The exploits of children during the war 1941 1945. Young heroes of the Great Patriotic War. Children are heroes of the home front

Good day, my dear readers! In a day Great Victory I invite you to talk about "Children are war heroes." Thousands of ordinary girls and boys studied diligently, had carefree fun and could not even imagine that in an instant their happy childhood would be interrupted by difficult and cruel years from 1941 to 1945.

In a terrible hour, they took on their fragile shoulders troubles and bitterness, difficulties and even death, in order to help in some way in the fight against the enemy, showing how fearless children's hearts can be and how ardent love can be for their native country and their people.

For heroic deeds who fought along with their fathers and brothers, the little "sons and daughters of the regiments", as they were often called, were awarded orders and medals. Five wartime pioneers were awarded the highest title of Hero Soviet Union, unfortunately, everything is posthumous. Their names became known far beyond the borders of everyone's small homeland, so I want to tell about the children of war in my message about these young heroes.

Lesson plan:

Boy from legend

This is how the young scout of the Leningrad Partisan Brigade Lyonya Golikov was named glory. A thin 14-year-old village boy from Lukino, Novgorod Region, with a rifle obtained on the battlefield, went to the partisans and wandered under the guise of a beggar around settlements occupied by the Germans, collecting valuable secret information about the number of military equipment and the location of enemy troops.

On account of his 27 military campaigns and 78 killed German soldiers. Lenya Golikov stopped the enemy, destroying 2 railway and 12 road bridges, thereby preventing the Germans from passing. He destroyed 2 enemy food depots, leaving the enemy without food, and 9 vehicles, depriving the Germans of ammunition. A brave village boy single-handedly stopped the car with a German general, having obtained valuable information for Soviet intelligence.

Lenya Golikov received his first medal "For Courage" back in July 1942. They died along with the headquarters of their partisan brigade in 1943 in an unequal battle. Mothers were brought a certificate of awarding to their son the highest title of Hero of the Soviet Union for his heroic deed.

Girl with pigtails

This is the title of A. Solodov's work about a young underground worker, who was also awarded the highest title for exploits in the Great Patriotic War, Zinaida Portnova. A 7th grade student of the Leningrad school, at the age of 15, arrived in 1941 for the summer in the Vitebsk region and became a member of the underground youth organization "Young Avengers".

Members of the youth movement blew up power plants, set fire to factories where Soviet people were forced to work for Nazi Germany, and burned wagons with flax that were planned to be sent to the invaders. In total, the "Young Avengers" carried out more than 20 sabotage operations.

The girl began to participate in sabotage, conducted intelligence work, distributed leaflets against the enemy. After settling in the canteen for German officers, she managed to poison more than 100 soldiers. Since 1943, she became a partisan intelligence officer in the detachment.

After the defeat of the youth movement on the instructions of the partisans, Zina Portnova was supposed to establish new ties with those who managed to survive, but she was caught on a tip from a traitor after another operation. The Germans interrogated the young scout, promising to save her life for the names of partisans and underground fighters. But even the most sophisticated fascist tortures did not break her character. In 1944, the crippled but never succumbed to Zinaida Portnova was shot.

He was only 14

Belarusian Marat Kazei joined the partisan detachment at the age of 13, in 1942, after his mother was hanged by the Germans in Minsk. Full of hatred for the Nazis, he made his way into the German garrisons, obtaining the intelligence necessary for the Soviet army.

Together with the elders, Marat took part in sabotage operations at facilities that were especially important for the Germans: he blew up enemy trains, mined railroad... In 1943, being wounded, he raised the soldiers to attack, which helped them get out of the enemy ring. For his feat, the young pioneer then received the "For Courage" award.

In 1944, while returning from reconnaissance, Marat, together with the commander, stumbled upon the enemy, who took them into the "ring". When all the cartridges ran out, and only a grenade remained, Marat let the Nazis closer and blew them up with him. The awarded Hero of the Soviet Union was then only 14.

Not feeling sorry for yourself

Another young hero who wanted to blow himself up with a grenade together with the Germans was a schoolboy from the Tula region Sasha Chekalin. Since 1941 he volunteered partisan detachment An "advanced" who operated in the occupied territory of his native village. He managed to serve there a little more than a month, but made a heroic contribution to the fight against the Nazis.

The young patriot collected information about the locations and the number of German military units and their weapons, tracked down the routes of movement. The partisan detachment, where Alexander was, set fire to storage facilities, blew up Hitler's motor vehicles with mines, derailed German cars, destroyed enemy patrols and guards.

Having caught a cold, Sasha lay down, according to information transmitted by the traitor, the Nazis found him in the house where he was hidden. The partisan tried to blow himself up with the Germans, but the grenade did not work. After long torture and interrogation, Sasha Chekalin was hanged in the central square in front of the villagers who were driven away. In 1942, the young hero was awarded the highest rank for his exploits.

The youngest of all Heroes of the USSR

After graduating from only 5 classes of the Ukrainian school, Valya Kotik became a partisan reconnaissance, collecting weapons and ammunition, drawing and pasting cartoons of the Nazis. In 1942, he received his first assignment, blowing up the German gendarme. Participated in 6 subversive operations, as a result of which railway trains and ammunition depots were destroyed.

