Zinaida Portnova Zinaida Martynovna Portnova , commonly known as Zina Portnova ( ) ( 20 February 1926 – 15 January 1944 ) was a Russian teenager , Soviet partisan and Hero of the Soviet Union . Biography . Zina Portnova was born in Leningrad on 20 February 1926 . She was the daughter of a working class Belarusian family . Her father worked at the Kirov Plant . She was a seventh grade student at the 385th school in Leningrad in 1941 , when she left for her grandmother ' s house in the Vitebsk region . Not long afterwards , Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union . An incident with the invading Nazi troops , who hit her grandmother while they were confiscating the cattle , led her to hate the Germans . In 1942 Portnova joined the Belarusian resistance movement , becoming a member of the local underground Komsomol organization in Obol , Vitebsk Voblast , named Young Avengers . She began by distributing Soviet propaganda leaflets in the German - occupied Belarus , collecting and hiding weapons for Soviet soldiers , and reporting on German Movements . After learning how to use weapons and explosives from the older members of the group , Portnova participated in sabotage actions at a pump , local power plant , and brick factory . These acts are estimated to have killed upwards of 100 German soldiers . In 1943 , Portnova became employed as a kitchen aid in Obol . In August , she poisoned the food meant for the Nazi garrison stationed there . Immediately falling suspect , she said she was innocent and ate some of the food in front of the Nazis to prove it was not poisoned ; after she did not fall ill immediately , they released her . Portnova became sick afterwards , vomiting heavily but eventually recovering from the poison after drinking much whey . After she did not return to work , the Germans realized she had been the culprit and started searching for her . To avoid the Germans , she became a scout of the partisan unit named after Kliment Voroshilov . In a letter sent to her parents that month , she wrote that " together , [ they ] would beat the Nazis " . In October 1943 , Portnova joined the VLKSM . In December 1943 or January 1944 Portnova was sent back to Obol to infiltrate the garrison , discover the reason for the recent Young Avengers failures , then locate and contact the remaining members . She was quickly captured . Reports of her escape vary . One is that , during Gestapo interrogation in the village of Goriany , she took the investigator ' s pistol off the table , then shot and killed him . When two German soldiers entered after hearing the gunshots , she shot them as well . She then attempted to escape the compound and ran into the woods , where she was caught by the banks of a river . Another version is that the Gestapo interrogator , in a fit of rage , threw his pistol to the table after threatening to shoot her . Taking the pistol , Portnova shot him . Escaping through the door , she shot a guard in the corridor , then another in the courtyard . After the pistol misfired when Portnova attempted to shoot a guard blocking her access to the street , she was captured . After being recaptured , Portnova was tortured , possibly for information . She was later driven into the forest and executed or killed during torture on 15 January 1944 . Legacy . On 1 July 1958 , Portnova was posthumously declared a Hero of the Soviet Union by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet . She also received the Order of Lenin . In 1969 , the village of Zuya dedicated a commemorative plaque in her honour . She also had numerous Young Pioneer groups named in her honour . Portnova has had many school teams and groups named after her , as well the museum to the Komsomol , situated on the highway between Polotsk and Vitebsk , and a school in St Petersburgh . There are two monuments to her , a bust in Minsk and an obelisk in the village of Obol . References . Footnotes Bibliography