In the capital of Belarus, Minsk, there is a street named after the heroine of the Civil and Great Patriotic Wars - Vera Zakharovna Khoruzhey. An ordinary Belarusian woman died for the freedom of her native country and her people. She was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union after her death. What feat did Horuzhaya Vera Zakharovna accomplish? You will learn about this after reading the article.
V. Khoruzhey's childhood
The biography of Vera Khoruzhey began in 1903, on September 27th. She was born in Bobruisk, Minsk province, in the family of a Belarusian official. My father was a policeman until 1908, unemployed for several years, then worked as a foreman on draining swampy areas. After the revolution, he was an employee in various organizations; died in 1940. Mother did housework.
After a short time, the family moved to the city of Mozyr, where Vera Zakharovna Khoruzhaya was educated at the gymnasium and at the second level school, which she managed to finish in 1919. I had to work as a farm worker, then as a teacher in the Polesye village.
Her relatives were out of politics, but the girl from early youth irrevocably devoted herself toBolshevik ideology.
Fighting youth
At the age of 16, Vera Khoruzhaya, whose photo you have the opportunity to see in the article, said goodbye to her family and went to fight at the front. As part of the Red Army Komsomol detachments of the CHON, as a volunteer, Vera took part in battles with the brigade of General Bulak-Balakhovich. In 1920 she became a Komsomol member, and in 1921 she joined the party.
After the end of the military campaign, Vera Zakharovna Khoruzhaya taught children at school, and later headed the political education department in the district committee of the Komsomol in Mozyr and Bobruisk. Her remarkable organizing abilities and charm allowed her to become one of the Komsomol leaders.
What did Vera's contemporaries see?
A contemporary, describing her portrait, noted that Verochka, as she was called, had gray eyes with a bluish tint, sly and luminous. She was a blond brown-haired woman with a short haircut of slightly curly and disheveled hair. Vera could not be called a beauty, there was no sophistication and grace in her, she was angular and sharp. However, she was very attractive. Her face was quite pleasant, and a sweet smile lit up it. She was thin, tall, filled with energy, cheerfulness, struck by her cheerfulness and love of life.
By character, principled, truth-loving, Vera Zakharovna was a supporter of absolute truth, she was not afraid to express her opinion if it did not coincide with the official one.
Horuzha was not only respected, but also loved. She studied brilliantly, had to thisabilities, quickly oriented in the material, easily memorized it. Vera Khoruzhaya participated in the work of the newspaper, carried out public assignments for the city committee of the Komsomol.
At Komsomol work
After graduating from the party school, Vera Khoruzhaya is invited to work in the Central Committee of the Komsomol of Belarus. At the same time, she began to publish her first literary and journalistic articles. Her works, hot and inspirational, were filled with youthful enthusiasm and attracted the attention of major contemporary writers. Acquaintance with them had a positive effect on her journalistic and artistic work.
After a short time, she is appointed editor of the Komsomol newspaper Young Plowman. But Vera Zakharovna did not manage to work at this job for a long time either.
Beginning of underground activities
As a result of the Polish-Russian war of 1920–1921. Poland occupied the territory of Western Belarus. In the occupied areas, the new authorities tried to assimilate the local population of Belarusian origin, to Polish them.
Khoruzhaya Vera Zakharovna, whose biography has become an example of true courage and dignity, has always rushed to the most difficult places. At the very beginning of 1924, she disappeared from Minsk. She is sent to the territory occupied by the Poles to organize underground activities there. The girl becomes the secretary of the West Belarusian Central Committee of the Komsomol and at the same time is elected a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the region. Thanks to the active propaganda of Khoruzhey, the number of those who have entered into activeopposition to the Polish invaders.
Young party member Vera Khoruzhaya embarked on a difficult and dangerous path of underground struggle. She had to live and work in harsh conditions: the police in the west of Belarus terrorized the population much more severely than in Poland itself. The strictest secrecy had to be observed. In the harsh conditions of the underground and the arbitrariness of the police, Khoruzhaya actively created revolutionary youth associations, traveled to many towns and towns of Western Belarus, was in Brest, Grodno, Bialystok, Slonim, Kobrin and other cities.
From the beginning of her underground work, the girl served as secretary of the West Belarusian Central Committee of the Komsomol. At the same time, she was elected a member of the Polish Central Committee of the Komsomol and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of her region. The role of the Faith in organizing the mass revolutionary movement of the population, which grew every hour, despite the repressions, is invaluable.
