied up with Evgeniy Shepelev with barbed wire face to face, his hands were cut off. His face was mutilated, his stomach was ripped open.”

Evgeny Shepelev, 19 years old
"...Evgeniy's hands were cut off, his stomach was torn out, his head was broken...." (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331)

Volodya Zhdanov, 17 years old
“He was taken out with a laceration in the left temporal region, his fingers were broken and twisted, there were bruises under the nails, two strips three centimeters wide and twenty-five centimeters long were cut out on his back, his eyes were gouged out and his ears were cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d .36)

Klava Kovaleva, 17 years old
“... was pulled out swollen, the right breast was cut off, the feet were burned, the left hand was cut off, the head was tied with a scarf, traces of beatings were visible on the body. Found ten meters from the trunk, between the trolleys, it was probably thrown alive” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 10)

Evgeniy Moshkov, 22 years old (pictured left)
"... Young Guard communist Yevgeny Moshkov, choosing the right moment during interrogation, hit the policeman. Then the fascist animals hung Moshkov by his legs and kept him in that position until blood gushed from his nose and throat. They took him down and "They began to interrogate again. But Moshkov only spat in the executioner's face. The enraged investigator who was torturing Moshkov hit him with a backhand blow. Exhausted by the torture, the communist hero fell, hitting the back of his head on the door frame and died."

Volodya Osmukhin, 18 years old
“When I saw Vovochka, mutilated, almost headless, without his left arm up to the elbow, I thought I was going crazy. I didn’t believe it was him. He was wearing only one sock, and the other leg was completely bare. Instead of a belt, he was wearing a scarf warm. No outer clothing. Hungry animals took them off.
The head is broken. The back of the head had completely fallen out, only the face remained, on which only Volodin’s teeth remained. Everything else is mutilated. The lips are distorted, the nose is almost completely gone. My grandmother and I washed Vovochka, dressed her, and decorated her with flowers. A wreath was nailed to the coffin. Let the road lie peacefully."

Parents of Ulyana Gromova

Uli's last letter

Funeral of the Young Guards, 1943

In 1993, a press conference of a special commission to study the history of the Young Guard was held in Lugansk. As Izvestia wrote then (05/12/1993), after two years of work, the commission gave its assessment of the versions that had excited the public for almost half a century. The researchers' conclusions boiled down to several fundamental points.
In July-August 1942, after the Nazis captured the Luhansk region, many underground youth groups spontaneously arose in the mining town of Krasnodon and its surrounding villages. They, according to the recollections of contemporaries, were called “Star”, “Sickle”, “Hammer”, etc. However, there is no need to talk about any party leadership of them. In October 1942, Viktor Tretyakevich united them into the “Young Guard”.
It was he, and not Oleg Koshevoy, according to the commission’s findings, who became the commissioner of the underground organization. There were almost twice as many “Young Guard” participants as was later recognized by the competent authorities. The guys fought like a guerrilla, taking risks, suffering heavy losses, and this, as was noted at the press conference, ultimately led to the failure of the organization.
“….Blessed memory to these girls and boys… who were infinite times stronger… all of us, millions of us, combined...”

In Soviet times, ships and schools were named in honor of these boys and girls, monuments were erected to them, books, songs and films were dedicated to their feat. Their actions were cited as an example of the mass heroism of Komsomol youth in the Great Patriotic War.

Then, in the wake of the post-reform boom of “glasnost,” many people surfaced who wanted to “reconsider” the services of young heroes to the fatherland. Active myth-making has done its job: today the word “Young Guards” is used by quite a few modern people associated, rather, with the youth wing of the popular political party, rather than with the dead Komsomol members of the Great Patriotic War. And in the homeland of heroes, in general, part of the population raises the names of their executioners on the flag...

Meanwhile, every honest person should know the true story of the feat and the true tragedy of the death of the “Young Guards”.

School amateur club. In a Cossack costume - Seryozha Tyulenin, a future underground worker.

“Young Guard” is an underground anti-fascist Komsomol organization that operated during the Great Patriotic War from September 1942 to January 1943 in the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region of the Ukrainian SSR. The organization was created shortly after the occupation of the city of Krasnodon by Nazi Germany, which began on July 20, 1942.

The first underground youth groups to fight the fascist invasion arose in Krasnodon immediately after its occupation by German troops in July 1942. The core of one of them consisted of soldiers of the Red Army, who, by the will of military fate, found themselves surrounded in the rear of the Germans, such as soldiers Evgeny Moshkov, Ivan Turkenich, Vasily Gukov, sailors Dmitry Ogurtsov, Nikolai Zhukov, Vasily Tkachev.

At the end of September 1942, underground youth groups united into a single organization “Young Guard”, the name of which was proposed by Sergei Tyulenin.

Ivan Turkenich was appointed commander of the organization. The members of the headquarters were Georgy Arutyunyants - responsible for information, Ivan Zemnukhov - chief of staff, Oleg Koshevoy - responsible for conspiracy and security, Vasily Levashov - commander of the central group, Sergei Tyulenin - commander of the combat group. Later, Ulyana Gromova and Lyubov Shevtsova were brought into the headquarters. The overwhelming majority of the Young Guard members were Komsomol members; temporary Komsomol certificates for them were printed in the organization’s underground printing house along with leaflets.

Younger guys aged 14-17 were messengers and scouts. The Krasnodon Komsomol youth underground included about 100 people, more than 70 were very active. According to the lists of underground fighters and partisans arrested by the Germans, the organization includes forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls. The youngest of the prisoners was fourteen years old, and fifty-five of them never turned nineteen...

Lyuba Shevtsova with friends (pictured first on the left in the second row)

The most ordinary guys, no different from the same boys and girls of our country, the guys made friends and quarreled, studied and fell in love, ran to dances and chased pigeons. They participated in school clubs and sports clubs, played stringed musical instruments, wrote poetry, and many drew well. We studied in different ways - some were excellent students, while others had difficulty mastering the granite of science. There were also a lot of tomboys. We dreamed about our future adult life. They wanted to become pilots, engineers, lawyers, some were going to go to a theater school, and others to a pedagogical institute...

The “Young Guard” was as multinational as the population of these southern regions of the USSR. Russians, Ukrainians (there were also Cossacks among them), Armenians, Belarusians, Jews, Azerbaijanis and Moldovans, ready to come to each other’s aid at any moment, fought the fascists.

The Germans occupied Krasnodon on July 20, 1942. And almost immediately the first leaflets appeared in the city, a new bathhouse began to burn, already ready for German barracks. It was Seryozha Tyulenin who began to act. There is still only one...
On August 12, 1942 he turned seventeen. Sergei wrote leaflets on pieces of old newspapers, and the police often found them even in their pockets. He began to slowly steal weapons from the policemen, without even doubting that they would definitely come in handy. And he was the first to attract a group of guys ready to fight. At first it consisted of eight people. However, by the first days of September, several groups were already operating in Krasnodon, practically unrelated to one another - in total there were about 25 people in them.

The birthday of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was September 30: then a plan was adopted to create a detachment, specific actions of underground work were outlined, a headquarters was created, the active members of the organization were divided into fighting fives. For the purpose of secrecy, each member of the five knew only his comrades and commander, being unaware of the full composition of the headquarters.

The “Young Guards” put up leaflets - first handwritten ones, then they took out a printing press and opened a real printing house. 30 series of leaflets were published with a total circulation of about 5 thousand copies. The content is mainly calls for sabotage of forced labor and fragments of Sovinformburo reports received thanks to a secretly stored radio receiver.

On occasion, Komsomol members stole weapons from Germans and policemen - at the time of the defeat of the organization, 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, about 15 thousand cartridges, 10 pistols, 65 kilograms of explosives and several hundred meters of fuse cord had already been accumulated in its secret warehouse. With this arsenal, Oleg Koshevoy was going to arm the Komsomol partisan detachment “Molot”, which he intended to soon separate from the organization and redeploy outside the city to openly fight the enemy, but these plans were no longer destined to come true...
The guys burned a barn with bread that the Germans had taken by force from the population. On the day of the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution, red flags were hung around the city of Krasnodon, which the girls had sewn the day before from red stage curtains former House Cultures. Several dozen prisoners of war were rescued from the camp.

Most of the Young Guard's actions took place at night. By the way, there was a curfew in Krasnodon during the entire period of occupation, and a simple walk around the city after six in the evening was punishable by arrest followed by execution. The Komsomol members also tried to establish contact with the partisan detachments operating in the Rostov region. However, it was not possible to find the Voroshilovgrad partisans and underground fighters. First of all, because in the forests the partisans kept a good secret, and in the city the underground was already defeated by the enemy and virtually ceased to exist.

This is where the first myth arises, created during the era of work on the famous novel by the writer Alexander Fadeev. As if the Komsomol members of Krasnodon fought against fascism exclusively as messengers and saboteurs under the leadership of an underground party organization led by Nikolai Barakov and Philip Lyutikov. Senior comrades develop an operation plan - Komsomol members, risking their lives, carry it out...

By the way, in the first edition of Fadeev’s novel there is no mention of the “adult” communist underground. Only by the second edition the author “strengthened” the connections between the Komsomol and the “adult” underground and introduced a scene of joint preparation for sabotage in one of the mines that the Germans wanted to launch.

In fact, the communist miners Barakov and Lyutikov really planned to disrupt the launch of the mine. But - completely independent of the “Young Guards”. The guys also prepared sabotage - on their own - and it was they who carried out it.
For the Nazis, coal was a strategic raw material, so they sought to put at least one of the Krasnodon mines into operation. Using the labor of prisoners of war and the force of driven local residents, the Germans prepared Sorokin mine No. 1 for launch.

But literally on the eve of the start of work at night, underground Komsomol member Yuri Yatsinovsky entered the pile driver and damaged the cage lift: he misregulated the mechanism and cut the lifting ropes. As a result, when the lift was launched, the cage with mining tools, in which there were also German foreman, and policemen with weapons, and forced miners, and several strikebreakers who voluntarily agreed to work for the enemy, collapsed into the mine shaft. I feel sorry for the dead slaves of fascism. But the launch of the mine was disrupted; until the end of the occupation, the Germans were unable to raise the cage and clear the shaft pit of the collapsed parts of the lift. As a result, during the six months of their rule, the Germans were never able to remove a ton of coal from Krasnodon.

Krasnodon Komsomol members also thwarted the mass deportation of their peers to Germany. The Young Guards introduced one of the underground workers into the labor exchange, who copied the list of young people compiled by the Germans. Having learned about the number and timing of the departure of the train of “Ostarbeiters,” the guys burned the stock exchange with all the documentation, and warned potential farm laborers of the need to flee the city. This action infuriated the police and the German commandant's office, and almost two thousand Krasnodon residents were spared from German hard labor.

Even such a seemingly purely demonstrative action as hanging red flags on November 7 and congratulating residents on the 25th anniversary of the October Revolution was of great importance for the occupied city. The residents, eagerly awaiting liberation, realized: “They remember us, we are not forgotten by our people!”

Oleg Koshevoy

In addition, the “Young Guards” recaptured more than 500 head of livestock confiscated from the population from the horse-riding police. Animals were returned to those who could, the rest of the cows, horses and goats were simply distributed to the population of the surrounding farms, who were very poor after being robbed by German marauders. How many peasant families were saved from hunger thanks to such a “partisan gift” is now difficult to even calculate.

The real combat operation was the organization, jointly with the partisans, of a mass escape of prisoners of war from a temporary camp organized by the invaders outside the city in the open air. Those of the Red Army soldiers who were not yet completely exhausted from wounds and beatings joined the partisan detachment. Those unable to hold weapons were sheltered in their homes by villagers - and everyone left. Thus, the lives of almost 50 people were saved.

The German telephone wires were regularly cut. Moreover, the restless Seryozha Tyulenev came up with or read somewhere about a cunning method: the wire was cut in two places lengthwise with a thin knife. Then, using a crochet hook similar to a crochet hook, a section of the copper core was removed between the cuts. Outwardly, the wire looked intact, until you feel it along its entire length - you simply cannot find these thinnest cuts. Therefore, it was not easy for German signalmen to repair the communication gap - most often they were forced to re-lay the line.

Basically, the guys acted secretly, the only armed action of the underground took place on New Year's Eve 1943 - the Young Guards carried out a daring raid on German vehicles with New Year's gifts for soldiers and officers of the Wehrmacht. The cargo was confiscated. In the future, German gifts, consisting mainly of food and warm clothes, were planned to be distributed to Krasnodon families with children. The Komsomol members decided to slowly sell the cigarettes, which were also gifts, at a local flea market, and use the proceeds for the needs of the organization.

