Obol. “In every family here, someone fought”
The Partisans' Right Hand
In January 1942, on behalf of the leadership of the Voroshilov partisan detachment operating in the vicinity, 18-year-old Efrosinya Zenkova rallied 38 young men and women from the local school and nearby villages around her and became the secretary of the underground organization "Young Avengers." The average age of the underground fighters was 16-17 years old.
— The youth were the partisans' right hand: they organized sabotage on the roads, blew up bridges and enterprises, gathered necessary information, and inflicted damage on the enemy from within by getting jobs in various German departments, — says Yuri Khodanonok, the head of the Obel Komsomol Underground Museum, and gives an example:
— Nina Azolina, for instance, worked as a copyist at the commandant's office. She carried a mine disguised as a piece of coal into the guarded railway station territory and threw it into a pile of fuel near the boiler room. When the explosive entered the furnace, the only water pumping station on the stretch between Polotsk and Vitebsk was destroyed. For two weeks, about a dozen enemy trains carrying weapons, tanks, and food for the Hitlerites to the front were stopped in Obel.
The oldest among the underground fighters was 23-year-old Nikolai Alekseev. A switchman at a railway station, he observed the movement of enemy trains daily and left notes for the communication officers. Following Nikolai's tip, Soviet pilots destroyed four enemy trains at the Sirotino station, which were carrying German tanks hidden under hay. Later, Alekseev planted a mine on a train carrying bombs and weapons for the Germans. A few hours later, a powerful explosion occurred on the railway, destroying both the train and the tracks.
A Hero with Braids
The youngest member of the "Young Avengers" organization was 15-year-old Zina Portnova. A resident of Leningrad, she regularly visited her grandmother in Obol during her holidays. This was also the case in June 1941.
They say Zina was cheerful, enjoyed dancing, and dreamed of becoming a ballerina. The delicate, sensitive girl with braids had to grow up instantly when the war began.
The Leningrad Pioneer girl got a job as a helper in a German canteen in Obol. On the orders of the partisans, she added rat poison to a pot of soup. About a hundred SS soldiers died. Trying to deflect suspicion from herself, she tasted the poisoned stew herself. She miraculously survived. After this incident, the girl joined the partisan detachment named after Voroshilov, where she served as a scout. When Zina was eventually captured, during one interrogation, she shot the investigator with his own pistol, then an officer who ran in at the sound of the shot, and a guard. But she could not escape – the girl was arrested.
The youth underground organization existed until August 1943. The "Young Avengers" were betrayed by a traitor who had gained their trust and become a member of the organization. Most of the underground fighters were shot near Polotsk in October 1943, and Zina Portnova in January 1944. The survivors Yefrosinya Zenkova, Arkady Barbashov, and Ilya Ezovitov went into the partisans.
People's Resistance
Two partisan brigades were formed in the Sirotinsky district. The first was initially called "Sirotinsky". Brigade commander Semyon Korotkin was the first to develop the plan for "railway war" without the use of explosives. In the late summer of 1942, partisans under his command carried out one of the most important sabotage operations on the railway: they dismantled 5.5 kilometers of narrow-gauge track, dug up the embankment in four places, and destroyed 5 kilometers of communication lines. Trains were stopped for a whole week. After Semyon Korotkin's death in October 1942, the brigade was named after him and continued its combat path.
In March 1943, some detachments of the Korotkin brigade, under the direction of the Belarusian partisan movement headquarters, formed the second partisan brigade named after Lenin in Sirotino. It also carried out major sabotage operations in the district, destroying enemy garrisons, highways, dirt roads, and railways.
96-year-old resident of Obol, Gennadiya Lysanova, remembers partisan life and the horrors of war. In the summer of 1942, when her native village of Rassolay was bombed, the residents fled to the forest. Thus, the girl joined Korotkin's partisan brigade and became a liaison. The horrific scene of her comrade-in-arms' death still comes to mind. Once, three girls, including Gennadiya, went on a mission. Bombing began. A bomb hit one of the partisans and tore her to pieces. The friends could not recover for a long time...
To love like the "Young Avengers"
Obol was liberated from enemy occupation on June 26, 1944. Valentina Vinnik, daughter of former partisan Gennadiya Lysanova, is glad that her native town was awarded the pennant "For Courage and Resilience during the Great Patriotic War" by decree of the President:
— It is truly deserved. Elena Suravneva from the "Young Avengers," whose mother knew her, lived right here nearby. She died. This street is named after her. My mother's brothers and sisters were also partisans. In Obol, everyone in every family fought: some returned, while others were never seen again.
Natalia Kudlayova was born after the war in 1957 in the village of Zui, which is now part of Obol. A villager living on Zina Portnova Street, she knows about the events that took place here during the war from her grandmother's stories:
— Over there, across the river, near the railway bridge, there is a pear tree. People were shot near it. They were not allowed to bury them, only to cover them with soil. Later, they were allowed to bury them. The Luzgin sisters had long braids, and they were identified by them as underground fighters. When I walked down the street with my grandmother, she would say: a soldier is buried here, and here... Now no one remembers these places, even I have forgotten. There is a mass grave near the museum, but who knows if everyone is buried there.
There are eight military burial sites on the territory of the Obol rural council. The largest is located near the museum of the Komsomol underground and the ruins of the Grebnitsky estate. The remains of 297 Soviet soldiers rest here. Among them is the Hero of the Soviet Union Nikolai Dunichev. Throwing a grenade at a Ferdinand tank destroyer, the private destroyed the combat vehicle and a group of German machine gunners guarding it. Nikolai was mortally wounded in that battle.
Through the example of the courageous deeds of young underground fighters, today's young men and women of Obol study the heroic history of their region and learn to love it as strongly as the "Young Avengers." The museum of the Obol Secondary School named after Hero of the Soviet Union Zinaida Portnova also tells the story of the children who defended their homeland 82 years ago.The most active young Obol underground fighters were awarded on July 1, 1958. 10 people were awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, I degree, and five received the Order of the Red Banner.
Yefrosinya Zenkova and Zinaida Portnova were awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.