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In October 1943 Soviet troops routed the 197th German Infantry Division, the officers and soldiers of which had tortured Zoya to death. On the body of a Hitlerite killed at the village of Potapovo, near Smolensk, photographs were found, which the fascist brute had taken of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya's execution. |
October 24, 1943, put me to a new test. The newspapers that day carried five photographs which had been found on the body of a Hitlerite officer killed by a Soviet soldier at the village of Potapovo, near Srnolensk. The German had photographed the murder of Zoya, the last minutes of her life. I saw the gallows with the snow all round, I saw my girl, my Zoya, among the Germans, the hoard with the inscription "Houseburner" on her chest, and those who tortured and tormented her.
Ever since I had learnt of my daughter's death I had been beset, day and night, by one thought: What were her feelings, what was she thinking of when she made her last terrible journey? I had been swept by a helpless longing: Why had I not been with her when she must have needed me most? Why had I been unable to relieve her last moments either by word or glance? And now the five photographs seemed to take me with Zoya on her last journey. Now, with my own eyes I saw them killing her, I was there myself, but too late… The photographs seemed to shout, "Look how they tortured her! Look, be a silent witness of her death! Live again through all the pain, all the torment—hers and yours…
There she walks, tortured and disarmed, but how much strength and pride there is in her slightly bowed head! In those last minutes she must scarcely have noticed the hangmen around her. What was she thinking of? Was she preparing herself for death? Was she remembering all her short happy life…?
I cannot bring myself to write about it…Let him who reads this book look at the terrible German photograph and study Zoya's face. And he will see that Zoya is the conqueror. Her murderers are nought before her. With her is all that is high, beautiful, sacred, all that is human, all the truth and purity of the world, which does not die, which cannot die. And as for them—they are not human. They are not men. They are not even beasts. They are fascists. And they are doomed. Alive they are dead. Today, tomorrow, in a thousand years, their names, even their graves, will be hateful and vile in the eyes of man.
Next: "I Want to Live!"
