On the 26th October 1941 in Minsk, a young teenage girl was paraded throughout the streets
of the city and she was taken to her execution at the hands of the German soldiers.
Throughout the Second World War, there were lots of men and women who carried out acts
of defiance and resistance against the Germans, but many were executed for their involvement
in these.
But for every act of resistance carried out by the partisans and other groups, there would
be huge reprisals for those living in lands occupied by the Germans.
For every German soldier killed, dozens of civilians would be slaughtered and the Germans
often liquidated and massacred villages in revenge attacks.
This brought different resistance groups into conflict as the cost of reprisals was very
high, but today we look at the execution of a teenage girl Masha Bruskina who was at the
age of 17 executed for her involvement in resistance groupss.
As always to support our channel, please make sure to subscribe.
Maria or Masha Buskina was born in 1924, and she would live in Minsk with her mother.
As a young girl she was very intelligent and she read many different books and she was
above her peers at school with regards to her studies.
She had very good grades, and it was clear that Masha had a huge future in front of her
and she would graduate from school in 1941 at the age of 17.
But she was working at this time as a youth leader for the Young Pioneers, a youth group
linked to the Soviet Union and the communists.
In this group, young children attended summer camps and they learned different skills, and
it was hoped that these members would go on to become parts of the communist society later
on.
But during the Second World War, the group contributed to the war effort, and thousands
of them would give their lives for the Soviets in battles as they fought and they then took
part in resistance activities against the Nazis.
The Pioneers also helped on the home front in the Soviet Union, and they would work in
agriculture where they could.
But Masha Bruskina was a communist who was a member of the Minsk resistance despite just
being a teenager herself.
But Belarus fell quickly under German occupation which began on the 22nd June 1941, and it
ended in August 1944 as the Soviets would push the Germans back.
It’s believed that during the German occupation around 1 and a half million civilians were
slaughtered by the German forces in this region.
Because of this a soviet partisan movement was in Belarus and the groups would hide out
in woods and in swamps and then they would take the fight to the Germans when they could.
The blew up and destroyed railway tracks, cut communication wires and would hit fuel
dumps and ambushed German soldiers who were on patrols.
There were many different acts of sabotage carried out, but the Partsians were treated
terribly if caught by the Germans.
Groups such as the Dirlewanger Brigade were ordered to wipe out resistance elements and
then punish and execute those in areas where the resistance worked.
Dirlewagner himself was known for rounding up civilians and locking them in barns before
these were then set on fire.
Masha Bruskina during the German occupation remained in Minsk and as the Germans rampaged
through the city they rounded up 100,000 Jews who were then sent to a ghetto in the city.
But the Minsk Ghetto was known for it[’s awful conditions before the prisoners were
then sent to extermination camps where they were killed.
Many were slaughtered inside of the ghetto by gunshot, and many others succumbed to a
lack of food, diseases and the horrific conditions that were there.
But Masha managed to escape and she went into hiding in the Aryan side of Minsk, and she
died her hair and assumed the personal of a Russian girl named Anya.
She then joined the local resistance, who were planning to liberate wounded soldiers
and Soviet officials and officers from a prison hospital.
But then Masha Buskina volunteered to work in this hospital which had been set up inside
of the Minsk polytechnic institute, and it was established as a place where Red Army
soldiers who had been wounded would be kept locked up by the Germans.
But Masha worked shifts on the wards caring for the wounded, but she was then involved
in smuggling medicine civilian clothes and false papers to those soldiers in the hospital.
These were then passed to a prisoner and they would then get changed and would leave before
then becoming members of the resistance.
A break out was planned for mid October 1941, but Masha was advised to leave Minsk and Belarus
as she was considered still a child.
She refused to leave her friends and resistance members, but she should have.
A patient told the Germans that Masha was helping Soviet soldiers escape, and she was
then arrested on the 14th October 1941 by the Werhmachts 707th Infantry Division,
Masha Bruskina was then sent to a prison, where she was tortured and she was beaten
badly but she refused to give over any information about resistance activities to the Germans.
She maintained her sense of humour despite the torture and she said ‘in any case there’s
no chance I’ll die of starvation.’
But whilst in prison she wrote to her mother and said, ‘‘I am tormented by the thought
that I have caused you great worry.
Don’t worry.
Nothing bad has happened to me.
I swear to you that you will have no further unpleasantness because of me.
If you can, please send me my dress, my green blouse and white socks, I want to be dressed
decently when I leave here.’
But as she gave over no information, she was considered a lost cause and Masha Bruskina
was then sentenced to death for her crimes and resistance, and to send a message to the
people of Minsk, the Germans would order her horrific execution which was carried out in
public.
Let’s remember that Masha Bruskina was just a young teenage girl and she was 17 when she
was brought for her execution.
The Germans wanted to scare the locals into staying away from resistance movements against
the occupiers and Masha Bruskina was brought out in front of a huge crowd.
She was paraded in the streets and a placard was place around her neck and it read in German
and Russian ‘We are Partisans, and have shot at German soldiers.’
But she was brought out with a couple of others for their executions and they were both forced
to wear similar signs.
But following the parade of the condemned, she was taken to her execution site.
This was witnessed by hundreds and one onlooker said, ‘‘Before noon I saw the armed German
and Lithuanian soldiers appear on the street.
From over the bridge they escorted three people with their hands tied behind their backs.
In the middle there was a girl with a signboard on her chest.
They were led up to the yeast factory gate.
I noticed how calmly these people walked.
The girl did not look around.
When they stopped on the fascists started knocking on the door on my neighbour asking
for a chair, but she got scared and did not open up the door.
In a while I saw the Germans carrying a stool from the factory weigher’s booth.
The factory gate were wide open the office threw a rope on the crossbar and made a loop.
The first one led to the gallows was the girl.’
Masha Bruskina along with two other men, including a 16 year old boy was taken to be executed
by hanging in front of the Minsk Kristal yeast brewery and distillery plant.
She was led up to a stool which had been placed under a beam, and then in front of a group
of German soldiers the noose was placed around her neck.
It was said, ‘‘When they put her on the stool, the girl turned her face towards the
fence.
The executioners wanted her to stand with her face to the crowd, but she turned away
and that was that.
No matter how much they pushed her and tried to turn her, she remained standing with her
back to the crowd.
Only then did they kick away the stool from under her.’
Even until the very last moments Masha Bruskina resisted and refused to give over to the Nazi
occupiers as they forced her to face the crowd.
But then the stool was removed and she was left hanging with the plaque around her neck
for 3 days, to strike fear into the hearts of the people of Minsk.
For years she remained the unknown girl of Minsk after her execution, and today a memorial
marks the site of her execution.
But the rest of her family were killed inside of the Minsk Ghetto during the Second World
War, and today she is remembered in history for her defiance, and Masha Bruskina is linked
to other heroic young women such as Lepa Radic.
Thanks for watching
To support our channel please make sure to subscribe
Thanks for watching