14 Facts About Zinaida Portnova

Zinaida Martynovna Portnova was a Soviet partisan and posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union.

Zinaida Portnova is known for sabotaging and poisoning German troops during World War II before being captured, tortured and then killed at the age of 17.

Zinaida Portnova was the daughter of a working-class Belarusian family.

Zinaida Portnova was a seventh-grade student at the 385th school in Leningrad in 1941, when she left for her grandmother's house in the Vitebsk region.

In 1942, Portnova joined the Belarusian resistance movement, becoming a member of the local underground Komsomol organization in Obol, Vitebsk Region, named Young Avengers.

Zinaida Portnova began by distributing Soviet propaganda leaflets in German-occupied Belarus, collecting and hiding weapons for Soviet soldiers, and reporting on German troop movements.

In 1943, Zinaida Portnova became employed as a kitchen aide in Obol.

Zinaida Portnova became sick afterwards, vomiting heavily but eventually recovering from the poison after drinking a large quantity of whey.

In December 1943 or January 1944, Zinaida Portnova was sent back to Obol to infiltrate the garrison, discover the reason for the recent Young Avengers failures, then locate and contact the remaining members.

Zinaida Portnova then attempted to escape the compound and ran into the woods, where she was caught near the banks of a river.

Zinaida Portnova was later driven into the forest and executed or killed during torture on 15 January 1944.

On 1 July 1958, Zinaida Portnova was posthumously declared a Hero of the Soviet Union by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet.

Zinaida Portnova had numerous Young Pioneer groups named in her honour.

Zinaida Portnova has had many school teams and groups named after her, as well the museum to the Komsomol, situated on the highway between Polotsk and Vitebsk, and a school in St Petersburg.