Isn’t this what ruined the young underground fighters? In 1998, one of the surviving “Young Guards” Vasily Levashov put forward his version of the disclosure of the organization. According to his recollections, some of the cigarettes were given to a boy of 12-13 years old who knew the underground, who went to the market to exchange tobacco for food. During the raid, the guy was caught and didn’t have time to throw away the goods. They began to interrogate him, and with cruelty. And the teenager “split” under the beatings, admitting that his older friend, Genka Pocheptsov, gave him the cigarettes. On the same day, the Pocheptsovs’ home was searched, Gennady himself was arrested and also tortured.

According to Levashov’s version, it was Gennady, who was tortured in the presence of the named father - Vasily Grigorievich Gromov, the head of mine No. 1-bis and part-time secret agent of the Krasnodon police - on January 2, 1943, began to admit to participating in the underground. The Germans extracted from the guy all the information he possessed, and the commandant’s office became aware of the names of those underground fighters whose group operated in the Pervomaika area.

Then the Germans took the search for the partisans seriously, and within a few days two high school students were arrested because they did not have time to safely hide the bags of gifts. Levashov did not name the names of these guys, as well as his younger friend Gena Pocheptsov.

Levashov’s version can be doubted because, according to his memoirs, Gena Pocheptsov began speaking on January 2. And on the first day, the Germans took three “Young Guards” - Evgeny Moshkov, Viktor Tretyakevich and Vanya Zemnukhov. Most likely, this was the result of an investigation that the Germans conducted after the Komsomol attack on a convoy carrying Christmas gifts.

On the day of the arrest of three members of the Young Guard headquarters, a secret meeting of Komsomol members took place. And at it a decision was made: all “Young Guards” should immediately leave the city, and the leaders of the combat groups should not spend the night at home that night. All underground workers were notified of the headquarters’ decision through liaison officers. But the entire punitive apparatus has already begun to move. Mass arrests began...

Why did most of the “Young Guards” not follow the orders of headquarters? After all, this first disobedience cost almost all of them their lives? There can be only one answer: during the days of mass arrests, the Germans spread information throughout the city that they knew the full composition of the “gangster partisan gang.” And that if any of the suspects leave the city, their families will be shot en masse.

The guys knew that if they ran away, their relatives would be arrested in their place. Therefore, they remained faithful children to the end and did not try to protect themselves by the death of their parents,” surviving underground fighter Vladimir Minaev later said in an interview with Komsomolskaya Pravda journalists.

Only twelve “Young Guards,” at the insistence of their relatives, managed to escape in those days. But later, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless arrested. The four cells of the city police jail were packed to capacity. In one they kept girls, in the other three – boys.

No matter how much they have previously written about the Young Guard, as a rule, researchers spare the feelings of readers. They write carefully - that Komsomol members were beaten, sometimes, following Fadeev, they talk about bloody stars carved on the body. The reality is even worse... But none of the popular publications mentions the names of the torturers in detail - only general phrases: “fascist monsters, occupiers and accomplices of the occupiers.” However, documents from the regional department of state security indicate that mass torture and executions were not carried out by ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers. For the role of executioners, the Germans used either special SS units - Einsatzgruppen, or police units recruited from the local population.

The SS Einsatzgruppe arrived in the Lugansk region in September 1942, the headquarters was located in Starobelsk, the special detachment of executioners was commanded by SS Brigadefuehrer Major General of Police Max Thomas. However, he, a professional torturer, preferred to place his soldiers in the cordon of the prison, dispatching only three hefty soldiers to punish the prisoners with rubber whips. And, in fact, the reprisal against the underground was carried out mainly by policemen of the local Krasnodon branch. Cossacks, as they called themselves...

Leaflet "Young Guard"

What these monsters - both the SS men and their local henchmen - did to the young partisans is scary to even read. But we have to. Because without this it is impossible to fully understand either the horrors of fascism or the heroism of those who dared to oppose themselves to it.

Almost immediately after the massacre of the teenagers, Krasnodon was liberated from the fascist invaders - in February 1943. Within two days, NKVD investigators began arresting individuals involved in the death of the underground organization. As a result, lists of people directly involved in the crimes were compiled - both Germans and local Nazi servants. Hence the special scrupulousness of the investigation and the search for criminals.

Lidiya Androsova was arrested on January 12. According to Pocheptsov's denunciation. It was the police who took her - and according to the testimony of the girls’ parents, during the search they mercilessly looted the house, not even disdaining women’s underwear. The girl spent five days in the police custody... When Lida’s body was removed from the pit of the mine where she was executed, her relatives identified her daughter only by the remnants of her clothes. The girl’s face was mutilated, one eye was cut out, her ears were cut off, her hand was chopped off with an ax, her back was striped with whips so that her ribs were visible through the cut skin. A piece of the rope loop with which Lida was dragged to execution remained on her neck.

Lida Androsova

Kolya Sumsky, whom his friends considered Lida’s first friend and even boyfriend, was taken on January 4 at the mine, where he was picking out coal crumbs from a waste heap. Ten days later they were sent to Krasnodon, and four days later they were executed. The teenager’s body was also mutilated: traces of beatings, broken arms and legs, cut off ears...

The same police arrested Alexandra Bondareva and her brother Vasily on January 11. The torture began on the first day. The brother and sister were kept in separate cells. On January 15, Vasya Bondarev was led to execution. He was not allowed to say goodbye to his sister. The young man was thrown alive into the same pit of mine No. 5 where Lida Androsova was killed. On the evening of January 16, Shura was also taken to execution. Before pushing the girl into the mine, the police beat her again with rifle butts until she fell into the snow. Vasya and Shura’s mother Praskovya Titovna, when she saw the bodies of her children raised from the mine, almost died of a heart attack.

Shura Bondareva

Seventeen-year-old Nina Gerasimova was executed on January 11. From the protocol of identification of the body by relatives: “A girl of 16-17 years old, thin build, was thrown into a pit almost naked - in her underwear. The left arm is broken; the whole body, and especially the chest, are black from beatings, Right side the face is completely disfigured” (RGASPI Fund M-1, inventory 53, storage unit 329.)

Close friends Borya Glavan and Zhenya Shepelev were executed together - tied face to face with barbed wire. During torture, Boris's face was smashed with a rifle butt, both hands were cut off, and they stabbed him in the stomach with a bayonet. Evgeniy’s head was pierced, and his hands were also chopped off with an axe.

Borya Glavan

Mikhail Grigoriev tried to escape on January 31 along the road to the place of execution. Pushing the guard aside, he rushed across the virgin snow into the darkness... The police quickly overtook the teenager, exhausted from the beatings, but finally dragged him to the mine and threw him into the pit alive. The women who went to the waste heap for coal chips heard for several days that Misha remained alive for a long time, groaning in the trunk, but they could not help - the pit was guarded by a police patrol.

Vasily Gukov, executed on January 15, was identified by his mother by the scar on his chest. The young man's face was trampled under police boots, his teeth were knocked out, and his eyes were cut out.

Seventeen-year-old Leonid Dadyshev was tortured for ten days. They mercilessly flogged him and cut off the hand on his right hand. Lenya was shot with a pistol and thrown into a pit on January 15.

Zhenya Shepelev

Maya Peglivanova experienced such tortures before her death that no inquisitor would have imagined. The girl's nipples were cut off with a knife and both legs were broken.

Maya's friend Shura Dubrovina probably could have even been saved - the Germans were never able to prove her connection with the underground. In prison, the girl looked after the wounded Maya until the very end and was literally forced to carry her friend to execution in her arms. The police also cut Alexandra Dubrovina's chest with knives, and then right next to the mine shaft, they killed the girl with the butt of a rifle.

Zhenya Kiikova, arrested on January 13, gave her family a note from prison. “Dear mom, don’t worry about me - I’m fine. Kiss grandpa for me, feel sorry for yourself. Your daughter is Zhenya.” This was the last letter - during the next interrogation, all the girl’s fingers were broken. In five days at the police station, Zhenya turned gray like an old woman. She was executed together with her friend Tosya Dyachenko, who had been arrested the day before, tied up. The friends were then buried in the same coffin.

Maya Peglivanova

Antonina Eliseenko was arrested on January 13 at two in the morning. The police burst into the room where Antonina was sleeping and ordered her to get dressed. The girl refused to dress in front of men. The police were forced to leave. The girl was executed on January 18. Antonina's body was disfigured, with her genitals, eyes, ears cut out...

“Tosya Eliseenko, 22 years old, was executed in a pit. During torture, she was forced to sit on a hot potbelly stove; her body was removed from the mine with 3rd and 4th degree burns on her thighs and buttocks.”

Tosya Eliseenko

Vladimir Zhdanov was taken from his home on January 3. He also gave his family a note, hiding it in the bloody laundry that was being taken out for washing: “Hello, dears... I’m still alive. My fate is unknown. I don't know anything about the others. I am sitting separately from everyone in solitary confinement. Goodbye, they’ll probably kill me soon... I kiss you deeply.” On January 16, Vladimir, along with other Young Guard members, was taken to the pit. The square was cordoned off by police. They brought 2-3 people to the place of execution, shot the prisoners in the head and threw them into the mine. Tied up, having suffered severe beatings with a rubber whip and a Cossack whip, Vovka Zhdanov at the last moment tried to push the chief of police Solikovsky, who was observing the execution, into the pit with his head. Luckily for the executioner, he stood on his feet, and the executioners immediately began to torture Vovka himself further, and then shot him. When the young man’s body was lifted from the mine, the parents fainted: “Volodya Zhdanov, 17 years old, was pulled out with a laceration in the left temporal region from point-blank shooting, the fingers of both hands were broken and twisted, there were bruises under the nails, two stripes three times wide were cut on his back centimeter long, twenty-five centimeters, eyes gouged out and ears cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 36).

At the beginning of January, Kolya Zhukov was also arrested. After torture, on January 16, 1943, the guy was shot and thrown into the pit of mine No. 5: “Nikolai Zhukov, 20 years old, was taken out without ears, tongue, teeth, his arm was cut off at the elbow and his foot was cut off” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, d. 73).

Vladimir Zagoruiko was arrested on January 28. Police Chief Solikovsky personally took part in the arrest. On the way to prison, the chief policeman was sitting in a cart, Vladimir was walking through the snowdrifts, tied up, barefoot, in only underwear, in a frost of minus 15. The police pushed the guy with rifle butts, pinned him with bayonets and offered to warm up... by dancing: “Dance, red-bellied, they say you’re before the war I studied in a dance ensemble!” During the torture, Volodya had his arms twisted at the shoulders on a rack and hung by his hair. They threw him into the pit alive.

Vova Zhdanov

Antonina Ivanikhina was arrested on January 11. Until the last hour, the girl looked after her comrades, weakened after torture. Execution - January 16. “Tonya Ivanikhina, 19 years old, was taken out of the mine without eyes, her head was tied with a scarf, under which a wreath of barbed wire was tightly placed on her head, her breasts were cut out” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 75).

Antonina's sister Lilia was arrested on January 10 and executed on the 16th. The surviving third sister, Lyubasha, who was very young during the war, recalled: “One day, our distant relative, the wife of a policeman, came to us and said: “My husband was placed as a watchman near mine No. 5. I don’t know if yours are there or not, but My husband found combs and combs... Look at the things, maybe you’ll find your own. Most likely, don’t look for your daughters, probably yours are there, in the pit.” When they were shooting, my grandfather, who was collecting coal, was forced to leave. But he climbed onto the waste heap and saw from above: some girls jumped on their own, not wanting to be touched by the hands of the executioners, some friends or lovers jumped hugging each other, the guys sometimes resisted - they spat at the police, cursed them with the last words, pushed them, tried to drag them into the trunk the mines behind them... When the Red Army soldiers later dismantled the mine, they brought the dead sisters. Lily's hand was cut off and her eyes were blindfolded with wire. Tonya is also mutilated. Then they brought coffins, and our Ivanikhins were put in one coffin.”

Tonya Ivanikhina

Klavdiya Kovaleva was arrested in early January and executed on the 16th: “Klavdiya Kovaleva, 17 years old, was taken out swollen from beatings. The right breast was cut off, the soles of the feet were burned, the left arm was cut off, the head was tied with a scarf, and black traces of beatings were visible on the body. The girl’s body was found ten meters from the trunk, between the trolleys, she was probably thrown alive and was able to crawl away from the pit” (Young Guard Museum, f. 1, no. 10.)

Antonina Mashchenko was executed on January 16. Antonina’s mother Maria Alexandrovna recalled: “As I found out later, my beloved child was also executed with terrible torture. When Antonina’s corpse was pulled out of the pit along with other Young Guards, it was difficult to identify my girl in it. In her braids was braided barbed wire, half of her full hair was missing. My daughter was hung up and tortured by animals.”

Klava Kovaleva. Fragment of a family portrait with mother and uncle

Nina Minaeva was executed on January 16. The underground worker’s brother Vladimir recalled: “...My sister was recognized by her woolen gaiters - the only clothing that remained on her. Nina’s arms were broken, one eye was knocked out, there were shapeless wounds on her chest, her whole body was covered in black stripes...”

