"I'm leaving on a mission": an exhibition about the female participants of the Surazh partisan zone opened in Vitebsk
The exhibition "Going on a Mission", dedicated to women who participated in the partisan movement of the Surazh partisan zone, opened at the Vitebsk Regional Museum of the Hero of the Soviet Union M.F. Shmyryov, reports a BELTA correspondent.
The exhibition features documents about 10 women who held various positions and maintained contact with partisans and underground fighters during the Great Patriotic War. Some of them were responsible for creating underground Komsomol organizations, not only in the Vitebsk but also in the Polotsk districts. Together with the partisans, they participated in combat operations, distributed patriotic leaflets among the population, and helped treat fighters.
The title of the exhibition comes from the memoirs of one of the heroines of the partisan movement, Maria Kozlova (Zhuravleva), published in 1975. It tells how Maria first went underground in the Nevel district of Pskov region, and then she was sent to a partisan unit in Belarus.
The organizers of the exhibition also noted the contributions of a simple resident, Emilia Chunenko, who, living in a village occupied by the Germans, helped the partisans - baked bread, sewed clothes from parachute material, and provided shelter for fighters. Once, she saved the life of a young scout from the partisan unit who stopped by her place to spend the night. When the Germans came to the village and discovered the young man, they began to ask who he was. Emilia Ivanovna "baptized" the partisan as the neighbor's son. She had managed to hide his weapon in advance, so nothing revealed the young man, who was later released. In this way, the peasant woman saved herself as well, as she faced execution for contact with partisans. After the war, she was awarded a medal for military merit, and Emilia Chunenko could not understand why, as she did not fight the enemy but simply fulfilled her civic duty.
The exhibition will be useful and interesting for the younger generation, especially the youth. At the beginning of the war, all the partisans mentioned here were 18-21 years old, and they were not intimidated by the enemy; they acted and helped as they could. Their feats can serve as an example of patriotism and love for the Motherland.