21. A Teenage Resistance Martyr
After she learned the use of weapons and explosives, Zinaida Portnova participated in raids and sabotage operations against power plants, pumps. One such raid targeted a brick factory in the vicinity of Vitebsk, and led to the death of an estimated 100 German soldiers. In 1943, she got a job in a kitchen that served the German garrison of Obol, and poisoned the food. When suspicion fell upon her, she demonstrated her “innocence” by eating the food to prove that it was not poisoned. When she did not exhibit immediate ill effects, she was released. She became violently ill soon thereafter, but survived.
Zinaida fled Obol, joined another partisan unit, and served as its scout. In late 1943, contact was lost with the Obol partisans, and Zinaida was infiltrated back into the city to investigate. She was captured almost immediately. She managed to grab a pistol her German interrogator had carelessly left lying atop his desk and shot him, along with two guards who rushed into the room when they heard the gunshots. She escaped the building, but was eventually tracked down and captured. The teenage partisan was tortured by the Nazis, and executed on January 15th, 1944, aged seventeen.