1️⃣0️⃣0️⃣ years ago, on September 13, 1923, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was born: partisan, saboteur, and the first woman awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union (posthumously) during the Great Patriotic War.

When the war broke out, Zoya had just finished the ninth grade of a Moscow secondary school. In October 1941, at the height of the Battle of Moscow, she was, at her own initiative, enlisted as a private in reconnaissance and sabotage military unit No. 9903.

In November 1941, Zoya’s group operated near Volokolamsk: it participated in mining roads and destroying enemy wire lines. While performing a combat mission in the village of Petrishchevo, the girl was captured by the Nazis.

Despite being tortured and bullied by the Germans, the girl did not betray any of her comrades, nor did she give up any information that constituted a military secret. Desperate to get any information, the angry Nazis decided to hang her in front of the residents of a village occupied by the Nazis.

💬 Zoya’s last words were: “You’ll hang me now, but I’m not alone. There are two hundred million of us. You cannot hang everyone. I will be avenged.” The girl’s body hung in the square for about a month, and the Germans mocked it. She was only 18 years old when she died…

🎖 On February 16, 1942, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union. Her heroic deed was remembered many times in literature and music while dozens of streets, a mountain peak and an asteroid were named after her.

Her example inspired hundreds of thousands of other young people to resist the enemy. In particular, Zoya’s younger brother, Alexander Kosmodemyansky went to the front at the age of 17 after his sister died. The future Hero of the Soviet Union wrote the inscription, “For Zoya” on his tank.

#WeRemember