First arrest
Vera Khoruzhaya was arrested in Bialystok in the autumn of 1925. Details about the Brest "trial of thirty-one", in which Vera Khoruzhaya was sentenced to a term of six years in prison for participating in illegal revolutionary work, for membership in the Communist Party, became public only in 1927. At the next Bialystok "trial of one hundred and thirty-three" Khoruzhey was extended his term and sentenced to eight years already.
The will of the young revolutionary could not be broken either by an unjust sentence or harsh conditions of imprisonment. She continued to fight there, being elected toprison party. Even from there, Khoruzhaya sent messages about the desire to bring her cause to a victorious end. In 1931, these news from the dungeon will be printed in the Soviet Union as an individual edition, the book was called “Letters to Freedom.”
In 1930, Khoruzhaya was awarded the Order of the Red Banner of Labor for his involvement in the organization of the liberation of Western Belarus.
Peaceful times: Party business
In 1932, Vera Zakharovna Khoruzhaya, whose brief biography should be known to everyone who is interested in history, returned to Russia: under an agreement, she was exchanged for Polish political prisoners. With joy, she begins to cooperate with the editorial board of publications for the Western Belarusian underground, and then goes to Kazakhstan, to Balkhashstroy. After the liberation of Western Belarus by the Soviet troops, in 1939, she was again sent to the regions associated with her youth. Vera enthusiastically and energetically works in the district committee in Telekhany, later in the Pinsk regional committee.
And again she is transferred to the Union, where she is busy with party affairs in Minsk and at large construction sites. A huge amount of party work did not interfere with the personal life of a charming girl: Vera became a happy wife, and in 1936 she had a daughter, Anechka, when a young mother was in charge of the Balkhashstroy House of Party Education.
Arrest by denunciation and acquittal
Principled party member Khoruzhaya Vera Zakharovna could not only follow orders, but also express doubts, criticize what she did not agree with. Not everyone liked this position. In 1937year, in August, the honored Belarusian underground worker was taken under arrest by the NKVD. She was charged with provocations against the state and espionage activities in the interests of Poland. It has not been proven exactly who the scammer was. However, there are suggestions that he was the activist's husband, Stanislav Mertens, Anya's father.
But none of the four investigators managed to force the communist Khoruzhaya to confess to espionage. The trial took place in August 1939 and lasted two days. It became the triumph of a young woman who convinced everyone of her innocence. Vera was acquitted and released from custody.
And a month later the lands of Western Belarus were liberated by the Red Army.
And again in 1940 Vera and her daughter returned to their small homeland, again working on the party line.
Vera Zakharovna is happy again in her personal life: she is remarrying Sergei Kornilov, who was a military pilot and now worked with Khoruzha.
Vera Khoruzhaya - the hero's wife
June 22, almost immediately after the declaration of war, the couple went to the regional party committee. There they were met by an old partisan, the former commander of the Spanish International Brigade, Vasily Zakharovich Korzh. He wrote down Vera and Sergey in the list of the emerging partisan detachment first.
Soon the detachment, led by Vasily Korzh, grew to sixty people and intended to start fighting. Sergei Kornilov became the head of the combat group. He was overtaken by a heroic death in one of the very first battles with German troops in the Pinsk region. Here is VeraKhoruzhaya, the wife of the hero, was sent to the mainland in the autumn of the same year with the task of reporting the existence of partisan detachments. On the way to the front line, in the enemy rear, Khoruzhey had to watch all the nightmares of the fascist capture, the disasters of the common people.
Having got to her, Vera realized that she would not be allowed to return back. The leadership recommended that the pregnant partisan evacuate to relatives. After the birth of her son, Vera also did not sit idly by, tried to benefit her country in the rear. She worked as an accountant on the collective farm, but she could not stand this lifestyle for a long time.
Formation of a group to work behind the front line
Leaving the children to her sister, Vera leaves for Moscow and begins to prepare for illegal work in the occupied territory. After all, she had a huge experience in such activities. Vera Zakharovna begins by recruiting personnel for illegal work at the headquarters of partisan detachments. This will later help her complete the girl's team for illegal work in the rear of the German fascists.
Vera Zakharovna received a pseudonym - Anna Kornilova. Under this name, she was supposed to operate in the enemy's lair, in front-line Vitebsk, captured by the invaders.
Front-line situation in the Vitebsk region
At the end of the summer, Verina's team was preparing to cross the front line. They were supposed to be helped by partisan operatives. The combat situation at that moment was not very favorable for the partisans. The advance was h alted. Vitebsk partisans had direct contact withmilitary front-line units, they could easily move through front-line barriers, deliver replenishment, food supplies and fodder to the regular army, and they themselves brought weapons and ammunition from there. But this did not last long. The Germans pulled fresh forces to this sector of the front in order to block the gap that had formed. This led to heavy fighting and the fact that the guerrilla zone was completely blocked. At the end of the summer of 1942, the German army pushed back the partisan detachments, and then completely turned the “Vitebsk gates”. At that very moment, Anna Kornilova's group was here, in the small village of Pudot.
