13 Facts About Nadezhda Troyan

Nadezhda Viktorovna Troyan was a Soviet Belarusian intelligence officer who served as a nurse in a partisan unit.

Nadezhda Troyan is most known for her role in the assassination of Wilhelm Kube, for which she and her fellow co-conspirators were honored with the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 October 1943.

Nadezhda Viktorovna Troyan was born on 24 October 1921 to a working-class Belarusian family in the village of Drissa, located within the Vitebsk province of present-day Belarus.

Nadezhda Troyan was later reassigned to kitchen duty, and worked with several prisoners of war.

Nadezhda Troyan found an anti-occupation pamphlet in her backyard and spread out several copies, but after her family moved to Smalyavichy she became more involved in the resistance movement after learning that a fellow nurse at the hospital where she worked, Nyura Kosarevskaya, was helping a group of partisans.

Nadezhda Troyan began producing leaflets written in German directed at Wehrmacht soldiers, then hid them in the bottom of containers of food sold to German troops, and she would smuggle weapons and supplies to the Minsk resistance whenever a German officer took her to Minsk.

Nadezhda Troyan was then assigned to the 5th sub-detachment, which was supposed to derail trains, destroy German equipment, and help Soviet prisoners escape.

In Spring 1943 Nadezhda Troyan was assigned the dangerous task of finding someone to assassinate Wilhelm Kube, a high-ranking member of the SS and the General-Kommissar of Nazi-occupied Belarus.

Nadezhda Troyan eventually settled on a young woman by the name of Yelena Mazanik, who worked in Kube's mansion as a maid and was the sister of another partisan, Valentina Shchutskoi.

Mazanik planted the bomb the assassination went as planned; afterward all three members of the plot including Nadezhda Troyan were awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on 29 October 1943.

Nadezhda Troyan continued participating in resistance activities until the end of the war.

Nadezhda Troyan became a Candidate of Medical Sciences in 1962 after writing her dissertation, after which she worked for the Ministry of Health at the Central Scientific Research Institute for Health Education of the USSR, and eventually became the program's director.

Nadezhda Troyan died in Moscow on 7 September 2011 at the age of 89.