Nina Minaeva

Police officers Krasnov and Kalitventsev led Evgeniy Moshkov tied up around the city all night. stood very coldy. The policemen brought Zhenka to the water intake well and began to dunk him in there on a rope. Into icy water. Dropped several times. Then Kalitventsev froze and brought everyone to his home. Moshkov was seated by the stove. They even gave me a cigarette. They drank the moonshine themselves, warmed up and took them out again... Zhenya was tortured all night, by dawn he could no longer move independently. The twenty-two-year-old “Young Guard,” a communist, nevertheless, choosing the right moment during the interrogation, hit the policeman. Then the fascist beasts hung Moshkov by his legs and kept him in this position until blood gushed from his nose and throat. They removed him and began interrogating him again. But Moshkov only spat in the executioner’s face. The enraged investigator who was torturing Moshkov hit him backhand. Exhausted by torture, the communist hero fell, hitting the back of his head on the door frame, and lost consciousness. They threw him into the pit unconscious, perhaps he had already died.

Zhenya Moshkov with friends (left)

Vladimir Osmukhin, who spent ten days in the hands of the police, was identified by sister Lyudmila from the remains of his clothes: “When I saw Vovochka, mutilated, almost completely headless, missing his left arm up to the elbow, I thought I was going crazy. I didn't believe it was him. He was wearing only one sock, and his other foot was completely bare. Instead of a belt, wear a warm scarf. No outerwear. The head is broken. The back of the head had completely fallen out, leaving only the face, on which only teeth remained. Everything else is mutilated. The lips are twisted, the mouth is torn, the nose is almost completely gone ... "

Viktor Petrov was arrested on January 6. On the night of January 15-16, he was thrown into a pit alive. Victor’s sister Natasha recalls: “When Vitya was taken out of the pit, he could have been about 80 years old. A gray-haired, emaciated old man... His left ear, nose, and both eyes were missing, his teeth were knocked out, hair remained only on the back of his head. There were black stripes around the neck, apparently traces of strangulation in a noose, all the fingers on the hands were finely broken, the skin on the soles of the feet was raised like a blister from a burn, there was a large deep wound on the chest, inflicted by a cold weapon. Obviously, it was inflicted while still in prison, because the jacket and shirt were not torn.”

Shura Dubrovina

Anatoly Popov was born on January 16. On his birthday, January 16, he was thrown into a pit alive. The last meeting of the Young Guard headquarters took place at Anatoly Popov’s apartment. From the protocol for examining the young man’s body: “Beaten, the fingers on his left hand and the foot on his right leg were cut off” (RGASPI F-1 Op.53 D.332.)

Angelina Samoshina was executed on January 16. From the protocol for examining the body: “Traces of torture were found on Angelina’s body: her arms were twisted, her ears were cut off, a star was carved on her cheek” (RGASPI. F. M-1. Op. 53. D. 331.). Geli’s mother, Anastasia Emelyanovna, wrote: “She sent a note from prison, where she wrote that they wouldn’t hand over a lot of food, that she felt good here, “like at a resort.” On January 18, they did not accept the transfer from us; they said that they were sent to a concentration camp. Nina Minaeva’s mother and I went to the camp in Dolzhanka, where they were not there. Then the policeman warned us not to go and look for us. But rumors spread that they were thrown into the pit of mine No. 5, where they were found. This is how my daughter died..."

Gelya Samoshina

Anna Sopova's parents - Dmitry Petrovich and Praskovya Ionovna - witnessed the torture of their daughter. Parents were specifically forced to watch this, in the hope that the older generation would persuade the young partisans to confess and hand over their comrades. The old miner recalled: “They started asking my daughter who she knew, who she had a connection with, what did she do? She was silent. They ordered her to undress - naked, in front of the police and her father... She turned pale - and did not move. And she was beautiful, her braids were huge, lush, down to her waist. They tore off her clothes, wrapped her dress over her head, laid her on the floor and began to whip her with a wire whip. She screamed terribly. And then, when they started beating her on her hands and head, she couldn’t stand it, poor thing, and asked for mercy. Then she fell silent again. Then Plokhikh - one of the main executioners of the police - hit her in the head with something...” Anya was lifted out of the pit half bald - in order to further torture the girl, they hung her on her own braid and tore out half of her hair.

Anya Sopova with friends by the sea (second from left)

Among the last to be lifted from the mine was Viktor Tretyakevich. His father, Joseph Kuzmich, in a thin patched coat, stood day after day, clutching the post, and did not take his eyes off the pit. And when they recognized his son - without a face, with a black and blue back, with crushed hands - he fell to the ground, as if knocked down. No traces of bullets were found on Victor’s body, which means they dumped him alive...

Nina Startseva was taken out of the pit on the third day after the execution - the girl almost did not live to see the liberation of the city. Mom recognized her by her hair and the embroidery on the sleeve of her shirt. Nina had needles driven under her fingers, strips of skin were cut on her chest, and her left side was burned with a hot iron. Before being thrown into the pit, the girl was shot in the back of the head.

Demyan Fomin, on whom a sketch of a leaflet was found during a search, was subjected to especially cruel torture and was executed by beheading. Before his death, the guy had all the skin cut off from his back in narrow strips. When asked what he was like, Dyoma’s mother Maria Frantsevna answered: “A kind, gentle, responsive son. I was interested in technology and dreamed of driving trains.”

Alexander Shishchenko was arrested on January 8, executed on the 16th: “The nose, ears, lips were cut off, arms were twisted, the whole body was cut up, shot in the head...”

Ulyana Gromova kept a diary right up to her execution, managing to smuggle the notebook even into the dungeon. The entry in it dated November 9, 1942: “It is much easier to see heroes die than to listen to the cries of some coward for mercy. Jack London". Executed on January 16. “Ulyana Gromova, 19 years old, a five-pointed star was carved on her back, her right arm was broken, her ribs were broken.”

Ulya Gromova

In total, at the end of January, the occupiers and police threw 71 people, alive or shot, into the pit of mine No. 5, among whom were both “Young Guards” and members of the underground party organization. Other members of the Young Guard, including Oleg Koshevoy, were shot on February 9 in the city of Rovenki in the Thunderous Forest.
In the liberated city of Krasnodon, there were many living witnesses to both the struggle of the “Young Guards” and their deaths.

Uli's letter from prison

The first document of the declassified archival criminal case is a statement from Mikhail Kuleshov addressed to the leadership of the regional NKVD department dated February 20, 1943, says Vasily Shkola. - Then the first investigative actions were carried out. The facts of brutal torture of young people, whose bodies were removed from the pit of mine No. 5, have been established. In the materials of interrogations of members of the organization who were still alive at that time and who were subjected to torture, there is a description of the office of the police officer of the city of Krasnodon Solikovsky. - It is said that there are whips and heavy objects, including wooden ones.

From the testimony of Captain Emil Renatus, who commanded the Krasnodon district gendarmerie during the occupation: “Those arrested, suspected of criminal activities and who refused to testify, were laid on a bench and beaten with rubber whips until they confessed. If previous measures did not produce results, they were transferred to a cold room, where they had to lie on an ice floor. The same arrested persons had their arms and legs tied behind their backs, hung in this position with their face to the ground and held until the arrested person confessed. Moreover, all these executions were accompanied by regular beatings.”

Krasnodon resident Nina Ganochkina said: “I and two other women, on the orders of the police, were cleaning the girls’ cell. They could not do the cleaning themselves, since they were constantly taken for interrogation, and after torture they could not even get up. I once saw how Ulya Gromova was interrogated. Ulya did not answer questions accompanied by abuse. Policeman Popov hit her on the head so that the comb holding the scythe broke. He shouts: “Pick it up!” She bent down, and the policeman began to hit her in the face and everywhere. I was already cleaning the floor in the corridor, and Ulya had just finished torturing her. She, having lost consciousness, was dragged along the corridor and thrown into a cell.”

Oleg Koshevoy

As the burgomaster of Krasnodon Vasily Statsenkov showed during interrogation after the war in 1949, over 70 people were arrested for involvement in the Young Guard in Krasnodon and the surrounding areas alone within a few days.

Walter Eichhorn, who as part of the gendarme group directly participated in the beatings and executions of members of the Young Guard, was found in Thuringia, where he worked... in a doll factory. Ernst-Emil Renatus, the former head of the German district gendarmerie in Krasnodon, who also tortured the “Young Guards” and ordered the police to gouge out the guys’ eyes, was also found and arrested in Germany.

From Eichhorn’s testimony (9.III.1949):
“While still in Magdeburg, before being sent to occupied Soviet territory, we received a number of instructions regarding the establishment of a “new order” in the East, which stated that the gendarmes should see in every Soviet citizen a communist partisan, and therefore, with all composure, each of We are obliged to exterminate peaceful Soviet citizens as our opponents.”

From the testimony of Renatus (VII.1949):
Arriving in July 1942 as part of a gendarme team in the city of Stalino, I participated in a meeting of officers of the “Einsatzkommando gendarmerie”... At this meeting, the head of the team, Lieutenant Colonel Ganzog, instructed us to first of all focus on the arrests of communists, Jews and Soviet activists. At the same time, Gantsog emphasized that the arrest of these persons does not require any action against the Germans. At the same time, Gantzog explained that all communists and Soviet activists should be exterminated and only as an exception imprisoned in concentration camps. Having been appointed head of the German gendarmerie in the city. Krasnodon, I followed these directives..."

“Artes Lina, a translator, told me that Zons and Solikovsky torture those arrested. Zons especially loved to torture arrested people. It was a great pleasure for him to summon prisoners after dinner and subject them to torture. Zons told me that he only brings prisoners to confession through torture. Artes Lina asked me to release her from work in the gendarmerie due to the fact that she could not be present during the beatings of those arrested.”

From the testimony of district police investigator Cherenkov:

“I interrogated members of the Young Guard organization, Komsomol members Ulyana Gromova, two Ivanikhin sisters, brother and sister Bondarevs, Maya Peglivanova, Antonina Eliseenko, Nina Minaeva, Viktor Petrov, Klavdiya Kovaleva, Vasily Pirozhok, Anatoly Popov, about 15 people in total... Using special measures of influence (torture and bullying), we established that soon after the Germans arrived in the Donbass, the youth of Krasnodon, mostly Komsomol members, organized themselves and waged an underground struggle against the Germans... I admit that during interrogations I beat the arrested members of the underground Komsomol organization Gromova and the Ivanikhin sisters "

Volodya Osmukhin

From the testimony of policeman Lukyanov (11/11/1947):
“The first time I participated in the mass execution of Soviet patriots was at the end of September 1942 in the Krasnodon city park... At night, a group of German gendarmes led by officer Kozak arrived at the Krasnodon police in cars. After a short conversation between Kozak and Solikovsky and Orlov, according to a pre-compiled list, the police began to take the arrested people out of their cells. In total, more than 30 people were selected, mainly communists... Having announced to the arrested that they were being transported to Voroshilovgrad, they were taken out of the police building and driven to the Krasnodon city park. Upon arrival at the park, the arrested were tied by the hands in groups of five and taken into a pit that had previously served as a refuge from German air raids and there they were shot. ... Some of those shot were still alive, and therefore the gendarmes who remained with us began to shoot those who still showed signs of life. However, the gendarmes soon got tired of this activity, and they ordered to bury the victims, among whom there were still living ones...”

Among the recently declassified investigative documents is a statement written by Gennady Pocheptsov. According to Levashov - under torture, according to the parents of those executed - voluntarily. ..

“To the head of mine No. 1 bis Mr. Zhukov
from Mr. Pocheptsov Gennady Prokofievich
Statement
Mr. Zhukov, an underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was organized in Krasnodon, of which I became an active member. I ask you to come to my apartment in your free time and I will tell you in detail about this organization and its members. My address: st. Chkalova, house 12, entrance No. 1, apartment of Gromov D.G.
20.XII.1942 Pocheptsov.”

From the testimony of Guriy Fadeev, an agent of German special forces:
“The police had such an order that first of all the arrested person was brought to Solikovsky, he brought him to consciousness, and ordered the investigator to interrogate him. Pocheptsov was called to the police. He said that he was indeed a member of an underground youth organization that existed in Krasnodon and its environs. He named the leaders of this organization, or rather, the city headquarters, namely: Tretyakevich, Zemnukhov, Lukashov, Safonov and Koshevoy. Pocheptsov named Tretyakevich as the head of the citywide organization. He himself is a member of the Pervomaisk organization, whose leader is Anatoly Popov. The May Day organization consisted of 11 people, including Popov, Glavan, Zhukov, Bondarevs (two), Chernyshov and a number of others. He said that the headquarters had weapons at its disposal: Popov had a rifle, Nikolaev and Zhukov had machine guns, Chernyshov had a pistol. He also said that in one of the quarries in the pit there was a weapons warehouse. There used to be a Red Army warehouse there, which was blown up during the retreat, but the youth found a lot of ammunition there. Organizational building there was the following: headquarters, Pervomayskaya organization, organization in the village of Krasnodon and city organization. He did not name the total number of participants. Before I was removed from my job, up to 30 people were arrested. Personally, I interrogated 12 people, incl. Pocheptsov, Tretyakevich, Lukashov, Petrov, Vasily Pirozhka and others. Of the members of the headquarters of this organization, Kosheva and Safonov were not arrested, because they disappeared.