He worked as a liaison in the underground, learned about the location of German posts and the time of the changing of the enemy guard. In 1943, he discovered the location of the enemy telephone cable, which maintained contact with Hitler in Warsaw.

While participating in two battles, he was wounded, but Valya was mortally wounded in 1944 during the hostilities outside the city of Izyaslav. He became the youngest of those who were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

In our message, we talked only about five child heroes of the Great Patriotic War. In fact, there were much more of them, selfless and courageous. They fought at sea and in the sky, in partisan detachments and underground, catacombs and fortresses.

Monuments have been erected to children of war in their hometowns, streets are named after them. Their exploits are written literary works, poems were composed and films were shot. All this so that we never forget about what the Soviet people had to go through in the name of our peace with you. The official list of all pioneer heroes was compiled in 1954.

And I propose to finish the project with an excerpt from the work of Sergei Mikhalkov:

Let's not forget those heroes

That lie damp in the ground

Giving life to the battlefield

For the people - for you and me.

Did you know that not only people, but entire cities became Heroes? Read about it. And there is a test on the topic of war.

On this I say goodbye to you. Do not forget to pay tribute to those killed during the war on May 9 and lay flowers at the monument in your city. One must remember the feats of the Soviet people!

Twelve out of several thousand examples of unparalleled childhood courage
Young heroes of the Great Patriotic War - how many were there? If you count - how could it be otherwise ?! - the hero of every boy and every girl whom fate brought to war and made soldiers, sailors or partisans, then tens, if not hundreds of thousands.

According to the official data of the Central Archives of the Ministry of Defense (TsAMO) of Russia, during the war years, more than 3,500 servicemen under the age of 16 were registered in combat units. At the same time, it is clear that not every unit commander, who dared to take the son of the regiment into the upbringing, found the courage to declare about the pupil on command. You can understand how their fathers-commanders tried to hide the age of the little fighters, who in fact were for many instead of their fathers, by the confusion in the award documents. On the yellowed archival sheets, most of the underage servicemen are clearly overstated. The real one came to light much later, after ten or even forty years.

But there were also children and adolescents who fought in partisan detachments and were members of underground organizations! And there there were much more of them: sometimes whole families went to the partisans, and if not, then almost every teenager who ended up on the occupied land had someone to avenge.

So “tens of thousands” is far from an exaggeration, but rather an understatement. And, apparently, we will never know the exact number of young heroes of the Great Patriotic War. But this is not a reason not to remember them.

Boys walked from Brest to Berlin

The youngest of all the known little soldiers - in any case, according to the documents stored in the military archives - can be considered a graduate of the 142nd Guards Rifle Regiment of the 47th Guards Rifle Division, Sergei Aleshkin. In archival documents, you can find two certificates about the awarding of a boy who was born in 1936 and ended up in the army since September 8, 1942, shortly after the punishers shot his mother and older brother for contact with the partisans. The first document dated April 26, 1943 - about rewarding him with the medal "For Military Merit" in connection with the fact that "Comrade. Aleshkin's favorite of the regiment "" with his cheerfulness, love for the unit and those around him, in extremely difficult moments, instilled courage and confidence in victory. " The second, dated November 19, 1945, on awarding the pupils of the Tula Suvorov Military School with the medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945": in the list of 13 Suvorovites, the name of Aleshkin is the first.

But still, such a young soldier is an exception even for wartime and for a country where all the people, young and old, rose to defend the Motherland. Most of the young heroes who fought at the front and behind enemy lines were on average 13-14 years old. The earliest of them were protectors Brest Fortress, and one of the regiment's sons - holder of the Order of the Red Star, the Order of Glory III degree and the medal "For Courage" Vladimir Tarnovsky, who served in the 370th artillery regiment of the 230th rifle division, left his autograph on the wall of the Reichstag in the victorious May 1945 ...

The youngest Heroes of the Soviet Union

These four names - Lenya Golikov, Marat Kazei, Zina Portnova and Valya Kotik - have been the most famous symbol of the heroism of the young defenders of our Motherland for over half a century. Those who fought in different places and performed different feats according to the circumstances, they were all partisans and all were posthumously awarded highest award countries - the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. Two of them - Lena Golikov and Zina Portnova - by the time they had a chance to show unprecedented courage, were 17 years old, two more - Valea Kotik and Marat Kazei - only 14 each.

Lenya Golikov was the first of the four to be awarded the highest rank: the assignment decree was signed on April 2, 1944. The text says that the title of Hero of the Soviet Union Golikov was awarded "for exemplary performance of command assignments and for the displayed courage and heroism in battles." And indeed, in less than a year - from March 1942 to January 1943 - Lenya Golikov managed to take part in the defeat of three enemy garrisons, in blowing up more than a dozen bridges, in the capture of a German major general with secret documents ... the battle near the village of Ostraya Luka, without waiting for a high reward for the capture of a strategically important "language".

