About 80 kilometers west of Moscow lies a quiet village called Petrisev, where the Soviet hero Zoya was inaugurated.
In June 1941, the Great Patriotic War broke out in the Soviet Union, and the Nazi German army was eyeing Moscow. In October of the same year, Zoya, who was still a middle school student, voluntarily applied to join the guerrillas. After a month of training, they learned to throw incendiary bombs and crawl forward in the snow, which are the basic skills of the destruction team. The war was tense, and Russian leader Stalin ordered the German army to be dragged down in the cold northern Europe. In November, two guerrilla detachments of 10 Komsomol members each were assigned to the village of Petrisevo with the aim of destroying and burning the strongholds of the German 332nd Corps, of which Zoya was located. After several battles, the guerrillas were left with only 3 men. After losing contact with her companions, Zoya decided to return to the village of Petrisevo and burn the German stables. Just as she was about to set fire to the stables, a German sentry caught her. The enemy interrogated Zoya in Russian, but Zoya refused to answer any questions. So the Germans tortured her: whipping her with a belt, burning her skin with a cigarette butt, and leaving her barefoot in the snow every half hour. Finally, she was thrown into the soldiers' dormitory, and more than 20 German troops rushed up until dawn. Here, Zoya endured all kinds of inhuman torture, without revealing any secrets about the guerrillas, nor did she let out any moaning.
On November 29, Zoya, who was only 18 years old, was hanged by the Germans. Before the execution, Zoya shouted to the villagers behind her, "Hang me, we still have twenty million people, they will definitely avenge me, German soldiers, it is still too late, surrender, victory will definitely belong to us!" After saying this, Zoya was ruthlessly hanged by the German Germans, and later, her body was hung on the gallows by the fascist Germans for a month, one of her eyes was gouged out, and after that, another drunken German officer brutally cut off her left breast with a knife, and in order to cover up the crime, the Germans finally buried Zoya's body.
As Stalin stood in front of Zoya's tombstone
Anger burned in his heart, and then with tears in his eyes he issued the famous "Stalin Secret Order"
"If you encounter soldiers of the 332nd Regiment of the Wehrmacht, they will be killed and no living mouth will be left."
On February 16, 1942, Zoya was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
After learning the news of her sister's death, Shura, who had a deep affection for her sister, resolutely joined the Soviet tank army and fought heroically with the German army on the battlefield. However, on the eve of victory in the war, Shura died tragically in a battle at the age of 17.
In 1945, the Soviet Union invaded Berlin, Germany, and the 332nd Regiment of the Wehrmacht was surrounded by the Soviet Red Army and requested surrender. Stalin, on the other hand, said as he was leaving: "We can accept the surrender of any German army, except the 332nd Corps." After that, none of the 332nd Corps of Nazi Germany survived, and all were summarily executed by the Red Army. Zoya's spirit in heaven can also be considered to be resting in peace.
Their mother, Liu Bofu? After losing her two children, Kosmotemyanskaya endured great grief and wrote The Story of Zoya and Shula. After the war, Zoya, Shula and their mother were buried together in the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.
Today, thousands of Russians, especially children and teenagers, come to visit the Zoya Memorial every year to receive an education in heroism and patriotism, so that Zoya's blood does not flow in vain, and her spirit will always inspire generations of Russians.