As a rule, preliminary interrogations were carried out personally by Solikovsky, Zakharov and the gendarmerie, using whips, fists, etc. Even investigators were not allowed to be present during such “interrogations.” Such methods have no precedent in the history of criminal law.

After I was recruited by the police to identify individuals distributing Young Guard leaflets, I met several times with the deputy chief of the Krasnodon police, Zakharov. During one of the interrogations, Zakharov asked me a question: “Which of the partisans recruited your sister Alla?” Knowing this from the words of my mother M.V. Fadeeva, I betrayed Vanya Zemnukhov to Zakharov, who actually made an offer to my sister to join an underground anti-fascist organization. I told him that in Korostylev’s apartment, Korostylev’s sister Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya and her son Oleg Koshevoy, who was recording messages from the Sovinformburo, were listening to radio broadcasts from Moscow”...

From the testimony of the head of the Rovenkovo ​​district police, Orlov (XI 14, 1943)
“Oleg Koshevoy was arrested at the end of January 1943 by a German gendarme and a railway policeman at a crossing 7 km from the city of Rovenki and brought to my police station. During the arrest, Koshevoy’s revolver was confiscated, and during a second search at the Rovenkovo ​​police, a seal of the Komsomol organization and some two blank forms were found on him. I interrogated Koshevoy and received testimony from him that he is the leader of the Krasnodon underground organization.”

From the testimony of policeman Bautkin:
“At the beginning of January 1943, I arrested and brought to the police a member of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” discovered by the police in Krasnodon... Dymchenko, who lived at mine No. 5. She was tortured by the police and, along with her other friends in the underground, was shot by the Germans... I arrested a “Young Guard” who lived at mine No. 2-4 (I don’t remember his last name) from whose apartment, during a search, we found and seized three notebooks with prepared texts anti-fascist leaflets."

From Renatus' testimony:
“...In February, Wenner and Zons reported to me that my order to shoot Krasnodon Komsomol members had been carried out. Some of those arrested... were shot in Krasnodon in mid-January, and the other part, due to the approach of the front line to Krasnodon, was taken from there and shot in the mountains. Rovenki."

From the testimony of policeman Davidenko:
“I admit that I took part in the executions of the “Young Guards” three times and with my participation about 35 Komsomol members were shot... In front of the “Young Guards”, first 6 Jews were shot, and then one by one all 13 “Young Guards”, whose corpses were thrown into the pit shaft No. 5 is about 80 meters deep. Some were thrown into the mine pit alive. To prevent shouting and proclamation of Soviet patriotic slogans, girls' dresses were lifted and twirled over their heads; in this state, the doomed were dragged to the mine shaft, after which they were shot and then pushed into the mine shaft.”

From the testimony of Schultz, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in Rovenki:
“At the end of January, I took part in the execution of a group of members of the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard,” among whom was the leader of this organization, Koshevoy. ...I remember him especially clearly because I had to shoot him twice. After the shots, all those arrested fell to the ground and lay motionless, only Koshevoy stood up and, turning around, looked in our direction. This greatly angered Fromme and he ordered the gendarme Drewitz to finish him off. Drewitz approached the lying Koshevoy and shot him in the back of the head.

...Before escaping from Rovenki on February 8 or 9, 1943, Fromme ordered me, Drewitz and other gendarmes to shoot a group of Soviet citizens held in the Rovenki prison. These victims included five men, a woman with three year old child and active Young Guard Shevtsova. Having delivered the arrested to the Rovenkovsky city park, Fromme ordered me to shoot Shevtsova. I led Shevtsova to the edge of the pit, walked away a few steps and shot her in the back of the head, but the trigger mechanism on my carbine turned out to be faulty and it misfired. Then Hollender, who was standing next to me, shot at Shevtsova. During the execution, Shevtsova behaved courageously, standing on the edge of the grave with her head held high, her dark shawl slid over her shoulders and the wind ruffled her hair. Before the execution, she did not utter a word about mercy...”

From the testimony of Geist, a gendarme of the German district gendarmerie in Rovenki:
“...I took part, together with... other gendarmes, in the execution in Rovenkovsky Park of Komsomol members arrested in Krasnodon for underground work against the Germans. Of the executed members of the Young Guard organization, I remember only Shevtsova. I remember her because I interrogated her. In addition, she attracted attention with her courageous behavior during the execution...”

From the testimony of policeman Kolotovich:
“Arriving at the mother of Young Guard member Vasily Bondarev, Davidenko and Sevastyanov told her that the police were sending her son to work in Germany, and he was asking her to give him things. Bondarev's mother gave Davidenko gloves and socks. The latter took gloves for himself upon leaving, and gave Sevastyanov socks and said: “There is a start!”

Then we went to the house of the Young Guard Nikolaev. Entering Nikolaev's house, Davidenko, turning to Nikolaev's sister, said that the police were sending her brother to work in Germany, and he asked for food and things for the road. Nikolaev’s sister apparently knew that he had been shot, so she refused to give him any things or food. After that, Davidenko and Sevastyanov, a policeman (I don’t know her last name) and I forcibly took away her man’s coat and sheep. Then we went to another Young Guard member (I don’t know his last name) and they also forcibly took four pieces of lard and a man’s shirt from the latter’s mother. Having put the lard in the sleigh, we went to the family of the Young Guard Zhukov. In this way, Davidenko, Sevastyanov and others robbed the families of the Young Guard.”

Vanya Turkenich

From the testimony of Orlov, the head of the Rovenkovsky district police:
“Shevtsova was required to indicate the storage location of the radio transmitter that she used to communicate with the Red Army. Shevtsova categorically refused, saying that she was not Lyadskaya, and called us monsters. The next day, Shevtsova was handed over to the gendarmerie department and shot”...

It's time to talk about another myth related to the history of the Young Guard. In Fadeev’s novel, written hot on the heels of the liberation of the city, the collapse of the underground is explained by betrayal. The names of the informers are mentioned - a certain Stakhovich, Vyrikova, Lyadskaya and Polyanskaya.

Where did the writer get these “traitors”? The fact is that literally immediately after the arrest of three representatives of the headquarters, the Germans started a rumor that Viktor Tretyakevich “split during interrogation. The writer, who was staying with Oleg Koshevoy’s mother while working on the book, allegedly received a note in which an unknown local resident named the names of the informers...

The version does not stand up to criticism. Fadeev wrote the book hastily; he did not even have time to meet the relatives of many Young Guards, for which many Krasnodon residents later reproached him. Meanwhile, the parents of many Young Guards are L. Androsova, G. Harutyunyanants, V. Zhdanova. O. Koshevoy, A. Nikolaev, V. Osmukhin, V. Petrov, V. Tretyakevich - not only knew about the underground activities of their sons and daughters, but also helped them in every possible way in equipping the printing house, storing weapons, radios, collecting medicines, making leaflets , red flags...

The note itself has not survived, which may be why until now researchers have not been able to establish the authorship of the forged document. But for a long time There was a rumor circulating around Krasnodon that Viktor Tretyakevich was brought out under the name of Stakhovich in Fadeev’s novel. Until 1990, the Tretyakevich family was labeled as “relatives of a traitor.” For many years they collected eyewitness accounts and documents about Victor’s innocence...

Olga Lyadskaya is a real person. The girl was only 17 years old when she was captured by the Germans for the first time. The young beauty attracted the attention of Deputy Chief of Police Zakharov, who had a separate office for intimate meetings. A few days later, her mother managed to ransom her daughter from her concubines for moonshine and warm clothes. But the stigma of “police litter” remained with Olya. The frightened girl, whom the policeman promised to hang if she did not return to him, and who was condemned by all her neighbors for her connection with the punisher, was even afraid to leave the house. Is this why Lyuba Shevtsova uttered the words “I’m not Lyadskaya to you!” during one of the interrogations?

After Krasnodon’s release, Olga initially served as a witness in the case of police atrocities, but later told the SMERSH investigator that she was taken to confront the arrested “Young Guardsmen.” They asked: “Do you know such and such?” And she, seeing that her peers were being cruelly tortured, said that she went to school with some of the kids, danced with someone in an ensemble, made gliders with someone in the House of Pioneers... Lyadskaya allegedly said nothing about the underground , because I simply didn’t know about it. But nevertheless, in the investigation materials there is a confession signed by Olya personally in cooperation with the occupiers and the police. Most likely, the girl, with her will broken even by Zakharov, thought that for cohabitation with a policeman, especially a forced one, in the worst case, she would simply be exiled. And living for several years away from shame, even in Siberia, seemed to her not the worst outcome of the matter... But as a result, Olga received ten years in Stalin’s camps...

And after the publication of the novel “The Young Guard,” the investigation into the case of “Lyadskaya’s betrayal” was resumed, and a show trial was being prepared. True, it did not take place: Olga fell ill with tuberculosis and was released, and there was clearly little evidence “from the book” for Soviet justice. She managed to recover, even finish her studies at the institute, get married, give birth to a son... Later, Olga Lyadskaya, through the prosecutor’s office, applied for further investigation – herself. And all charges of betrayal of the “Young Guards” were dropped after a careful study of the materials of her case.

Zina Vyrikova and Serafima Polyanskaya, released from the police as “not involved in a partisan gang,” also went into exile in Bugulma after the liberation of the city. SMERSH arrested them even before the publication of Fadeev’s book. Subsequently, Zinaida Vyrikova also got married, changed her last name and left for another city, but until her death she was afraid that she would be identified as a “traitor” and arrested... Neither Zina nor Sima, by the way, could extradite any of the “Moldovan Guards” - their own knowledge of the composition and activities of the underground was limited to rumors that “the leaflets were planted by boys from our school.”

His parents stood up for Vitya Treryakevich, who died in fascist dungeons and was slandered by German henchmen. They wrote all the way to the Komsomol Central Committee, seeking the truth. Only 16 years after the war, it was possible to arrest one of the most ferocious executioners who tortured the Young Guard, policeman Vasily Podtynny. During the investigation, he stated: Tretyakevich was slandered. In this way they wanted to “set an example for other partisans” - they say, your leader has already spoken, it’s time for you to loosen your tongue! A special state commission created after the trial of the policeman established that Viktor Tretyakevich was the victim of a deliberate slander, and “one of the members of the organization, Gennady Pocheptsov, was identified as the real traitor.”

The surviving underground fighter Levashov confirmed that his father was arrested three times to find out where his son was hiding. Levashov Sr. sat with Tretyakevich in the same cell, where he saw how the latter was brought from interrogations completely crippled, which, in the opinion of Levashov’s father himself, was clear evidence that “...Viktor still did not split.”

By the way, the fate of Gennady Pocheptsov himself, who was released from the police three days after the denunciation, was cruel but fair: after the liberation of the city of Krasnodon by the Red Army, Gena Pocheptsov, as well as police agents Gromov and Kuleshov, were put on trial.

The investigation into the case of the Young Guard traitors lasted 5 months. On August 1, 1943, an indictment was presented to Pocheptsov and Gromov. Having familiarized himself with it, Pocheptsov stated: “I plead guilty in full to the charges brought against me, namely that, as a member of the underground youth organization “Young Guard,” I betrayed its members to the police, named the leaders of this organization and told the police about the presence of weapons.” .

After the indictment was approved by the head of the operational group of the NKGB of the Ukrainian SSR, Lieutenant Colonel Bondarenko, the case against Pocheptsov and his stepfather was considered by the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk) region, the visiting sessions of which were held in Krasnodon from August 15 to 18, 1943. When Gromov, contrary to previous in his testimony, began to assert that he did not advise his stepson to betray the underground members, the latter asked to speak and said, “Gromov is not telling the truth, he advised me to file a police report against members of the youth organization, telling me that by doing this I would save my life and the life of my family, according to We never quarreled with him on this issue." In his last word, Pocheptsov, addressing the court, stated: “I am guilty, I committed a crime against my Motherland, I betrayed my comrades, judge me as the law requires.”

Funeral of the "Young Guards"

Having found Gromov and Pocheptsov guilty of treason, the Military Tribunal sentenced them to to the highest degree punishment - execution by execution with confiscation of personal property.

On September 9, 1943, the issue of the verdict of the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops was discussed at the Military Council of the Southwestern Front. His resolution, signed by the front commander, Army General R.Ya. Malinovsky, stated: “The verdict of the Military Tribunal of the NKVD troops of the Voroshilovgrad region dated August 18 of this year in relation to ... Vasily Grigorievich Gromov and Gennady Prokofievich Pocheptsov is to be approved and carried out on place where the crime was committed - in public."

