Archives of Khazad-Dum: July 2011

Monday, 25 July 2011

Boris Vallejo - In the Underworld

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Boris Vallejo - In the Underworld

Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya

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Zoya Anatolyevna Kosmodemyanskaya. She is one of the most revered martyrs of the Soviet Union. Zoya was assigned to the partisan unit 9903 (Staff of the Western Front). Of the one thousand people who joined the unit in October 1941 only half survived the war. At the village of Obukhovo near Naro-Fominsk, Kosmodemyanskaya and other partisans crossed the front line and entered territory occupied by the Germans. They mined roads and cut communication lines. On November 27, 1941 Zoya received an assignment to burn the village of Petrischevo, where a German cavalry regiment was stationed. On November, 27th in 2 o'clock in the morning Boris Krajnov, Vasily Klubkov and Zoe Kosmodemjanskaja have burnt in Petrischevo three houses (residents Karelova, Solntseva and Smirnova) in which German officers and soldiers settled down; thus at Germans 20 horses were lost. With approach of evening on November, 28th, at attempt to burn S.A.Sviridov's to shed (one of the policemen appointed by Germans), Kosmodemyanskaya it has been noticed by the owner. The lodged Germans caused by last have seized the girl (about 7 one o'clock in the evening). To Sviridov for it have given a bottle of vodka (subsequently it is sentenced by court to execution). On interrogation it has named as Tanya and has not told anything certain. Having stripped naked, it beat belts, then put to it hour during 4 hours drove its barefooted, in one linen, along the street on a frost. Local inhabitants Solina tried to join tortures and Smirnova, thrown in it a kettle with slops also.

Solina and Smirnova subsequently have been sentenced to execution.

At 10:30 next morning, it have deduced on street where the gallows has already been built; on a breast to it have hung up the tablet with an inscription «Houseburner». The Germans left Zoya's body hanging on the gallows for several weeks. Eventually she was buried just before the Soviet liberation in January 1942.

Friday, 22 July 2011

One of the survivors of Andersonville Prison. Union Army soldier on his release from Andersonville in May, 1865.

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One of the survivors of Andersonville Prison. Union Army soldier on his release from Andersonville in May, 1865. The Andersonville prison, officially known as Camp Sumter, served as a Confederate Prisoner-of-war camp during the American Civil War. In fact it is possible to consider it the first "classical" concentration camp. During the war, 45,000 prisoners were received at Andersonville prison, and of these 12,913 died.