Zina Portnova and Valya Kotik were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union 13 years after the Victory, in 1958. Zina was awarded an award for the courage with which she carried out underground work, then performed the duties of a liaison between the partisans and the underground, and in the end endured inhuman torment, falling into the hands of the Nazis at the very beginning of 1944. Valya - according to the totality of exploits in the ranks of the Shepetov partisan detachment named after Karmelyuk, where he came after a year of work in underground organization in Shepetivka itself. And Marat Kazei was awarded the highest award only in the year of the 20th anniversary of Victory: the decree on conferring the title of Hero of the Soviet Union on him was promulgated on May 8, 1965. For almost two years - from November 1942 to May 1944 - Marat fought as part of the partisan formations of Belarus and died, blowing up himself and the Nazis who surrounded him with the last grenade.

Over the past half century, the circumstances of the exploits of the four heroes have become known throughout the country: more than one generation of Soviet schoolchildren has grown up on their example, and the present people are certainly told about them. But even among those who did not receive the highest award, there were many real heroes - pilots, sailors, snipers, scouts and even musicians.

Sniper Vasily Kurka

The war found Vasya as a sixteen-year-old teenager. In the very first days he was mobilized to the labor front, and in October he achieved enrollment in the 726th Infantry Regiment of the 395th Infantry Division. At first, the boy of non-recruitment age, who also looked a couple of years younger than his age, was left in the train: they say, there is nothing for teenagers on the front line to do. But soon the guy got his way and was transferred to a combat unit - to the sniper team.

Vasily Kurka. Photo: Imperial War Museum

An amazing military fate: from the first to the last day, Vasya Kurka fought in the same regiment of the same division! Did a good one military career, having risen to the rank of lieutenant and taking command of a rifle platoon. He wrote down to his own account, according to various sources, from 179 to 200 killed Nazis. He fought from Donbass to Tuapse and back, and then further, to the West, to the Sandomierz bridgehead. It was there that Lieutenant Kurka was mortally wounded in January 1945, less than six months before the Victory.

Pilot Arkady Kamanin

The 15-year-old Arkady Kamanin arrived at the location of the 5th Guards Assault Air Corps with his father, who was appointed commander of this illustrious unit. The pilots were surprised to learn that the son of the legendary pilot, one of the seven first Heroes of the Soviet Union, a participant rescue expedition"Chelyuskin" will work as an aircraft mechanic in the communications squadron. But they soon became convinced that the "general's son" did not live up to their negative expectations at all. The boy did not hide behind the back of the famous father, but simply did his job well - and strove to the sky with all his might.

Sergeant Kamanin in 1944. Photo: war.ee

Soon Arkady achieved his goal: first he rises into the air as a letnab, then as a navigator on the U-2, and then goes on the first independent flight. And finally - the long-awaited appointment: the son of General Kamanin becomes the pilot of the 423rd separate communications squadron. Before the victory, Arkady, who rose to the rank of foreman, managed to fly almost 300 hours and earn three orders: two - the Red Star and one - the Red Banner. And if it were not for meningitis, who literally in a matter of days killed an 18-year-old guy in the spring of 1947, perhaps in the cosmonaut corps, the first commander of which was Kamanin Sr., Kamanin Jr. would also have been listed: Arkady managed to enter the Zhukovsky Air Force Academy back in 1946.

Frontline intelligence officer Yuri Zhdanko

Ten-year-old Yura ended up in the army by accident. In July 1941, he went to show the retreating Red Army soldiers a little-known ford on the Western Dvina and did not manage to return to his native Vitebsk, where the Germans had already entered. So he left together with a part to the east, to Moscow itself, in order to start the return journey to the west from there.

Yuri Zhdanko. Photo: russia-reborn.ru

On this path, Yura managed to do a lot. In January 1942, he, who had never jumped with a parachute before, went to the rescue of the encircled partisans and helped them break through the enemy ring. In the summer of 1942, together with a group of fellow intelligence officers, he blows up a strategically important bridge across the Berezina, sending not only the bridge bed to the bottom of the river, but also nine trucks passing through it, and less than a year later he turns out to be the only messenger who managed to break through to the surrounded battalion and help him get out of the "ring".

By February 1944, the 13-year-old scout's chest was decorated with the Medal For Courage and the Order of the Red Star. But a shell that exploded literally underfoot interrupted Yura's front-line career. He ended up in the hospital, from where he went to Suvorov School, but did not pass for health reasons. Then the retired young intelligence officer retrained as a welder and on this "front" also managed to become famous, having traveled with his welding machine almost half of Eurasia - he was building pipelines.

Infantryman Anatoly Komar

Among the 263 Soviet soldiers who covered the enemy embrasures with their bodies, the youngest was 15-year-old private of the 332nd reconnaissance company of the 252nd Infantry Division of the 53rd Army of the 2nd Ukrainian Front Anatoly Komar. The teenager entered the active army in September 1943, when the front came close to his native Slavyansk. It happened with him in almost the same way as with Yura Zhdanko, with the only difference that the boy served as a guide not for the retreating, but for the advancing Red Army men. Anatoly helped them to go deep into the front line of the Germans, and then left with the advancing army to the west.

