32

p November 29, 1941

p Tomorrow I die, Mum.

p You’ve lived fifty years, and I only twenty-four, I so much want to live. How little I’ve done. I want to live to kill these hateful fascists. They’ve tortured me, but I haven’t told them a thing. I know my partisan comrades will avenge my death. They’ll wipe out the invaders.

p Don’t cry, Mum. I’ll die knowing that I’ve done all I can for victory. It’s no sin to die for the people. Tell all the girls to join the partisans, be brave and kick these uninvited dogs out of the country.

Victory is not far off!

LETTER TO HER MOTHER

p November 30, 1941

p My dear Mummy,

p I’m writing this letter just before I die. When you get it I shall no longer be alive. Dear Mum, you mustn’t cry over me, and you mustn’t grieve too much. I’m not afraid of death.. .. Mummy, you are all alone and I don’t know how you will get on without me. I think Zoya will look after you alright. Anyway, my dear one, you must get along somehow. Mum, I envy you a little all the same; you’ve already lived fifty years, but I have to die at 24, and how much I want to live and see the future. Never mind, enough of dreaming....

p I’ll end now, I can’t write any more. My hands are trembling and my head won’t work. I’ve been without food now 33 for two days and nights, but it’s easier to die on an empty stomach. You know. Mum, it’s such a pity to die.

p Well, never mind. Farewell, my dearest mother. I’d love to see you all, you, Zoya, dear little Zhenya. If he grows up to be a man, tell him what his auntie was like. Well that’s all. All my love to you all, and to you. Mummy.

p Your daughter Vera.

p When the enemy had taken the western districts of Kalinin Region, a wide-scale partisan movement started up.

p Vera Porshneva was trained as a machine-gunner and posted to a partisan unit where she was praised as a fearless and daring fighter.

p A little later, she was given instructions to take up work in German Commandatura, and get all the information she could. She became the best scout in the partisan unit. Vera was given away by a traitor and fell into nazi hands. This happened in the hamlet of Borisovka. For twelve days, the Gestapo interrogated the girl using all their usual methods.

p All without success. Her torturers tried a new trick: they let her go. Vera made up her mind to hide and later get back to her unit, but she was closely followed and two days later she was again seized and thrown into a stone cellar in a barn.

p Inhuman tortures began. They forced white-hot needles under her nails, burnt her breast, drove her half naked into the snow, gave her neither water nor food. And only greater and greater hatred welled up in her eyes, eyes which before the war everyone had said were always so kind.

p Vera knew death was not far off, but she didn’t complain. She was confident in victory over the nazis. All she grieved for was her mpther. On a tiny piece of grey paper Vera wrote a few lines to her, which bear the pain in her heart, sober words of comfort and confidence in a quick victory. But she didn’t manage to get this note through. Just before her death she wrote another little letter which she sewed in the fold of her coat.

Before they shot her the brutal Gestapo branded a five- cornered star on the young heroine’s breast. Vera Porshneva died on December 21, 1941.

 
Vera Porshneva