Masha Bruskina



Maria "Masha" Bruskina (Марыя Барысаўна Брускіна; Мария Борисовна Брускина; 1924 – 26 October 1941 in Minsk) was a 17-year-old Soviet member of the Minsk Resistance during World War II. She volunteered as a nurse at the hospital in the Polytechnic Institute, which had been set up to care for wounded members of the Red Army. As well as caring for the soldiers, she helped them escape by smuggling civilian clothing and false identity papers into the hospital. A patient informed on Bruskina, and she was arrested on October 14, 1941, by members of the Wehrmacht's 707 Infantry Division and the 2nd Schutzmannschaft Battalion, Lithuanian auxiliary troops under the command of Major Antanas Impulyavichus. After being arrested, Bruskina wrote a letter to her mother on October 20, 1941:

Local German authorities decided on a public hanging to make an example of Bruskina, along with two other members of the resistance, 16-year-old Volodia Shcherbatsevich and World War I veteran Kiril Trus. Before being hanged, she was paraded through the streets with a plaque around her neck which read, in both German and Russian: "We are partisans and have shot at German troops". Members of the resistance were made to wear similar signs whether or not they had actually shot at German troops. She and her two comrades were hanged in public on Sunday, October 26, 1941, in front of "Minsk Kristall" a yeast brewery and distillery plant on Nizhne-Lyahovskaya Street (15 Oktyabrskaya Street today). The Germans let the bodies hang for three full days before allowing them to be cut down.

Pyotr Pavlovich Borisenko witnessed the execution:

Olga Shcherbatsevich, the mother of Volodia Shcherbatsevich was hanged the same day as her son with two other members of the resistance in front of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus.

Up to 2009, Bruskina's name was not acknowledged on the memorial plaque at the execution place. Instead she was referred to as "the unknown girl". However, since 2009, a new memorial plaque at the execution place has been placed. The Russian inscription now reads "Here on October 26, 1941 the Fascists executed the Soviet patriots K. I. Truss, V. I. Sherbateyvich and M.B. Bruskina".