Young partisan. Photo: Imperial War Museum

But, unlike Yura Zhdanko, the front line of Tolya Komar was much shorter. Only two months he had a chance to wear the shoulder straps that had recently appeared in the Red Army and go on reconnaissance. In November of the same year, returning from a free search in the rear of the Germans, a group of scouts revealed themselves and was forced to break through to their own in battle. The last obstacle on the way back was the machine gun, which pressed the reconnaissance to the ground. Anatoly Komar threw a grenade at him, and the fire died down, but as soon as the scouts got up, the machine gunner started firing again. And then Tolya, who was closest to the enemy, got up and fell on the machine-gun barrel, at the cost of his life buying his comrades precious minutes for a breakthrough.

Sailor Boris Kuleshin

The cracked photograph shows sailors in black uniforms with ammunition boxes on their backs and superstructures Soviet cruiser there is a boy about ten years old. His hands are tightly gripping the PPSh submachine gun, and on his head is a peakless cap with a guards' ribbon and the inscription "Tashkent". This is a pupil of the crew of the leader of the Tashkent destroyer Borya Kuleshin. The picture was taken in Poti, where, after repairs, the ship entered for another load of ammunition for the besieged Sevastopol. It was here at the gangway of "Tashkent" that twelve-year-old Borya Kuleshin appeared. His father died at the front, his mother, as soon as Donetsk was occupied, was driven to Germany, and he himself managed to escape through the front line to his own and, together with the retreating army, to reach the Caucasus.

Boris Kuleshin. Photo: weralbum.ru

While they were persuading the commander of the ship Vasily Eroshenko, while they were deciding which combat unit to enroll in the cabin boy, the sailors managed to give him a belt, a peakless cap and a machine gun and take a picture of the new crew member. And then there was a transition to Sevastopol, the first raid on the "Tashkent" in Bori's life and the first in his life clips for an anti-aircraft artillery machine, which he, along with other anti-aircraft gunners, handed to the shooters. At his combat post, he was wounded on July 2, 1942, when German aircraft tried to sink a ship in the port of Novorossiysk. After the hospital, Borya followed Captain Eroshenko to new ship- Guards cruiser "Krasny Kavkaz". And already here I found him a well-deserved award: presented for the battles on the "Tashkent" for the medal "For Courage", he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner by the decision of the front commander Marshal Budyonny and a member of the Military Council Admiral Isakov. And in the next front-line photo he is already showing off in the new uniform of a young sailor, on whose head a peakless cap with a guards' ribbon and the inscription "Red Caucasus". It was in this uniform that in 1944 Borya went to the Tbilisi Nakhimov School, where in September 1945, along with other teachers, educators and pupils, he was awarded the medal "For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945."

Musician Petr Klypa

Fifteen-year-old pupil of the musical platoon of the 333rd Rifle Regiment, Pyotr Klypa, like other underage inhabitants of the Brest Fortress, had to go to the rear with the beginning of the war. But Petya refused to leave the fighting citadel, which, among others, was defended by his only family member - his elder brother Lieutenant Nikolai. So he became one of the first teenage soldiers in the Great Patriotic War and a full participant in the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress.

Petr Klypa. Photo: worldwar.com

He fought there until early July, when he received an order to break through to Brest along with the remnants of the regiment. This is where Petit's ordeal began. Having crossed the tributary of the Bug, he, among other colleagues, was captured, from which he soon managed to escape. He reached Brest, lived there for a month and moved east, following the retreating Red Army, but did not reach it. During one of the nights he and a friend were found by policemen, and the teenagers were sent to forced labor in Germany. Petya was released only in 1945 by American troops, and after checking he even managed to serve in Soviet army... And upon returning to his homeland, he again ended up behind bars, because he succumbed to the persuasions of an old friend and helped him speculate on the looted. Pyotr Klypa was released only seven years later. He needed to thank for this the historian and writer Sergei Smirnov, who, bit by bit, recreated the history of the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress and, of course, did not miss the history of one of its youngest defenders, who after the liberation was awarded the order World War I degree.

Since 2009, 12 February has been declared by the UN as the International Day of Child Soldiers. This is the name given to minors who, due to circumstances, are forced to actively participate in wars and armed conflicts.

According to various sources, up to several tens of thousands of minors took part in hostilities during the Great Patriotic War. "Sons of the regiment", pioneer heroes - they fought and died on a par with adults. They were awarded orders and medals for military service. The images of some of them were used in Soviet propaganda as symbols of courage and loyalty to the Motherland.

Five underage fighters of the Great Patriotic War were awarded the highest award - the titles of Heroes of the USSR. All - posthumously, remaining in textbooks and books by children and adolescents. All Soviet schoolchildren knew these heroes by name. Today "RG" recalls their short and often similar biographies.

Marat Kazei, 14 years old

Member of the partisan detachment named after the 25th anniversary of October, scout of the headquarters of the 200th partisan brigade named after Rokossovsky in the occupied territory of the Byelorussian SSR.

Marat was born in 1929 in the village of Stankovo, Minsk region of Belarus, managed to finish 4 classes of a rural school. Before the war, his parents were arrested on charges of sabotage and "Trotskyism"; numerous children were "scattered" over their grandparents. But the Kazeyev family did not get angry at Soviet power: In 1941, when Belarus became an occupied territory, Anna Kazei, the wife of the "enemy of the people" and the mother of little Marat and Ariadne, hid wounded partisans in her house, for which she was executed by the Germans. And the brother and sister went to the partisans. Ariadne was subsequently evacuated, but Marat remained in the detachment.

