Soviet Women in the War Against Fascism

Here we have the story of Liudmilla Pavlichenko quiet student of the University of Kiev with no other thought on June 21, 1941. than the completion of her History honours thesis, who became the crack sniper of the Red Army—her total now being 490 Nazis.

Here we have the story of Tanya, the 18 year old student of School No. 201 in the City of Moscow, young Communist Leaguer, young Guerilla who none of the Fascist tortures could make betray the position of her comrades, who cried with the rope round her neck: "You are paying me now, but I am not alone. There are two hundred million of us and you can't hang all of us. I will be avenged. Men! While it is not too late, surrender. Victory will be ours in any case!"

Here we have the story of Tamara Kalnina, the ambulance driver, barely seventeen, whose ambulance, attacked by seven Fascist planes with incendiary bullets, blazed like a huge bonfire. There were fifteen wounded men inside.

"Tamara was now alone in the woods with the blazing car containing fifteen wounded men. And fifteen times she rushed into the flames to drag a helpless body to a hollow by the wayside, pausing each time to get a breath of fresh air and to put out the flames of her burning clothes.

"She then ran several miles almost delirious with pain, to the base hospital and told what happened."

Tanya was 18 years old, Tamara was 17 years old, and Liudmilla was 24 when they did these things.

Next time you're in the Caf. look round at the eighteen, seventeen and twenty-four-year-old girls you know.