The German command assigned a big role to the position of the occupied Vitebsk. He was located next to the front line and was considered the second gate after Smolensk on the way to Moscow. The city was filled with troops. Therefore, even the most experienced conspirators quickly failed. In addition, it was difficult to work without communication: radio communication was strictly prohibited. Direction finding was very clearly established in the city.
Sabotage activities of girls
The partisans had a rather great need to maintain communication with the headquarters exclusively with the help of messengers. On October 1, Vera found herself in Vitebsk, in the very lair of the enemy. Twenty partisans worked with her. They infiltrated railway stations, made their way to airfields, factories, and the commandant's office.
The most important thing for Vera was the fate of people, their sorrows. When the wholesale forced sending of citizens to work in Germany began, an underground organization led by AnnaKornilova tried to disrupt this action. The partisans burned documentation at the labor exchange, destroyed the passport office in the gendarmerie, organized the crossing of entire families to the partisans, and even freed people from trains heading to Germany. The girls provided great assistance to prisoners of war who had escaped from the camps. They prepared actions at the airport, at the railway station, an explosion in a cinema for the Nazis. Regular raids and terror did not interfere with the fact that almost every day echelons with troops and equipment fell down a slope. The girls were distributing leaflets with reports from the Soviet Information Bureau.
The Nazis were hunting for a close-knit fighting underground. Disturbing news began to come from Vera. The leaders of the underground tried to prevent failure and were going to take Vera and her friends out of the city. But she didn't even want to hear about it.
Failure
It is not known why the underground fighters failed. So far, the place where the patriots died has not been found. No documents were found, there are only testimonies. They report that on November 13, 1942, Khoruzhaya was supposed to meet with messengers from the command of the partisans. When she arrived at the safe house, there were two German officers there. Vera was not at a loss and spoke to them in German. They liked the fact of meeting with a B altic German woman who happened to be in Vitebsk, they were even going to help her. The ending was completely unexpected. In fact, the police had already surrounded the house. Most likely, the Nazis had nothing to do with the capture of the heroine. The officers did not expect that the policemenbroke into the hut.
Vera and the Vorobyov family were arrested. Patrols were posted around their home. At that moment, two more girls were walking there, who did not notice the kids who jumped out into the street and showed them a signal of danger. The girls did not know about the danger, did not notice the conventional signs.
The death of the heroine
At the very first interrogations it turned out that the Germans had no information about the Moscow group. The enemies managed to establish the identity of the scout, who had long been hunted by the police and the commandant's office. The traitor Petrov managed to decipher the message of Vera intercepted from the messenger. The girls were immediately transferred to the basement on Uspenskaya Gorka. It was a dungeon specially equipped by the Nazis for the most valuable prisoners - raw casemates. Above them were clerks and a torture room. It became clear that the team was exposed.
The girls were subjected to terrible torment, but none of them became a traitor. The Nazis in the courtyard of the SD shot several people from the group. The fate of the rest can only be guessed at. It is certain that they are no longer alive. Some eyewitnesses reported that the patriots were shot outside the city, in the Ilovsky ravine, when it was a rainy cool morning. It seems that one local resident accidentally heard the noise of an approaching car, German teams, screams and sounds of shots, and after the Germans left, the ground was still moving at the place of execution: people were buried alive.
There is another assumption that Vera Khoruzhaya with her friends, like other heroes of the war - JuliusFuchik and Musa Jalil were taken to the Moabit fortress in Berlin.
Only on the wall in one of the terrible dungeons there was a short inscription: "Khoruzh …". It is unlikely that you could get out of this place alive. Nowadays, there is a branch of the regional museum, and the street was named after the heroine.
The feat of Vera Khoruzhey (it was briefly described in the article) was not forgotten. In 1960, on May 17, a wonderful partisan was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.
Lilac Vera Khoruzha
In memory of the Hero of the Soviet Union, a well-known Belarusian underground worker who did not spare her life for the sovereignty and happiness of the Motherland, a wonderful variety of lilac was bred.
This variety is distinguished by the tenderness of the color of rather large and lush inflorescences. They are purple-pink in color, in the center with unusual bluish arrows. The flowers are large in diameter - up to 2.8 cm, their design is similar to other plants - hyacinths. The bushes are quite spreading, but not too tall.
Many argue that this variety of lilac is as gentle and at the same time persistent as Vera Khoruzhaya, whose biography was told to you in the article.
