p October 17, 1942

Today is October 17, 1942. More than a month we’ve been in this cell. Three of us. We have done our duty to our country honourably. For that the nazis are torturing us. No matter what they do we’ll die honourably as in battle. Farewell, comrades! Revenge us.

p This short note on a page of a school exercise-book was discovered in 1957 by some builders behind a door-frame in one of the cells of the former Gestapo gaol in Pskov. On one side of the paper was the outline of the red banner traced in blood and on the other the above words.

p The story behind the note is as follows.

p On the night of August 8, 1942, four young girls were dropped by parachute behind enemy lines near Pskov. The quartette, under the code name Vera, consisted of Valeria Patkovskaya, 20, Valentina Golubeva, 19, Yelena Silanova, 18, and Anfisa Gorbunova, 23. All the girls were from Moscow. Their instructions were to settle down in Pskov and radio information on the location of enemy troops, their movements and strength, the defence fortifications, etc., to the Soviet Army H.Q. After a safe landing, the girls had the misfortune of running into a search party the next day somewhere near Zarechye. Three escaped but Yelena Silanova lost her life in the shooting.

p From a house on the outskirts of Pskov the trio started their regular transmission of ciphers back to headquarters, keeping watch on the junctions of all the main highways leading out of Pskov. At the end of August they were forced to leave their convenient room 93 because the old landlord had been arrested and tortured to death by the Gestapo. After registering at the Labour Exchange they quickly found jobs: Valentina (under the name of Izotova) and Anfisa (under the name of Mazina) at a cord factory, and Valeria (under the name of Shchedrova) as an interpreter in a German office.

p In September, during a registration check on Soviet citizens, they were all summoned to the commandatura and detained because of some irregularity with their passports. Initially, as there was no evidence against the girls, they were held in Abwehrkommand No. 304 on Krestyanskaya Street where the police were checking all suspects and their papers, besides recruiting people. The conditions were a good deal more free and easy than in gaol and the girls got ready to make a break. But suddenly everything fell through. A woman was brought to the Abwehrkommand who knew Valeria well. During questioning she blurted out Valeria’s real surname and, unable to withstand the torture, gave her away as the leader of the intelligence group. The next day Valeria Patkovskaya and her two companions were carted off to the Gestapo gaol.

There the girls were strung up, burnt with flaming torches and clubbed mercilessly. Then the nazis took the brave trio beyond the town to the village of Peski and shot them.