Along with his older comrades, he went on reconnaissance - both alone and with a group. Participated in raids. He blew up trains. For the battle in January 1943, when, wounded, he roused his comrades to attack and fought his way through the enemy ring, Marat received the medal "For Courage".

And in May 1944, while performing another task near the village of Khoromitskie, Minsk region, a 14-year-old soldier died. Returning from a mission together with the intelligence commander, they stumbled upon the Germans. The commander was killed immediately, and Marat, firing back, lay in a hollow. There was nowhere to leave in the open field, and there was no possibility - the teenager was seriously wounded in the arm. While there were cartridges, I kept the line, and when the store was empty, I took the last weapon - two grenades from my belt. He threw one at the Germans right away, and from the second he waited: when the enemies came very close, he blew himself up with them.

In 1965, Marat Kazei was awarded the title of Hero of the USSR.

Valya Kotik, 14 years old

A partisan scout in the Karmelyuk detachment, the youngest Hero of the USSR.

Valya was born in 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Shepetovsky district, Kamenets-Podolsk region of Ukraine. Before the war he graduated from five classes. In a village occupied by German troops, the boy secretly collected weapons, ammunition and handed them over to the partisans. And he waged his own little war, as he understood it: he drew and pasted caricatures of the Nazis in prominent places.

Since 1942, he contacted the Shepetivka underground party organization and carried out its intelligence assignments. And in the fall of the same year, Valya and her boys of the same age received their first real combat mission: to eliminate the chief of the field gendarmerie.

"The roar of the engines grew louder - the cars were approaching. The faces of the soldiers were already clearly visible. Sweat was dripping from their foreheads, half-covered with green helmets. Some soldiers carelessly took off their helmets. The front car caught up with the bushes behind which the boys were hiding. Valya stood up, counting the seconds to himself. The car passed, an armored car was already in front of him. Then he got up to his full height and, shouting "Fire!" , rushed into a ditch and from there opened random fire from machine guns ", - this is how this first battle is described Soviet textbook... Val then fulfilled the task of the partisans: the chief of the gendarmerie, chief lieutenant Franz Koenig and seven German soldiers were killed. About 30 people were injured.

In October 1943, the young soldier scouted the location of the underground telephone cable of the Hitlerite headquarters, which was soon blown up. Valya also took part in the destruction of six railway echelons and a warehouse.

On October 29, 1943, while at the post, Valya noticed that the punishers had staged a raid on the detachment. Having killed a fascist officer with a pistol, the teenager raised the alarm, and the partisans had time to prepare for battle. On February 16, 1944, five days after his 14th birthday, in a battle for the city of Izyaslav, Kamenets-Podolsk, now Khmelnitsky region, the scout was mortally wounded and died the next day.

In 1958, Valentin Kotik was awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Lenya Golikov, 16 years old

Scout of the 67th detachment of the 4th Leningrad partisan brigade.

Born in 1926 in the village of Lukino, Parfinsky district, Novgorod region. When the war began, he got a rifle and went to the partisans. Slim, short, he looked even younger than all 14 years old. Disguised as a beggar, Lenya walked around the villages, collecting the necessary data on the location of the fascist troops and the number of their military equipment, and then passed this information on to the partisans.

In 1942 he joined the detachment. "He took part in 27 military operations, destroyed 78 German soldiers and officers, blew up 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, blew up 9 vehicles with ammunition ... troops Richard Wirtz, heading from Pskov to Luga "- such data is contained in his award sheet.

The regional military archive preserved the original report of Golikov with a story about the circumstances of this battle:

“In the evening of 12.08.42, we, 6 partisans, got out onto the Pskov-Luga highway and lay down near the village of Varnitsa. There was no movement at night. We were, the car was quieter. Partizan Vasiliev threw an anti-tank grenade, missed. The second grenade was thrown by Petrov Alexander from the ditch, hit the traverse. The car did not stop immediately, but walked another 20 meters and almost caught up with us. Two officers jumped out of the car. I fired a burst from a machine gun. Did not hit. The officer who was driving ran across the ditch towards the forest. I gave several bursts from my PPSh. I hit the enemy in the neck and back. Petrov began to shoot at the second officer, who kept looking around, shouting and Petrov killed this officer with a rifle. Then the two of us ran to the first wounded officer. They tore off the shoulder straps, took the briefcase, documents. There was still a heavy suitcase in the car. We barely dragged it into the bushes (150 meters from the highway). Not at the car, we heard an alarm, a ringing, a shout in a neighboring village. Grabbing a briefcase, shoulder straps and three captured pistols, we ran to our ... ".

For this feat Lenya was nominated for the highest government award - the Gold Star medal and the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. But he did not have time to get them. From December 1942 to January 1943, the partisan detachment, in which Golikov was located, with fierce battles left the encirclement. Only a few managed to survive, but Leni was not among them: he died in a battle with a punitive detachment of fascists on January 24, 1943 near the village of Ostraya Luka, Pskov region, before he was 17 years old.