Having familiarized themselves with the verdict of the Military Tribunal, Gromov and Pocheptsov appealed to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR with a petition for pardon. Pocheptsov wrote: “I consider the verdict of the tribunal to be correct: I filed a statement with the police as a member of an underground youth organization, saving my life and the life of my family. But the organization was discovered for other reasons. My statement did not play a corresponding role, because it was written later than "The organization was exposed. And therefore I ask the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Union to save my life, since I am still young. I ask for the opportunity to wash away the black stain that has fallen on me. I ask to be sent to the front line."
However, the petitions of the convicts were rejected, and the verdict of the Military Tribunal was carried out on September 19, 1943. A native of Krasnodon, Igor Cherednichenko, who studied the history of the organization, cited in one of his articles the words of his godfather, who witnessed the execution:

“Gromov stood scared, as white as chalk. His eyes ran around, hunched over, he was trembling like a hunted animal. Pocheptsov first fell, a crowd of residents moved towards him, they wanted to tear him to pieces, but the soldiers at the last moment managed to snatch him from the crowd. And Kuleshov stood near the side of the car with his head raised and it seemed that this did not concern him. He died with indifference on his face... Pocheptsova was even going to shoot her own mother, but someone held her, although she was roaring and demanding to give her rifle. By the way, his mother was a very respected person in the city. She trimmed everyone at the lowest prices, did not refuse anyone."

So, almost 17 years later, the truth triumphed. By decree of December 13, 1960, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR rehabilitated Viktor Tretyakevich and awarded him the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree (posthumously). His name began to be included in all official documents along with the names of other heroes of the Young Guard.

Anna Iosifovna, Victor’s mother, who never took off her black mourning clothes until the end of her life, stood in front of the presidium of the ceremonial meeting in Voroshilovgrad when she was presented with her son’s posthumous award. The crowded hall stood and applauded her. Anna Iosifovna turned to her comrade who was rewarding her with only one request: not to show the film “The Young Guard” in the city these days, shot by the brilliant director Gerasimov based on the novel by Fadeev...

By the decision of the Presidium of the Lugansk Regional Court, which, implementing the law of Ukraine of April 17, 1991 “On the rehabilitation of victims of political repression in Ukraine,” on December 9, 1992, reviewed the conclusion of the Lugansk Regional Prosecutor’s Office on criminal cases charging Gromov and Pocheptsov, it was recognized that these citizens were convicted justifiably and are not subject to rehabilitation.

Thus another myth collapsed. And the feat will remain for centuries...

The pit of Mine No. 5, where the heroes were executed, became part of the memorial park

"Young guard"

The heroic history of the underground organization of Krasnodon boys and girls who fought against the Nazis and laid down their lives in this fight was known to every Soviet person. Now this story is remembered much less often...

The famous novel played a huge role in glorifying the feat of the Young Guards Alexandra Fadeeva and the film of the same name Sergei Gerasimov. In the 90s of the last century, they began to forget about The Young Guard: Fadeev’s novel was removed from the school curriculum, and the story itself was declared almost an invention of Soviet propagandists.

Meanwhile, in the name of the freedom of their Motherland, the boys and girls of Krasnodon fought against the German occupiers, showing steadfastness and heroism, withstood torture and bullying and died very young. Their feat must not be forgotten, says the doctor historical sciences Nina PETROVA– compiler of the collection of documents “The True History of the Young Guard.”

Almost everyone died...

– Did the study of the heroic history of the Krasnodon Komsomol underground begin during the war?

– In the Soviet Union, it was officially believed that 3,350 Komsomol and youth underground organizations operated in the temporarily occupied territory. But we don’t know the history of each of them. For example, practically nothing is still known about the youth organization that arose in the city of Stalino (now Donetsk). And the Young Guards really found themselves in the spotlight. It was the largest organization in terms of numbers, almost all of whose members died.

Soon after the liberation of Krasnodon on February 14, 1943, Soviet and party authorities began collecting information about the Young Guard. Already on March 31, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs of the Ukrainian SSR Vasily Sergienko reported on the activities of this organization to the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine (Bolsheviks) Nikita Khrushchev. Khrushchev brought the information received to the attention of Joseph Stalin, and the story of the “Young Guard” received wide publicity and people started talking about it. And in July 1943, based on the results of a trip to Krasnodon, the deputy head of the special department of the Komsomol Central Committee Anatoly Toritsyn(later Major General of the KGB) and Central Committee instructor N. Sokolov prepared a memorandum on the emergence and activities of the Young Guard.

– How and when did this organization arise?

– Krasnodon is a small mining town. Mining villages grew up around it - Pervomaika, Semeykino and others. At the end of July 1942, Krasnodon was occupied. It is officially recognized that the Young Guard arose at the end of September. But we must keep in mind that small underground youth organizations appeared not only in the city, but also in the villages. And at first they were not related to each other.

I believe that the process of forming the Young Guard began at the end of August and was completed by November 7. The documents contain information that in August an attempt was made to unite the youth of Krasnodon Sergey Tyulenin. According to the recollections of his teachers, Sergei was a very proactive young man, thoughtful and serious. He loved literature and dreamed of becoming a pilot.

In September appeared in Krasnodon Victor Tretyakevich. His family came from Voroshilovgrad (now Lugansk). Tretyakevich was left underground by the regional committee of the Komsomol and immediately began to play a leading role in the activities of the Krasnodon underground organization. By that time he had already fought in a partisan detachment...

– Disputes about how responsibilities were distributed at the organization’s headquarters have not subsided for more than 70 years. Who headed the Young Guard - Viktor Tretyakevich or Oleg Koshevoy? As far as I understand, even the few surviving Young Guards expressed different opinions on this matter...

– Oleg Koshevoy was a 16-year-old boy , joined the Komsomol in 1942. How could he create such a fighting organization when there were older people nearby? How could Koshevoy seize the initiative from Tretyakevich, having come to the Young Guard later than him?

We can confidently say that the organization was led by Tretyakevich, a member of the Komsomol since January 1939. Ivan Turkenich, who served in the Red Army, was much older than Koshevoy. He managed to avoid arrest in January 1943, spoke at the funeral of Young Guards and managed to talk about the activities of the organization without delay. Turkenich died during the liberation of Poland. From his repeated official statements it followed that Koshevoy appeared in the Young Guard on the eve of November 7, 1942. True, after some time Oleg actually became the secretary of the Komsomol organization, collected membership fees, and took part in some actions. But he was still not the leader.

– How many people were part of the underground organization?

– There is still no consensus on this. In Soviet times, for some reason it was believed that the more underground workers, the better. But, as a rule, the larger the underground organization, the more difficult it is to maintain secrecy. And the failure of the Young Guard is an example of this. If we take official data on the number, they range from 70 to 100 people. Some local researchers talk about 130 Young Guards.

Promotional poster for the film “Young Guard”, directed by Sergei Gerasimov. 1947

In addition, the question arises: who should be considered members of the Young Guard? Only those who worked there constantly, or also those who helped occasionally, carrying out one-time assignments? There were people who sympathized with the Young Guards, but personally did nothing within the organization or did very little. Should those who wrote and distributed only a few leaflets during the occupation be considered underground workers? This question arose after the war, when being a Young Guard member became prestigious and people whose participation in the organization was previously unknown began to ask to confirm their membership in the Young Guard.

– What ideas and motivations underlay the activities of the Young Guards?

– Boys and girls grew up in families of miners, were educated in Soviet schools, and were brought up in a patriotic spirit. They loved literature – both Russian and Ukrainian. They wanted to convey to their fellow countrymen the truth about the true state of affairs at the front, to dispel the myth of the invincibility of Hitler's Germany. That's why they distributed leaflets. The guys were eager to do at least some harm to their enemies.

– What damage did the Young Guards cause to the invaders? What do they get credit for?

“The Young Guards, without thinking about what their descendants would call them and whether they were doing everything right, simply did what they could, what was within their power. They burned the building of the German Labor Exchange with lists of those who were going to be driven to Germany. By decision of the Young Guard headquarters, over 80 Soviet prisoners of war were released from a concentration camp, and a herd of 500 head of cattle was recaptured. Bugs were introduced into grain that was being prepared for shipment to Germany, which led to the spoilage of several tons of grain. The young men attacked motorcyclists: they obtained weapons in order to begin an open armed struggle at the right moment.

SMALL CELLS WERE CREATED IN DIFFERENT PLACES OF KRASNODON AND IN THE SURROUNDING VILLAGES. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization

Members of the Young Guard exposed the disinformation spread by the invaders and instilled in the people faith in the inevitable defeat of the invaders. Members of the organization wrote leaflets by hand or printed leaflets in a primitive printing house and distributed Sovinformburo reports. In leaflets, the Young Guards exposed the lies of fascist propaganda and sought to tell the truth about the Soviet Union and the Red Army. In the first months of the occupation, the Germans, calling on young people to work in Germany, promised everyone a good life there. And some succumbed to these promises. It was important to dispel illusions.

On the night of November 7, 1942, the guys hung red flags on school buildings, the gendarmerie and other institutions. The flags were hand-sewn by the girls from white fabric, then painted scarlet - a color that symbolized freedom for the Young Guard. On New Year's Eve 1943, members of the organization attacked a German car carrying gifts and mail for the invaders. The boys took the gifts with them, burned the mail, and hid the rest.

Unconquered. Hood. F.T. Kostenko

– How long did the Young Guard operate?

- The arrests began immediately after Catholic Christmas - at the end of December 1942. Accordingly, the period of active activity of the organization lasted about three months.

Young Guards. Biographical sketches about members of the Krasnodon party-Komsomol underground / Comp. R.M. Aptekar, A.G. Nikitenko. Donetsk, 1981

The true history of the “Young Guard” / Comp. N.K. Petrova. M., 2015

Who really betrayed?

– Various people were blamed for the failure of the Young Guard. Is it possible today to draw final conclusions and name who betrayed the underground fighters to the enemy and is responsible for their deaths?

– He was declared a traitor in 1943 Gennady Pocheptsov, whom Tretyakevich accepted into the organization. However, 15-year-old Pocheptsov had no relation to the governing bodies and was not even very active in the Young Guard. He could not know all its members. Even Turkenich and Koshevoy did not know everyone. This was prevented by the very principle of building an organization proposed by Tretyakevich. Small cells were created in different places Krasnodon and in the surrounding villages. They were divided into fives. The members of each five knew each other, but they could not know the composition of the entire organization.

A former lawyer of the Krasnodon city government, who collaborated with the Germans, testified against Pocheptsov. Mikhail Kuleshov- During the occupation, a district police investigator. He claimed that on December 24 or 25 he went into the office of the commandant of the Krasnodon region and the head of the local police, Vasily Solikovsky, and saw Pocheptsov’s statement on his desk. Then they said that the young man allegedly handed over a list of Young Guard members to the police through his stepfather. But where is this list? Nobody saw him. Pocheptsov's stepfather, Vasily Gromov, after Krasnodon’s release, he testified that he did not take any list to the police. Despite this, on September 19, 1943, Pocheptsov, his stepfather Gromov and Kuleshov were publicly shot. Before his execution, a 15-year-old boy rolled on the ground and shouted that he was not guilty...

– Is there now an established point of view about who the traitor was?

– There are two points of view. According to the first version, Pocheptsov betrayed. According to the second, the failure did not occur because of betrayal, but because of poor conspiracy. Vasily Levashov and some other surviving Young Guard members argued that if not for the attack on the car with Christmas gifts, the organization could have survived. Boxes of canned food, sweets, biscuits, cigarettes, and other things were stolen from the car. All this was carried home. Valeria Borts I took a raccoon coat for myself. When the arrests began, Valeria's mother cut the fur coat into small pieces, which she then destroyed.

Young underground workers were caught smoking cigarettes. I sold them Mitrofan Puzyrev. The police were also led on the trail by candy wrappers that the guys threw anywhere. And so the arrests began even before the new year. So, I think, the organization was ruined by non-compliance with the rules of secrecy, the naivety and gullibility of some of its members.

Everyone was arrested before Evgenia Moshkova- the only communist among the Young Guards; he was brutally tortured. On January 1, Ivan Zemnukhov and Viktor Tretyakevich were captured.

After the release of Krasnodon, rumors spread that Tretyakevich allegedly could not stand the torture and betrayed his comrades. But there is no documentary evidence of this. And many facts do not fit with the version of Tretyakevich’s betrayal. He was one of the first to be arrested and until the very day of his execution, that is, for two weeks, he was cruelly tortured. Why if he has already named everyone? It is also unclear why the Young Guards were taken in groups. The last group was captured on the night of January 30-31, 1943 - a month after Tretyakevich himself was arrested. According to the testimony of Hitler’s accomplices who tortured the Young Guard, the torture did not break Victor.

