1941: Masha Bruskina, Kiril Trus, and Volodia Shcherbatsevich, partisans
October 26th, 2009 Headsman
On this date in 1941, the German occupiers of Minsk conducted an infamous public hanging of partisans — perhaps the first such salutary public execution of resistance members of the war.
Jewish* 17-year-old Maria (Masha) Bruskina was the central figure of the grim tableau, and wore the placard announcing “We are partisans and have shot at German soldiers.” Evidently, she also attracted the most attention** from the onlookers to whom the scene was addressed.
Before noon, I saw the armed German and Lithuanian soldiers appear on the street. From over the bridge they escorted three people with their arms tied behind their backs. In the middle there was a girl with a sign-board 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 … The first one led to the gallows was the girl.
She was hanged with bewhiskered World War I vet Kiril Trus and the 16-year-old Volodia Shcherbatsevich. The men were members of a partisan cell organizing anti-fascist resistance; Masha Bruskina was a nurse who had been caught aiding the partisans by providing civilian clothes and papers for wounded Red Army soldiers under her care to smuggle them back to the resistance.
The scene of their deaths was captured in a series of powerful photographs taken by one of the Lithuanian Wehrmacht collaborators.
* Phototextualities: Intersections of Photography and Narrative claims that Bruskina lightened her hair and changed her name to prevent her Jewishness affecting her resistance work; even though she was a Minsk native, her initial identification didn’t happen until 1968. The men who suffered with her were named almost immediately after the war.
** Despite the eye-catching place of the girl, she was officially unidentified for decades even after the name Masha Bruskina surfaced. In “A Historical Injustice: The Case of Masha Bruskina,” (Holocaust Genocide Studies 1997, 11:3) Nechama Tec and Daniel Weiss argued that Soviet authorities, and later Belarusian ones, found her Jewishness problematic and resisted identifying her because of it — while an ethnically Russian female partisan like Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya could be more conveniently accepted as a heroine. Maybe, but bureaucratic inertia and simple precedence (since Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya was known immediately while Masha Bruskina was not) are also plausible contributing factors.
A plaque unveiled at the Minsk yeast factory in 2009 finally called her Maria Bruskina.
Also on this date
- 2000: Yopougon Massacre
- 1440: Gilles de Rais, unholy
- 1978: Seventeen officers in Somalia
- 1864: Klatsassin and four fellow Tsilhqot'ins
Entry Filed under: 20th Century,Belarus,Capital Punishment,Children,Death Penalty,Disfavored Minorities,Execution,Famous,Germany,Guerrillas,Hanged,History,Jews,Martyrs,Mature Content,Milestones,No Formal Charge,Occupation and Colonialism,Power,Public Executions,Racial and Ethnic Minorities,Soldiers,Torture,USSR,Wartime Executions
Tags: 1940s, 1941, anti-semitism, fascism, kiril trus, maria bruskina, masha bruskina, minsk, naziism, october 26, partisans, volodia shcherbatsevich, world war ii
October 26th, 2009 at 9:44 am
Even the flattened cities of Germany cannot undo the evil which was committed here. May they never forget what their nation did not so very long ago!
October 26th, 2009 at 10:47 am
“A Thousand years and the blood guilt of Germany will not be washed away” – one of the war criminials hanged at Nuremberg (Pot, Kettle?)
October 26th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Well, Fiz, I’d say that was a bit of truth coming from that NAZI, lol!
October 26th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Yes, finally.
October 31st, 2009 at 12:43 am
[...] 2009: Masha Bruskina, Kiril Trus, and Volodia Shcherbatsevich, though only five days old, it outdraws the month’s preceding content on the discomfiting [...]
November 1st, 2009 at 5:33 am
Yeah there is a saying that the female of any species is more bad and lethal than the male .time and again it is proving in this world and will continue to do so.
November 26th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
[...] and obscure in death, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya would inspire millions and become the heroic emblem of other women [...]
October 31st, 2010 at 10:11 am
[...] Maggie dela Riva – Callow sons of the elite electrocuted for raping a well-known Filipina actress. 33. Oct. 26, 1941: Masha Bruskina, Kiril Trus and Voldia Shcherbatshevich – This post has graphic photos of partisans publicly executed by the Wehrmacht in Minsk 34. Feb. 1, [...]
August 12th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
If her ‘crime’ was courage against immorality then she was obviously guilty to the end.
September 24th, 2011 at 9:17 pm
Heroic people.
However, Jews will always whine.
She should be called a Russian first and foremost.
January 20th, 2012 at 2:50 pm
@ Kevin M. Sullivan Hättest Du sie lieber gefickt Trottel? Ist es der Grund weshalb Du weinst? Warst Du in Vietnam Ami und hast dort Kinder verbrannt?
January 20th, 2012 at 3:12 pm
@Herr_HGS_1967_Berlin:
Hello–
I do not speak German, but if you can get your message to me in English, I’ll be happy to respond.
That said…I see Vietnam and the German word for children (kinder), so I may already know the road you’re traveling down: I hope you’re not equating what that asshole Lt. Calley and his men did in My Lai with Germany’s actions during the war? If you are, then the comparison between Nazi Germany and what they did throughout all of Europe and what this small group of men did in Vietnam is absurd.
There were hundreds of thousands of German soldiers during WW2 that were normal people caught up in the war. But you must realize, that even these men were fighting for a regime that was evil and despicable, and was bent on destroying the world. They were murdering Jews and non Jews alike, 11 million people in all. Six million of those were Jews.
Therefore, everything Germany received in destruction during the war was brought upon themselves by themselves. Had you folks managed to kill that monster Hitler, the world could have been spared a horrendous time in our recent history.
January 20th, 2012 at 4:08 pm
@Herr_HGS_1967_Berlin:
I forgot to say that I spent some time in your city of Berlin in the summer of 1972. The same summer they located the remains of Martin Borman.
June 2nd, 2012 at 11:20 pm
The Nazi inhumanity in all its magnificence!