Sasha Chekalin, 16 years old

Member of the Vanguard partisan detachment of the Tula region.

Born in 1925 in the village of Peskovatskoe, now the Suvorov district of the Tula region. Before the start of the war, he graduated from 8 classes. After the occupation of his native village by the Nazi troops in October 1941, he joined the "Vanguard" fighter partisan detachment, where he managed to serve only a little more than a month.

By November 1941, the partisan detachment inflicted significant damage on the Nazis: warehouses burned, cars exploded on mines, enemy trains went downhill, sentries and patrols disappeared without a trace. Once a group of partisans, including Sasha Chekalin, ambushed the road to the town of Likhvin (Tula region). A car appeared in the distance. A minute passed - and the explosion blew the car apart. Several more cars passed and exploded behind it. One of them, overcrowded with soldiers, tried to slip through. But the grenade thrown by Sasha Chekalin destroyed it too.

In early November 1941, Sasha caught a cold and took to bed. The commissar allowed him to lie down with a trusted person in the nearest village. But there was a traitor who betrayed him. At night, the Nazis broke into the house where the sick partisan was lying. Chekalin managed to grab the prepared grenade and throw it, but it did not explode ... After several days of torture, the Nazis hanged the teenager in the central Likhvin square and for more than 20 days did not allow his corpse to be removed from the gallows. And only when the city was liberated from the invaders, the military comrades-in-arms of the partisan Chekalin buried him with military honors.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union was awarded to Alexander Chekalin in 1942.

Zina Portnova, 17 years old

Member of the underground Komsomol-youth organization "Young Avengers", a scout of the Voroshilov partisan detachment on the territory of the Byelorussian SSR.

She was born in 1926 in Leningrad, graduated from 7 classes there and summer holidays I went to rest with relatives in the village of Zuya, Vitebsk region of Belarus. There she was caught by the war.

In 1942, she joined the Obolsk underground Komsomol-youth organization "Young Avengers" and was actively involved in distributing leaflets among the population and sabotaging the invaders.

Since August 1943, Zina has been a scout for the Voroshilov partisan detachment. In December 1943, she was tasked with identifying the reasons for the failure of the Young Avengers organization and establishing contact with the underground. But upon returning to the detachment, Zina was arrested.

During interrogation, the girl grabbed the pistol of the fascist investigator from the table, shot him and two more Nazis, tried to escape, but was captured.

From the book "Zina Portnova" by the Soviet writer Vasily Smirnov: "The most sophisticated executioners in cruel torture interrogated her ... She was promised to save her life, if only the young partisan confesses everything, names all the underground fighters and partisans she knows. And again the Gestapo met with the astonishing by their unshakable firmness of this stubborn girl, who in their protocols was called a “Soviet bandit.” Zina, exhausted by torture, refused to answer questions, hoping that this would kill her faster. they took her to another interrogation-torture, threw herself under the wheels of a passing truck. But the car was stopped, the girl was pulled out from under the wheels and again taken for interrogation ... ".

On January 10, 1944, in the village of Goryany, now in the Shumilinsky district of the Vitebsk region of Belarus, 17-year-old Zina was shot.

The title of Hero of the Soviet Union Zinaida Tailor was awarded in 1958.

Completed by: Korosteleva E.A.

Before the war, these were the most ordinary boys and girls. They studied, helped the elders, played, bred pigeons, sometimes even took part in fights. But the hour of hard trials came, and they proved how huge an ordinary little child's heart can become when sacred love for the Motherland flares up in it, pain for the fate of its people and hatred of enemies. And no one expected that these boys and girls are capable of performing a great feat for the glory of freedom and independence of their Motherland!

Children left in the destroyed cities and villages became homeless, doomed to death by starvation. It was terrible and difficult to remain in the territory occupied by the enemy. Children could be sent to a concentration camp, taken to work in Germany, turned into slaves, made donors for German soldiers, etc.

Here are the names of some of them: Volodya Kazmin, Yura Zhdanko, Lenya Golikov, Marat Kazei, Lara Mikheenko, Valya Kotik, Tanya Morozova, Vitya Korobkov, Zina Portnova. Many of them fought so hard that they deserved military orders and medals, and four: Marat Kazei, Valya Kotik, Zina Portnova, Lenya Golikov, became Heroes of the Soviet Union.

From the first days of the occupation, boys and girls began to act at their own peril and risk, which was indeed fatal.

What happened to the children at this terrible time? During the war?

The guys worked day and night in factories, factories and industries, standing behind the machines instead of the brothers and fathers who had gone to the front. Children also worked at defense enterprises: they made fuses for mines, fuses for hand grenades, smoke bombs, colored flares, and assembled gas masks. They worked in agriculture, grew vegetables for hospitals.

In school sewing workshops, the pioneers sewed linen and tunics for the army. The girls knitted warm clothes for the front: mittens, socks, scarves, sewed pouches for tobacco. The guys helped the wounded in hospitals, wrote letters to their relatives under their dictation, put on performances for the wounded, arranged concerts, causing a smile from adult men exhausted by the war.