The version of his betrayal also contradicts the fact that Tretyakevich was thrown into the mine first and still alive. It is known that at the last moment he tried to drag the chief of police Solikovsky and the chief of the German gendarmerie Zons into the pit with him. For this, Victor received a blow to the head with the butt of a pistol.

During the arrests and investigations, policemen Solikovsky, Zakharov, as well as Plokhikh and Sevastyanov tried their best. They mutilated Ivan Zemnukhov beyond recognition. Yevgeny Moshkov was doused with water, taken outside, then put on the stove, and then again taken for interrogation. Sergei Tyulenin had a wound on his hand cauterized with a hot rod. When Sergei’s fingers stuck into the door and closed it, he screamed and, unable to bear the pain, lost consciousness. Ulyana Gromova was suspended from the ceiling by her braids. The guys had their ribs broken, their fingers cut off, their eyes gouged out...

Ulyana Gromova (1924–1943). The girl’s suicide letter became known thanks to her friend Vera Krotova, who, after the release of Krasnodon, went through all the cells and discovered this tragic inscription on the wall. She copied the text onto a piece of paper...

“There was no party underground in Krasnodon”

– Why were they tortured so brutally?

“I think that the Germans wanted to go into the party underground, that’s why they tortured me like that. But there was no party underground in Krasnodon. Having not received the information they needed, the Nazis executed members of the Young Guard. Most of the Young Guards were executed at mine No. 5-bis on the night of January 15, 1943. 50 members of the organization were thrown into the pit of a mine 53 meters deep.

–In print you can find the number 72...

– 72 people is the total number of people executed there, that’s how many corpses were raised from the mine. Among the dead were 20 communists and captured Red Army soldiers who had no relation to the Young Guard. Some Young Guard members were shot, others were thrown into a pit alive.

However, not everyone was executed that day. Oleg Koshevoy, for example, was detained only on January 22. On the road near the Kartushino station, police stopped him, searched him, found a pistol, beat him and sent him under escort to Rovenki. There he was searched again and under the lining of his coat they found two forms of temporary membership cards and a homemade Young Guard seal. The police chief recognized the young man: Oleg was the nephew of his friend. When Koshevoy was interrogated and beaten, Oleg shouted that he was the commissar of the Young Guard. Lyubov Shevtsova, Semyon Ostapenko, Viktor Subbotin and Dmitry Ogurtsov were also tortured in Rovenki.

Funeral of Young Guards in the city of Krasnodon on March 1, 1943

Koshevoy was shot on January 26, and Lyubov Shevtsova and all the others were shot on the night of February 9. Just five days later, on February 14, Krasnodon was liberated. The bodies of the Young Guards were taken out of the mine. On March 1, 1943, a funeral took place in the Lenin Komsomol Park from morning to evening.

– Which of the Young Guards survived?

“The only one who escaped on the way to the place of execution was Anatoly Kovalev. According to recollections, he was a brave and courageous young man. Little has always been said about him, although his story is interesting in its own way. He signed up for the police, but only served there for a few days. Then he joined the Young Guard. Was arrested. Mikhail Grigoriev helped Anatoly escape, who untied the rope with his teeth. When I was in Krasnodon, I met Antonina Titova, Kovalev’s girlfriend. At first, the wounded Anatoly was hiding with her. Then his relatives took him to the Dnepropetrovsk region, where he disappeared, and his further fate is still unknown. The Young Guard’s feat was not even noted with the medal “Partisan of the Patriotic War,” because Kovalev served as a policeman for several days. Antonina Titova waited for him for a long time, wrote memoirs, collected documents. But she never published anything.

ALL DISPUTES ON SPECIFIC ISSUES AND ABOUT THE ROLE OF INDIVIDUAL PEOPLE IN THE ORGANIZATION SHOULD NOT THROW A SHADOW ON THE GREATNESS OF THE FEAT accomplished by the young underground fighters of Krasnodon

The survivors were Ivan Turkenich, Valeria Borts, Olga and Nina Ivantsov, Radik Yurkin, Georgy Arutyunyants, Mikhail Shishchenko, Anatoly Lopukhov and Vasily Levashov. I will especially say about the latter. On April 27, 1989, employees of the Komsomol Central Archive held a meeting with him and Tretyakevich’s brother Vladimir. A tape recording was made. Levashov said that he fled near Amvrosyevka, to the village of Puteynikova. When the Red Army arrived, he declared his desire to go to war. In September 1943, during an inspection, he admitted that he was in the temporarily occupied territory in Krasnodon, where he was abandoned after graduating from intelligence school. Not knowing that the story of the Young Guard had already become famous, Vasily said that he was a member of it. After the interrogation, the officer sent Levashov to the barn, where a young man was already sitting. They started talking. At that meeting in 1989, Levashov said: “Only 40 years later, I realized that it was an agent of that security officer when I compared what he asked and what I answered.”

As a result, they believed Levashov and he was sent to the front. He liberated Kherson, Nikolaev, Odessa, Chisinau and Warsaw, and took Berlin as part of the 5th Shock Army.

Roman Fadeeva

– Work on the book “Young Guard” Alexander Fadeev started in 1943. But the original version of the novel was criticized for not reflecting the leadership of the Communist Party. The writer took the criticism into account and revised the novel. Has historical truth suffered from this?

– I believe that the first version of the novel was successful and was more in line with historical realities. In the second version, a description of the leading role of the party organization appeared, although in reality the Krasnodon party organization did not manifest itself in any way. The remaining communists in the city were arrested. They were tortured and executed. It is significant that no one made any attempts to recapture the captured communists and Young Guards from the Germans. The boys were taken home like kittens. Those who were arrested in the villages were then transported in sleighs over a distance of ten kilometers or more. They were accompanied by only two or three policemen. Has anyone tried to fight them off? No.

Only a few people left Krasnodon. Some, like Anna Sopova, had the opportunity to escape, but did not take advantage of it.

Alexander Fadeev and Valeria Borts, one of the few surviving members of the Young Guard, at a meeting with readers. 1947

- Why?

“They were afraid that their relatives would suffer because of them.”

– How accurately did Fadeev manage to reflect the history of the Young Guard and in what ways did he deviate from the historical truth?

– Fadeev himself said about this: “Although the heroes of my novel have real names and surnames, I was not writing the real history of the Young Guard, but a work of art in which there is a lot of fiction and even there are fictitious persons. Roman has the right to this." And when Fadeev was asked whether it was worth making the Young Guards so bright and ideal, he replied that he wrote as he saw fit. Basically, the author accurately reflected the events that took place in Krasnodon, but there are also discrepancies with reality. So, in the novel the traitor Stakhovich is written out. This is a fictional collective image. And it was written from Tretyakevich - one to one.

Relatives and friends of the victims began to loudly express their dissatisfaction with the way certain episodes of the history of the Young Guard were shown in the novel immediately after the book was published. For example, the mother of Lydia Androsova addressed Fadeev with a letter. She claimed that, contrary to what was written in the novel, her daughter's diary and other notes were never given to the police and could not have been the reason for the arrests. In a response letter dated August 31, 1947 to D.K. and M.P. Androsov, Lydia’s parents, Fadeev admitted:

“Everything that I wrote about your daughter shows her as a very devoted and persistent girl. I deliberately made it so that her diary allegedly ended up with the Germans after her arrest. You know better than me that there is not a single entry in the diary that speaks about the activities of the Young Guard and could be of benefit to the Germans in terms of revealing the Young Guard. In this regard, your daughter was very careful. Therefore, by allowing such fiction in the novel, I do not put any stain on your daughter.”

“My parents thought differently...

- Certainly. And most of all, the residents of Krasnodon were indignant at the role assigned by the writer Oleg Koshevoy. Koshevoy’s mother claimed (and this was included in the novel) that the underground gathered at their home on Sadovaya Street, 6. But the Krasnodon residents knew for sure that German officers were quartered with her! This is not Elena Nikolaevna’s fault: she had decent housing, so the Germans preferred it. But how could the headquarters of the Young Guard meet there?! In fact, the headquarters of the organization gathered with Harutyunyants, Tretyakevich and others.

Koshevoy's mother was awarded the Order of the Red Star in 1943. Even Oleg’s grandmother, Vera Vasilyevna Korostyleva, was awarded the medal “For Military Merit”! The stories in the novel about her heroic role look anecdotal. She did not perform any feats. Later, Elena Nikolaevna wrote the book “The Tale of a Son.” More precisely, other people wrote it. When the regional committee of the Komsomol asked her if everything in the book was correct and objective, she replied: “You know, writers wrote the book. But from my story."

- Interesting position.

– What’s even more interesting is that Oleg Koshevoy’s father was alive. He was divorced from Oleg’s mother and lived in a neighboring city. So Elena Nikolaevna declared him dead! Although the father came to his son’s grave and mourned him.

Koshevoy's mother was an interesting, charming woman. Her story greatly influenced Fadeev. It must be said that the writer did not hold meetings with the relatives of all the dead Young Guards. In particular, he refused to accept Sergei Tyulenin’s relatives. Access to the author of The Young Guard was regulated by Elena Nikolaevna.

Another thing is noteworthy. Parents and grandmothers strive to preserve drawings and notes made by their children and grandchildren at different ages. And Elena Nikolaevna, being the head of the kindergarten, destroyed all of Oleg’s diaries and notebooks, so there is no way to even see his handwriting. But the poems written by Elena Nikolaevna’s hand have been preserved, which she declared to belong to Oleg. There were rumors that she had composed them herself.

We must not forget about the main thing

– The surviving Young Guards could bring clarity to controversial issues. Did they get together after the war?

– All together – not once. In fact, there was a split. They did not agree on the question of who should be considered the commissar of the Young Guard. Borts, Ivantsov and Shishchenko considered him Koshevoy, and Yurkin, Arutyunyants and Levashov considered Tretyakevich. Moreover, in the period from 1943 to the end of the 1950s, Tretyakevich was considered a traitor. His older brother Mikhail was relieved of his post as secretary of the Lugansk regional party committee. Another brother, Vladimir, an army political worker, was punished by the party and demobilized from the army. Tretyakevich’s parents also experienced this injustice hard: his mother was ill, his father was paralyzed.

In 1959, Victor was rehabilitated, his feat was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree. However, in May 1965, only Yurkin, Lopukhov and Levashov from the Young Guard came to the opening of a monument to Tretyakevich in the village of Yasenki, Kursk region, where he was born. According to Valeria Borts, the Komsomol Central Committee in the 1980s gathered the surviving members of the Krasnodon underground organization. But there are no documents about this meeting in the archives. And the disagreements between the Young Guards were never eliminated.

Monument "Oath" on the central square of Krasnodon

– What impression did films about young underground fighters make on you? After all, the story of the “Young Guard” has been filmed more than once.

– I like Sergei Gerasimov’s film. The black and white film accurately and dynamically conveyed that time, the state of mind and experiences of the Soviet people. But on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, veterans and the whole country received a very strange “gift” from Channel One. The series “Young Guard” was announced as the “true story” of an underground organization. On the basis of what this supposedly true story was created, they did not bother to explain to us. The heroes of The Young Guard, whose images were captured on the screen, were probably rolling over in their graves. Creators of historical films need to carefully read documents and works that truly reflect a bygone era.

– Roman Fadeeva, who was part of the school curriculum, has long been excluded from it. Do you think it might be worth bringing it back?

– I like the novel, and I advocate that it be included in the school curriculum. It correctly reflects the thoughts and feelings of young people of that time, and truthfully depicts their characters. This work rightfully entered the golden fund of Soviet literature, combining both documentary truth and artistic comprehension. The educational potential of the novel continues to this day. In my opinion, it would be good to re-release the novel in its first version, not corrected by Fadeev himself. Moreover, the publication should be accompanied by an article that would briefly outline what we were talking about. It must be emphasized that the novel is a novel, and not the story of the Young Guard. The history of the Krasnodon underground must be studied from documents. And this topic is not closed yet.

At the same time, we must not forget about the main thing. All disputes on specific issues and the role of individual people in the organization should not cast a shadow on the greatness of the feat accomplished by the young underground fighters of Krasnodon. Oleg Koshevoy, Viktor Tretyakevich and other Young Guards gave their lives for the freedom of the Motherland. And we have no right to forget about this. And further. Speaking about the activities of the Young Guard, we must remember that this is not a feat of individuals. This is a collective feat of Krasnodon youth. We need to talk more about the contribution of each Young Guard member to the struggle, and not argue about who held what position in the organization.

The Soviet people first learned the history of the “Young Guard” in 1943, immediately after the liberation of Krasnodon by the Red Army. The underground organization “Young Guard” included seventy-one people: forty-seven boys and twenty-four girls, the youngest was 14 years old.

Krasnodon was occupied by the enemy on July 20, 1942. Sergei Tyulenin was the first to start underground activities. He acted boldly, scattered leaflets, began collecting weapons, and attracted a group of guys ready for an underground struggle. This is how the story of the Young Guard began.

On September 30, the detachment’s action plan was approved and headquarters was organized. Ivan Zemnukhov was appointed chief of staff, Viktor Tretyakevich was elected commissar. Tyulenin came up with a name for the underground organization - “Young Guard”. By October, all the disparate groups united and the legendary Oleg Koshevoy and Ivan Turkenich, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova entered the headquarters of the Young Guard.

The Young Guards posted leaflets, collected weapons, burned grain and poisoned food intended for the occupiers. On the day of the October Revolution, several flags were hung, the Labor Exchange was burned, and this saved more than 2,000 people sent to work in Germany. By December 1942, the Young Guards had a fair amount of weapons and explosives stored in their warehouse. They were preparing for open battle. In total, the underground organization “Young Guard” distributed more than five thousand leaflets - from them residents of occupied Krasnodon learned news from the fronts.

The underground organization “Young Guard” committed many desperately bold acts, and the most active and courageous members of the “Young Guard”, such as Oleg Koshevoy, Ulyana Gromova, Lyubov Shevtsova, Sergei Tyulenin, Ivan Zemnukhov, could not be restrained from recklessness. They wanted to completely “twist the hands of the enemy”, already before the arrival of the Victorious Red Army.

Their careless actions (seizure of the New Year's convoy with gifts for the Germans in December 1942) led to punitive actions.

On January 1, 1943, Young Guard members Viktor Tretyakevich, Ivan Zemnukhov, and Evgeniy Moshkov were arrested. The headquarters decided to immediately leave the city, and all Young Guards were ordered not to spend the night at home. Headquarters liaison officers conveyed the news to all underground fighters. Among the connections there was a traitor - Gennady Pocheptsov, when he learned about the arrests, he chickened out and reported to the police about the existence of an underground organization.

Mass arrests began. Many members of the underground organization “Young Guard” thought that leaving meant betraying their captured comrades. They did not realize that it was better to retreat to their own, save lives and fight until victory. Most didn't leave. Everyone was afraid for their parents. Only twelve Young Guards escaped. 10 survived, two of them - Sergei Tyulenin and Oleg Koshevoy - were nevertheless caught.

Youth, fearlessness, and courage helped the majority of the Young Guards to withstand with honor the cruel tortures to which they were subjected by a ruthless enemy. Fadeev’s novel “The Young Guard” describes terrible episodes of torture.

Pocheptsov betrayed Tretyakevich as one of the leaders of the underground organization “Young Guard”. He was tortured with extreme cruelty. The young hero courageously remained silent, then a rumor was spread among those arrested and in the city that it was Tretyakevich who betrayed everyone.

Young Guard member Viktor Tretyakevich, accused of treason, was acquitted only in the 50s, when the trial of one of the executioners, Vasily Podtynny, took place, who admitted that it was not Tretyakevich, but Pocheptsov who betrayed everyone.

And only on December 13, 1960, by Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Viktor Tretyakevich was rehabilitated and posthumously awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st degree.

When Viktor Tretyakevich’s mother was presented with the award, she asked not to show Sergei Gerasimov’s film “The Young Guard,” where her son appears as a traitor.
More than 50 young people died at the very beginning of their lives, after terrible suffering, without betraying their idea, their Motherland, or faith in Victory.

Executions of Young Guards took place from mid-January to February 1943; batches of exhausted Komsomol members were thrown into abandoned coal mines. Many could not be identified after their bodies were removed by relatives and friends, so they were mutilated beyond recognition.

Soviet troops entered Krasnodon on February 14. On February 17, the city dressed in mourning. A wooden obelisk was erected at the mass grave with the names of the victims and the words:

And drops of your hot blood,
Like sparks, they will flash in the darkness of life
And many brave hearts will be lit!

The courage of the Young Guards instilled courage and dedication in future generations of Soviet youth. The names of the Young Guard are sacred to us, and it’s scary to think today that someone is trying to depersonalize and belittle their heroic lives, sacrificed to the common goal of the Great Victory.

Victoria Maltseva

September 13, 1943 honorary title Heroes of the Soviet Union was posthumously awarded to young defenders of the Motherland, members of an underground organization "Young guard", which launched its activities in the German-occupied city of Krasnodon. Later, after the War, streets, organizations, ships will be named after them, many books will be written about them, and films will be made.

They were not even 20 years old, the youngest of them - Oleg Koshevoy - was only 16, when they began their fight against the German conquerors of their hometown. In the fall of 1942, the children of miners united into an underground Komsomol organization called the Young Guard.

Oleg Koshevoy’s poem, written during the occupation, can be called his personal manifesto:

It’s hard for me!.. Everywhere you look
Everywhere I see Hitler's rubbish
Everywhere the hated form is before me,
Esses badge with a death's head.

I decided that it was impossible to live like that!
Look at the torment and suffer yourself.
We must hurry, before it’s too late,
Destroy the enemy behind lines.

I decided so and I will do it!
I will give my whole life for my Motherland,
For our people, for our dear
A beautiful Soviet country.

Heroes of the Young Guard

Today, the Decrees of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR on conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union and awarding orders to members of the Komsomol organization “Young Guard”, which operated during the German occupation in the Voroshilovgrad region, are being published. The miners' children - members of the underground organization "Young Guard" - showed themselves to be selfless patriots of the fatherland, forever inscribing their names in the history of the sacred struggle of the Soviet people against the Nazi occupiers.
Neither cruel terror nor inhuman torture could stop young patriots in their desire to fight with all their might for the liberation of the Motherland from the yoke of hated foreigners. They decided to fully fulfill their duty to their homeland. In the name of fulfilling their duty, most of them died the death of heroes.
In the dark autumn nights of 1942, the underground Komsomol organization “Young Guard” was created. It was headed by a 16-year-old boy Oleg Koshevoy. His immediate assistants in organizing the underground struggle against the Germans were 17-year-old Sergei Tyulenin, 19-year-old Ivan Zemnukhov, 18-year-old Ulyana Gromova and 18-year-old Lyubov Shevtsova. They united around themselves best representatives miner's youth. Acting boldly, courageously, and cunningly, members of the Young Guard soon became a threat to the Germans. Leaflets and slogans appeared at the doors of the German commandant's office. On the anniversary of the October Revolution in the city of Krasnodon, red flags made from the Nazi banner stolen from the German club were raised on the building of the Voroshilov school, on the highest tree in the park, on the hospital building. Several dozen German soldiers and officers were killed by members of the underground organization led by Oleg Koshev. Through their efforts, the escape of Soviet prisoners of war was organized. When the Germans tried to send the city's youth to forced labor in Germany, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades set fire to the labor exchange building and thereby disrupted the German event. Each of these feats required enormous courage, perseverance, endurance, and composure. However, the glorious representatives of the Soviet youth found enough strength in themselves to skillfully and prudently resist the enemy and inflict cruel, devastating blows on him.
When the Germans managed to uncover the underground organization and arrest its participants, Oleg Koshevoy and his comrades endured inhuman torture, but did not give up, did not lose heart, and with the great fearlessness of true patriots accepted martyrdom. They fought and struggled like heroes, and went to their graves as heroes!
Before joining the underground organization “Young Guard,” each of the young people took a sacred oath: “I swear to take merciless revenge for the burned and devastated cities and villages, for the blood of our people, for the martyrdom of 30 miners. And if this revenge requires my life, I will give it without a moment’s hesitation. If I break this sacred oath under torture or because of cowardice, then may my name and my family be cursed forever, and may I myself be punished by the harsh hand of my comrades. Blood for blood, death for death!
Oleg Koshevoy and his friends fulfilled their oath to the end. They died, but their names will shine in eternal glory. The youth of our country will learn from them the great and noble art of fighting for the holy ideals of freedom, for the happiness of the fatherland. The youth of all countries enslaved by the German occupiers will learn about their immortal feat, and this will give them new strength to accomplish feats in the name of liberation from oppression.
The people that give birth to such sons and daughters as Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova and Ulyana Gromova are invincible. All the strength of our people was reflected in these young people, who absorbed the heroic traditions of their Motherland and did not disgrace their native land in times of difficult trials. Glory to them!
By decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council, Elena Nikolaevna Koshevaya, the mother of Oleg Koshevoy, was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 2nd degree. She raised a hero, she blessed him to accomplish high and noble deeds - glory to her!
The Germans came to our land as uninvited guests, but here they encountered a great people, filled with unshakable courage and readiness to defend their fatherland with boundless fury and anger. Young Oleg Koshevoy is a vivid symbol of the patriotism of our people.
The blood of heroes was not shed in vain. They contributed their share to the common great cause of defeating the Nazi occupiers. The Red Army is driving the Germans to the west, liberating Ukraine from them.
Sleep well, Oleg Koshevoy! We will bring the victory that you and your comrades fought for to the end. We will mark the road to our victory with enemy corpses. We will avenge your martyrdom to the full extent of our wrath. And the sun will forever shine over our Motherland and our people will live in glory and greatness, being an example of courage, courage, valor and devotion to duty for all humanity!

During the six months that the organization existed, the boys and girls managed to do a lot in the fight against the Nazis. Komsomol members on their own were able to assemble a primitive printing house, where they printed not only leaflets and small posters, but also temporary Komsomol tickets.

The occupiers felt like they were on a powder keg in the occupied city. Soviet leaflets appeared again and again on the walls of houses and at the doors of the German commandant’s office.

The children received information for the leaflets by listening to Oleg Koshevoy’s tube radio at home, which, due to the lack of electricity, was connected to special device. The latest news was briefly recorded and then leaflets were compiled, which informed the population weekly about events at the front, in the Soviet rear and in the world, and reports from the Sovinformburo. Even rumors were used to spread information.

Other sources were also used as leaflets. So one night Lyuba Shevtsova made her way into the post office building and, destroying letters from German soldiers and officers, stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were in Germany. The letters, which had not yet been censored, were distributed throughout the city as leaflets telling about the horrors of German penal servitude. As a result, the recruitment of those wishing to go to Germany carried out by the Nazi authorities was disrupted.

Before the printing house was organized, leaflets were written by hand and distributed by all participants in the youth underground. The city was conditionally divided into sections, which were assigned to specific members of the organization. According to an unspoken rule, leaflets were placed in places where they would be read by as many people as possible: a market, a water supply system, a hand mill. The guys usually went in groups of two - a guy and a girl, so as not to arouse suspicion. Sometimes they gathered in groups and, pretending to be young people having fun, scattered leaflets. And Oleg Koshevoy, wearing a white bandage on his sleeve (the distinctive sign of the police), scattered leaflets in the park at night.

Also, thanks to the underground workers, loaded vehicles kept disappearing in the city, and machine guns, pistols and cartridges were disappearing from German soldiers.

The Young Guards did not forget about the arrested communists. With money from a financial fund formed from Komsomol membership fees, food was purchased and secretly transported to Gestapo dungeons.

The Young Guards freed more than 90 of our soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp and organized the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital. Also, about 2,000 people were rescued after Komsomol members set fire to the labor exchange building, where lists of citizens intended to be sent to Germany were kept.

Along with subversive activities, Komsomol members also prepared for the celebration of the next anniversary of the October Revolution: red flags were sewn from white pillowcases painted red, red scarves, and even from the German banner. On the night of November 7, when a strong wind was blowing and raining, forcing police patrols to hide, the Young Guards were able to freely attach flags with ropes to the pipes on all buildings. On the building of the regional consumer union, Lyuba Shevtsova and Tosya Mashchenko attached a pole to the ceiling, dismantling the tiles, and Georgy Shcherbakov and Alexander Shishchenko were able to hang flags on the hospital and on the highest tree in the park.

The German traps cunningly placed to catch the underground fighters remained empty. Police found proclamations in their own pockets. Then the police themselves were found hanged in abandoned mine adits.

The organization was preparing for a decisive armed attack.

Despite the intelligence network organized by the Young Guard, the Germans still managed to uncover the underground. Arrests began. Only a few managed to get to the Red Army units. The rest were imprisoned by the occupation authorities. The Young Guards had to endure inhuman torture in last days life. Those of them who did not die after torture were thrown alive by the Germans into the pit of an abandoned mine.

District police investigator M.E. Kuleshov, who was in charge of the Young Guard case and was arrested after the liberation of Donbass, said during interrogations that during torture, the eyes of the arrested Young Guard members were gouged out, their breasts and genitals were cut out, and they were beaten half to death with whips.