A number of objective reasons: the departure of teachers to the army, the evacuation of the population from the western regions to the eastern, the inclusion of students in labor activity in connection with the departure of the family breadwinners to the war, the transfer of many schools to hospitals, etc., prevented the deployment in the USSR during the war of a universal seven-year compulsory training begun in the 30s. In the remaining educational institutions training was conducted in two, three, and sometimes four shifts.

At the same time, the children were forced to store firewood for the boiler rooms themselves. There were no textbooks, and due to lack of paper they wrote on old newspapers between the lines. Nevertheless, new schools were opened, additional classes were created. Boarding schools were created for the evacuated children. For those young people who left school at the beginning of the war and were employed in industry or agriculture, schools for working and rural youth were organized in 1943.

There are still many little-known pages in the annals of the Great Patriotic War, for example, the fate of kindergartens. “It turns out that in December 1941, in besieged Moscow, kindergartens worked in bomb shelters. When the enemy was driven back, they resumed their work faster than many universities. By the fall of 1942, 258 kindergartens had opened in Moscow!

From the memories of the war childhood of Lydia Ivanovna Kostyleva:

“After the death of my grandmother, I was assigned to kindergarten, older sister at school, mom at work. I went to kindergarten alone, on a tram, in less than five years. Once I got seriously ill with mumps, I was lying at home alone with high temperature, there was no medicine, in my delirium I fancied a pig running under the table, but nothing happened.
I saw my mother in the evenings and on rare weekends. The children were raised by the street, we were friendly and always hungry. From early spring, they ran on mosses, fortunately, the forest and swamps are nearby, they picked berries, mushrooms, and various early grass. The bombing gradually stopped, the residences of the allies were located in our Arkhangelsk, this brought a certain flavor to life - we, children, sometimes fell out of warm clothes, some food. Basically, we ate black shangi, potatoes, seal meat, fish and fish oil, on holidays - "marmalade" of seaweed, tinted with beets. "

More than five hundred educators and nannies in the fall of 1941 dug trenches on the outskirts of the capital. Hundreds of people worked in the logging area. The educators, who only yesterday led a round dance with the children, fought in the Moscow militia. Natasha Yanovskaya, a kindergarten teacher in the Bauman region, heroically died near Mozhaisk. The educators who remained with the children did not perform feats. They simply rescued babies whose fathers fought, and mothers stood at the machines.

Most of the kindergartens became boarding schools during the war, children were there day and night. And in order to feed the children in half-starving time, to protect them from the cold, to give them at least a little bit of comfort, to occupy them with the benefit of the mind and soul - such work required a great love for children, deep decency and boundless patience. "

The children's games have changed, "... a new game - in the hospital. They played in the hospital before, but not like that. Now the wounded for them - real people... But war is played less often, because no one wants to be a fascist. This role is played by trees. Snowballs are shooting at them. We learned to provide assistance to the victims - the fallen, the bruised. "

From a boy's letter to a front-line soldier: “We used to play the war too often, but now much less often - we are tired of the war, it would sooner be over, so that we can live well again ...” (Ibid.).

In connection with the death of their parents, many street children have appeared in the country. Soviet state despite the difficult wartime, it nevertheless fulfilled its obligations to children left without parents. To combat neglect, a network of children's reception centers and orphanages was organized and opened, and the employment of adolescents was organized.

Many families of Soviet citizens began to take orphans to their upbringing, where they found new parents. Unfortunately, not all educators and heads of children's institutions were distinguished by honesty and decency. Here are some examples.

"In the fall of 1942, children dressed in rags were caught in the Pochinkovsky district of the Gorky region, stealing potatoes and grain from collective farm fields. orphanage... And they did it by no means out of a good life. During further investigation, local police officers discovered a criminal group, and, in fact, a gang, which consisted of employees of this institution.

In total, seven people were arrested in the case, including the director of the orphanage Novoseltsev, accountant Sdobnov, storekeeper Mukhina and others. During the searches, 14 children's coats, seven suits, 30 meters of cloth, 350 meters of manufactory and other misappropriated property, which were allocated with great difficulty by the state during this harsh wartime, were seized from them.

The investigation established that by not supplying the due norm of bread and food, these criminals only during 1942 plundered seven tons of bread, half a ton of meat, 380 kg of sugar, 180 kg of biscuits, 106 kg of fish, 121 kg of honey, etc. The employees of the orphanage sold all these scarce products on the market or simply ate them themselves.

Only one comrade Novoseltsev received fifteen servings of breakfast and lunch for himself and his family members every day. At the expense of the pupils, the rest of the attendants also ate well. The children were fed "dishes" made from rot and vegetables, citing poor supplies.

Throughout 1942, they were given only one candy each for the 25th anniversary. October revolution... And what is most surprising, the director of the orphanage Novoseltsev in the same 1942 received an honorary diploma from the People's Commissariat of Education for excellent educational work... All these fascists were deservedly sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. "

At such a time, the whole essence of a person is manifested. Every day, face a choice - what to do. And the war showed us examples of great mercy, great heroism and great cruelty, great meanness .. We must remember this !! For the future !!