Brave underground fighters

In the city of Krasnodon, Voroshilovgrad region, the Germans felt like they were on a volcano. Everything was seething around. Soviet leaflets appeared on the walls of houses every now and then, and red flags fluttered on the roofs. Loaded vehicles disappeared, as if grain warehouses were catching fire like gunpowder. Soldiers and officers lost machine guns, revolvers, and cartridges.
Someone acted very boldly, smartly and deftly. The cleverly placed German traps remained empty. There was no end to the German fury. They scoured the alleys, houses, and attics in vain. And the grain warehouses caught fire again. The police found the proclamations in their own pockets. Then the police themselves were found murdered in abandoned mine adits.
On the night of December 5-6, the labor exchange building caught fire. The lists of people to be sent to Germany were lost in the fire. Thousands of residents, who were awaiting with horror the black day when they would be taken into captivity, took heart. The fire infuriated the occupiers. Special agents were called from Voroshilovgrad. But the traces were mysteriously lost in the crooked streets of the mining town. In which house do those who set fire to the labor exchange live? There was hatred under every roof. The special agents spent a lot of effort, but they left with nothing.
The underground Komsomol organization acted more widely and boldly. Insolence has become a habit. The experience of conspiracy accumulated, combat skills became a profession.
Quite a bit of time has passed since that memorable September day when the first organizational meeting took place at number 6 on Sadovaya Street in the apartment of Oleg Koshevoy. There were thirty young people here, who knew each other from their school years, working together in the Komsomol, in the fight against the Germans. They decided to call the organization “Young Guard”. The headquarters included: Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Sergei Tyulenin, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova and others. Oleg was appointed commissar and elected secretary of the Komsomol organization.
There was no experience of underground work, there was no knowledge, there was only an ineradicable, burning hatred of the occupiers and a passionate love for the Motherland. Despite the danger that threatened the Komsomol members, the organization grew quickly. More than a hundred people joined the Young Guard. Each took an oath of allegiance to the common cause, the text of which was written by Vanya Zemnukhov and Oleg Koshevoy.
We started with leaflets. At this time, the Germans began recruiting those who wanted to go to Germany. Leaflets appeared on telegraph poles and fences, exposing the horrors of fascist hard labor. The recruitment failed. Only three people agreed to go to Germany.
They installed a primitive radio at Oleg’s house and listened to the “latest news.” A short record of the latest news was distributed in the form of leaflets.
With the expansion of the underground organization, its “five”, created for conspiracy, appeared in nearby villages. They published their own leaflets there. Now the underground fighters had four radios.
Komsomol members also created their own primitive printing house. They collected letters from the fire of the district newspaper building. We made the frame for selecting the font ourselves. The printing house printed not only leaflets. Temporary Komsomol tickets were also issued there, on which it was written: “Valid for the duration of the Patriotic War.” Komsomol tickets were issued again accepted members organizations.
The Komsomol organization disrupted literally all the activities of the occupation authorities. The Germans failed neither the first, so-called “voluntary” recruitment, nor the second, when they wanted to forcibly take all the residents of Krasnodon they selected to Germany.
As soon as the Germans began to prepare to export grain to Germany, the underground, on instructions from the headquarters, set fire to grain stacks and warehouses, and infected some of the grain with mites.
The Germans requisitioned livestock from the surrounding population and drove it in a large herd of 500 heads to their rear. Komsomol members attacked the guards, killed them, and drove the cattle into the steppe.
So every initiative of the Germans was thwarted by someone’s invisible, powerful hand.
The most senior among the staff members was Ivan Zemnukhov. He was nineteen years old. The youngest was the commissar. Oleg Koshevoy was born in 1926. But both of them acted like mature, experienced people, seasoned in secret work.
Oleg Koshevoy was the brains of the entire organization. He acted wisely and slowly. True, sometimes youthful enthusiasm took over, and then he participated, despite the prohibition of the headquarters, in the most risky and daring operations. Either with a box of matches in his pocket, he sets huge stacks on fire under the very noses of the police, then, wearing a policeman’s bandage or taking advantage of the darkness of the night, he pastes leaflets on gendarmerie and police buildings.
But these enterprises are not reckless. Having put on a policeman's bandage and going out at night, Oleg knew the password. Oleg planted his agents in the villages and villages of the region. Which carried out only his personal instructions. He received regular information about everything that was happening in the area. Moreover, Oleg also had his own people in the police. Two members of the organization worked there as police officers.
In this way, the plans and intentions of the police authorities became known to the headquarters in advance, and the underground could quickly take their countermeasures.
Oleg also created the organization’s monetary fund. It was compiled using monthly 15-ruble membership fees. In addition, if necessary, members of the organization paid one-time contributions. This money was used to provide assistance to the needy families of soldiers and commanders of the Red Army. These funds were used to purchase food to send parcels to Soviet people languishing in a German prison. Products were also given to prisoners of war who were in the concentration camp.
Each operation, be it an attack on a passenger car, when the Young Guards exterminated three German officers, or the escape of twenty prisoners of war from the Pervomaisk hospital, was developed by the headquarters under the leadership of Oleg Koshevoy in every detail and detail.
Sergei Tyulenin conducted all dangerous combat operations. He carried out the most risky missions and was known as a fearless fighter. He personally killed ten fascists. It was he who set fire to the labor exchange building, hung red flags, and led a group of guys who attacked the guards of the herd that the Germans were driving away to Germany. The Young Guard was preparing for an open armed offensive, and Sergei Tyulenin led the group to collect weapons and ammunition. Over the course of three months, they collected and stole 15 machine guns, 80 rifles, 300 grenades, more than 15 thousand cartridges, pistols, and explosives from the Germans and Romanians on the former battlefields.
On instructions from the headquarters, Lyuba Shevtsova traveled to Voroshilovgrad to establish contact with the underground. She's been there several times. At the same time, she showed exceptional resourcefulness and courage. She told German officers that she was the daughter of a major industrialist. Lyuba stole important documents and obtained secret information.
One night, on instructions from headquarters, Lyuba snuck into the post office building, destroyed all the letters from German soldiers and officers, and stole several letters from former residents of Krasnodon who were at work in Germany. These letters, not yet censored, were distributed throughout the city like leaflets on the second day.
In the hands of Ivan Zemnukhov, appearances, passwords, and direct communication with agents were concentrated. Thanks to the skilful methods of conspiracy of the Komsomol members, the Germans were unable to pick up the trail of the organization for more than five months.
Ulyana Gromova participated in the development of all operations. She got her girls jobs in various German institutions. Through them she carried out numerous acts of sabotage.
She also organized assistance to the families of Red Army soldiers and tortured miners, the transfer of parcels to prison, and the escape of Soviet prisoners of war. The Young Guards liberated more than 90 of our soldiers and commanders from a concentration camp.
The Nazis managed to get on the trail of the organization. In the dungeons of the Gestapo, young men and women were tortured in the most brutal ways. The executioners repeatedly threw a noose around Lyuba Shevtsova’s neck and hung her from the ceiling. She was beaten until she lost consciousness. But the brutal torture of the executioners did not break the will of the young patriot. Having achieved nothing, the city police sent her to the district gendarmerie department. There Lyuba was tortured using more sophisticated methods: they drove needles under her nails, cut a star on her back, and burned her with a hot iron.
The Germans subjected other young patriots to the same terrible torture and inhuman torment. But they did not extract a single word of recognition from the lips of the Komsomol members. The Germans threw the tortured, bloodied, half-dead Komsomol members into the shaft of an old mine.
Immortal is the feat of the Young Guards! Their fearless and irreconcilable struggle against the German occupiers, their legendary courage will shine for centuries as a symbol of love for their motherland!
A. Erivansky

Glory to the sons of the Komsomol!

You see, comrade, the affairs of the Krasnodon residents
As soon as the light is illuminated by rays of glory.
In the deep darkness the Soviet sun
stood behind their young shoulders.
For the happiness of Donbass they endured
and hunger, and torture, and cold, and torment,
and they pronounced sentence on the Germans
and lowered their stern hand.
Neither the rattle of torture, nor the cunning of detection
The enemies failed to break the Komsomol members!
An immortal spark appeared in the darkness,
and explosions thundered across Donbass again.
And they parted with life fearlessly,
they died with simple words,
they remained deep underground
captured city by its owners.
No one saw their fire and overnight stay
in the gloomy darkness of the German rear,
but the feat of Ulyana, the heroism of Oleg
Motherland saw and illuminated.
You see, comrade, the affairs of the Krasnodon residents,
they will never be forgotten by us,
immortal glory, like the eternal sun,
rises, shining, over their names.
Semyon Kirsanov

This is how heroes die

The “Young Guard” was preparing to realize its cherished dream - a decisive armed attack on the Krasnodon garrison of the Germans.
The vile betrayal interrupted the combat activities of the youth.
As soon as the arrests of the Young Guard began, the headquarters gave the order to all members of the Young Guard to leave and make their way to the Red Army units. But, unfortunately, it was already too late. Only 7 people managed to escape and stay alive - Ivan Turkevich, Georgy Arutyunyants, Valeria Borts, Radiy Yurkin, Olya Ivantsova, Nina Ivantsova and Mikhail Shishchenko. The remaining members of the Young Guard were captured by the Nazis and imprisoned.
Young underground fighters were subjected to terrible torture, but none of them deviated from their oath. The German executioners went crazy, beating and torturing the Young Guards for 3, 3 hours straight. But the executioners could not break the spirit and iron will of the young patriots.
The Gestapo beat Sergei Tyulenin several times a day with whips made of electrical wires, broke his fingers, and drove a hot ramrod into the wound. When this did not help, the executioners brought the mother, a 58-year-old woman. In front of Sergei, they stripped her and began to torture her.
The executioners demanded that he tell about his connections in Kamensk and Izvarino. Sergei was silent. Then the Gestapo, in the presence of his mother, hung Sergei in a noose from the ceiling three times, and then gouged out his eye with a hot needle.
The Young Guards knew that the time for execution was coming. In their last hour they were also strong in spirit. A member of the Young Guard headquarters, Ulyana Gromova, transmitted in Morse code to all cells:
- The last order from headquarters... The last order... we will be taken to execution. We will be led through the city streets. We will sing Ilyich’s favorite song...
Exhausted and mutilated, young heroes left prison on their final journey. Ulyana Gromova walked with a star carved on her back. Shura Bondareva - with cut off breasts. Volodya Osmukhin's right hand was cut off.
The Young Guards walked on their last journey with their heads held high. Their song sang solemnly and sadly:
“Tortured by heavy bondage,
You died a glorious death,
In the fight for the workers' cause
You put your head down honestly..."
The executioners threw them alive into a fifty-meter pit in the mine.
In February 1943, our troops entered Krasnodon. A red flag hoisted over the city. And watching him rinse in the wind, the residents again remembered the Young Guards. Hundreds of people headed to the prison building. They saw bloody clothes in the cells, traces of unheard-of torture. The walls were covered with inscriptions. Above one of the walls is a heart pierced by an arrow. There are four surnames in the heart: “Shura Bondareva, Nina Minaeva, Ulya Gromova, Angela Samoshina.” And above all the inscriptions, across the entire width of the bloody wall, there is an inscription: “Death to the German occupiers!”
This is how the glorious students of the Komsomol, young heroes whose feat will survive centuries, lived, fought and died for their fatherland.

“Long live our liberator - the Red Army!”

One of the Young Guard leaflets
“Read it and pass it on to your friend.
Comrades Krasnodon residents!
The long-awaited hour of our liberation from the yoke of Hitler's bandits is approaching. The troops of the Southwestern Front have broken through the defense line. On November 25, our units, having taken the capital Morozovskaya, advanced 45 kilometers.
The movement of our troops to the west continues rapidly. The Germans are running in panic, throwing down their weapons! The enemy, retreating, robs the population, taking food and clothing.
Comrades! Hide everything you can so that Hitler’s robbers don’t get it. Sabotage the orders of the German command, do not succumb to false German propaganda.
Death to the German occupiers!
Long live our liberator - the Red Army!
Long live the free Soviet homeland!
"Young guard".

Over the course of 6 months, the Young Guard issued more than 30 leaflets in Krasnodon alone, with a circulation of over 5,000 copies.

After the liberation, city residents preserved the memory of the brave young men and women who fought the German regime, and the domestic press made their feat known to all Soviet citizens. Sergey Tyulenin, Oleg Koshevoy, Ivan Zemnukhov, Lyubov Shevtsova, Ulyana Gromova became symbols of youth patriotism.

Komsomol members of Krasnodon

No! Our youth cannot be killed
And don't put him on his knees!
She lives and will live
Just as the great Lenin taught.

For honor, for truth, for the people,
Who is more honest than anyone in the world,
She will go to the scaffold
He will proudly meet any torture.

And even death will not win
Her daring living, -
It will shine brightly over the world
Star of Oleg Koshevoy.

And it will be pure beauty
Call for a feat from the best of the best
For the cause of the Holy Motherland.
For what Stalin teaches us.

No! Torture will not make us tremble!
Scarlet banners are immortal,
Where are such youth?
Like Komsomol members of Krasnodon!