And no time can heal wounds from war, especially children. "These years that were once, the bitterness of childhood does not allow to forget ..."

For international children literary competition"Pioneers - Heroes of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945".

I am only 10 years old, I am in the fourth grade, where there is no history lesson yet. I know about the Great Patriotic War from the stories of my grandmother, parents and films. About the pioneer heroes, I know from them and not so much to write a competitive work. But I really love to write stories, fairy tales, detective stories, and I wanted to write about pioneer heroes too. Therefore, in order to find out more about them, I went to the vastness of the Internet. There I found a lot of information, "eyes fled" from her. Unfortunately, I like to read everything that can be handled more: books, articles in newspapers and magazines. And all because they convey their energy and create a unique, mysterious atmosphere. You immediately feel it and delve into the text, as if plunging into that time, especially if the book is old. Therefore, the stories about pioneer heroes on the Internet did not interest me at all. And I decided to contact school library... There they gave me only two books:
- "Zina Portnova",
- "Partisan Lara".
This was not enough for me, because I wanted to learn as much as possible. And then I went to the nearest city library. There I could not find even one book about pioneer heroes. I returned home from the library very sad. Mom said:

"Do not be sad, now we will call all our friends and check what is in their home libraries."

So we found two more books:
- "Fireworks, pioneers!"
- "Children of the wartime".
It was very unpleasant for me that the "paper" popular in Soviet time books about pioneer heroes. After all, other children will not be able to read them either. And the Internet cannot fully replace ordinary books. Moreover, there it is necessary to look for information, looking through a huge number of pages, as for homework, and not for the "soul". This means that the children-heroes of the war will soon be completely forgotten. But in spite of everything, I started reading with great interest. And I also conducted a mini-survey among children and adults about the pioneer heroes, "What pioneer heroes do you know about?" And in response, they either said:

"I don't remember anyone."

Or they called only one or two names. Seeing how the names of the heroes are forgotten, I decided to write here not about one hero, but about many, so as not to let these names be forgotten.

Lenya Golikov.

Born June 17, 1926 in the village of Lukino, Novgorod Region, into a working class family. He was a scout in a partisan detachment, collecting information about the locations of enemy troops. Once he almost single-handedly seized very important documents from German general... According to official data, Lenya took part in 27 military operations, the explosion of 2 railway and 12 highway bridges, 9 vehicles with ammunition. He died at the age of 16 in an unequal battle near the village of Ostraya Luka on January 24, 1943. He was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. At the grave of Lenya Golikov in the village of Ostraya Luka, Dedichesky District, fishermen of the Novgorod Region erected an obelisk.

Zina Portnova.

She was born on February 20, 1926 in the city of Leningrad in a working class family. She got a job in a German canteen at a school where officers were taught. She poisoned more than a hundred fascists there! And during one of the interrogations she grabbed a pistol from the table and shot three Germans. And she was also a scout in an underground organization. There she became a Komsomol member. On January 13, 1944, near Polotsk, Zina was shot by the Nazis. She was posthumously awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.

Boris Tsarikov.

Born on October 31, 1925 in the city of Gomel, Belarus. He was also a scout, actively participated in battles. Destroyed a train with 70 enemy tanks. During his lifetime he received the title of corporal and hero of the Soviet Union. But on November 13, 1943, he died from a sniper bullet.

Valya Kotik.

Born on February 11, 1930 in the village of Khmelevka, Khmelnitsky region of Ukraine in a family of peasants. At the age of 11, he and his friends collected weapons left on the battlefields. He also pasted leaflets throughout the city - caricatures of the Germans. He made many explosions of warehouses and trains. Got information about the location of the German posts. Killed from mortal wounds received in the battle on February 16, 1944 for the liberation of the city of Izyaslav Kamenets-Podolsky. Received the title of Hero of the Soviet Union posthumously.

Musya Pinkenson.

Born on December 5, 1930 in the Moldavian city of Balti in the family of a doctor. He did not become a hero of the Soviet Union, did not participate in hostilities. He was a music prodigy. He became an example of courage and fearlessness, because before being shot by the Germans in the summer of 1942, the 11-year-old boy Musya played in front of them the "International" (the official anthem of the RSFSR).

I talked about a few guys, but there are actually a lot of pioneer heroes. For example:
- Marat Kazei,
- Lara Mikheenko,
- Volodya Dubinin,
- Lida Vashkevich,
- Arkady Kamanin,
- Nina Kukoverova,
- Valya Zenkina,
- Nadia Bogdanova,
- Volodya Kaznacheev,
- Vitya Khomenko,
- Sasha Borodulin,
- Vasya Korobko,
- Kostya Kravchuk,
- Galya Komleva,
- Utah Bondarovskaya,
- Shura Kober,
- Sanya Kolesnikov and many others.
They have received many awards. They fought on a par with adults. And they died very young for their homeland, thinking only about the Great Victory, and not about their personal life. A lot of interesting things awaited them in adulthood, to which they did not live. It makes me sad to understand this. And at the same time, I am very proud that there were such heroes, almost my peers, who fought not for their own, but for my future. Zina Portnova became my favorite hero and role model. I'm sure if I were in her place, I would have done the same.