She was twice executed by the Nazis, and comrades in arms for many years considered her dead and even erected a monument. When she became a scout in the partisan detachment of the 2nd Belarusian Brigade, she was not even ten years old.
Small, thin, she, pretending to be a beggar, wandered among the Nazis, noticing and remembering everything, and brought the most valuable information to the detachment. And then, together with the partisan fighters, she blew up the fascist headquarters, derailed a train with military equipment, mined objects. In subsequent operations, she was entrusted with a weapon - she walked with a pistol and a grenade in her belt. In one of the night battles, she rescued the wounded commander of the reconnaissance department Ferapont Slesarenko.
The Great Patriotic War was going on. The holiday of November 7 - the Day of the October Revolution was approaching. At a meeting of the partisan detachment, they discussed who would go to the city of Vitebsk and hang red flags on the buildings in which the Nazis lived in honor of the holiday. In Vitebsk, the Nazis kept many Soviet prisoners of war, and established laws in the city under which children, old people, and women died every day.
“If we hang out red flags for the holiday, then everyone will see that we are fighting the German fascist invaders, and this fight will continue to the last drop of blood,” said the commander of the partisans Mikhail Ivanovich Dyachkov.
The Nazis carefully guarded the approaches to the city, searched everyone, and even sniffed. If a suspect's hat smelled of smoke or gunpowder, he was considered a partisan and shot on the spot. There was less attention to children, so they decided to entrust this task to Bogdanova Nadya and Vanya Zvontsov - proven intelligence officers who were only eleven years old.
At dawn on November 7, the partisans drove the children closer to Vitebsk. They gave a sledge in which brooms were neatly laid, among them three brooms at the bases of which were wound red flags, and on top - rods. The legend was this: children go to sell brooms. Nadya and Vanya entered the city without any problems, on little guys with sledges, none of the fascists paid much attention.
To remove the suspicions of the Germans looking in their direction, Nadya with a sled went up to a group of fascists and offered them to buy brooms. They began to laugh and poke the muzzles of their submachine guns in her direction, and one of them said menacingly: Dafai is running away from here.
Nadya felt that Vanya was afraid and encouraged him as best she could:
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- The main thing is to do what I tell you and do not think about anything bad. And if you feel scared, take my hand, - said Nadya
- I'm not afraid - Vanya answered, and he himself grabbed Nadia's hand over and over again.
All day they walked around the city and looked closely at buildings in the center of the city, where they could put red flags. When evening fell and it got dark, they set to work. During the night, the guys planted flags at the railway station, a vocational school and a cigarette factory. When dawn came, our flags were already flying on these buildings. Nadya and Vanya were happy, they were in a hurry to go to the partisan detachment, to report on the completed assignment. The children had already left the city, went out onto the high road, but then the fascist policemen caught up with them) and shouted:
- To stand! Who are they?
- We are orphans, uncle, Vanya cried, - give me some bread, I really want to eat.
- I'll give you some bread! Bastards, did you hang out the red flags in Vitebsk? - asked the policeman.
- No, what are you. Look at us from where we can have flags? - answered Nadia.
- Get into the sleigh, we'll figure it out in the city, - ordered the policeman.
The guys cried all the way and rubbed their eyes with their fists. At the headquarters they were interrogated by a fascist. When the guys told their legend, the German began to shout that they were partisans, after which he ordered Nadya and Vanya to be shot. The guys never confessed and did not betray anyone. They were placed in a basement where many of our prisoners of war were kept. The next day, everyone was taken out of the city and began to be shot. Our prisoners of war shouted to the fascists not to touch Nadia and Vanya, and when the guys were put near a huge ditch, they tried to close them with their bodies.
Here Nadia and Vanya are standing at the moat and the Nazis are aiming at them. The guys are holding hands and crying. Something clicked in Nadia's head, her eyes blurred, she felt that she was falling into the abyss …….
… A girl woke up in a ditch among the dead. It turns out that a split second before the Nazis fired, she lost consciousness and fainted, which saved her life. Nadia got out of the ditch, rose and fell, crawled, rose again. There was no strength.
- Guys, she's alive- Nadia heard a familiar voice above her. Uncle Stepan from their partisan detachment found her. He took her in his arms and put her in the sleigh, Nadia lost consciousness again … …
After this incident, they began to take care of her in the partisan detachment, they were not sent to reconnaissance or on combat missions. Remembering the deceased Vanya, Nadia always cried, as soon as eleven-year-old girls can cry. She felt sorry for Vanya, she often dreamed of how he laughs, as if they were playing snowballs ….
Nadya strengthened herself, in the detachment, together with the adults, she learned to shoot at targets, throw grenades. There, in the detachment, she swore allegiance to her people and kissed the red banner.
“I will avenge the Nazis for Vanya, for the fallen comrades and for all Soviet people,” she said to the commander of the partisan detachment. And she took revenge! German warehouses took off from the explosions, the houses where the Nazis lived were on fire, enemy trains flew downhill. It was Nadia Bogdanova and her comrades who fought their war against the Nazis.
The Nazis were very afraid of the partisans, and at the front, it was not as easy as the Nazis intended. The Red Army fought back the Fritz on all fronts. Therefore, the Germans tried to turn the main villages and cities into fortresses. One of such fortresses of the fascists was the village of Balbeki. The Germans set up firing points there, mined the roads, dug tanks into the ground … It was necessary to conduct reconnaissance and establish where the Germans have camouflaged guns, machine guns, where there are sentries, which side is better to attack the village. The command decided to send Nadia and the chief of intelligence of the partisans Ferapont Slesarenko. Nadya, disguised as a beggar, will go around the village, and Slesarenko will cover her retreat in the woods not far from the village. Sentinels - the Nazis easily let the girl into the village, you never know the homeless go to the villages in the cold, collect food in order to somehow feed themselves. Nadya walked around all the yards, collected alms and memorized everything that was needed. It was getting dark, she returned to the woods, where to her uncle Feropont, and there she saw the whole partisan detachment. They expected information from her. The young scout told everything in detail and showed which side was better to attack the village.
The partisan detachment struck at the fascists from both sides of the village at night: machine-gun bursts scattered here and there, one could hear the maddened Nazis shouting - these were partisans avenging the fascists for our tormented Motherland, for the Soviet people who died. The Nazis jumped out of houses in their underwear, shouted something and tried to escape through the white snow away from the village, but they were still overtaken by the bullets of the partisans.
For the first time Nadia participated in a night battle, although Slesarenko did not let her go a step away from him. And suddenly he was wounded. Slesarenko fell down and lost consciousness for some time, Nadia bandaged his wound, a green rocket soared into the sky - this was the commander's signal for all partisans to retreat into the forest. Slesarenko said to Nadya:
- Nadia leave me! Go to the forest!
- No, I'll pull you out - said Nadya, she pulled herself up and could only lift Slesarenko, the girl's strength was not enough.
- Leave me you hear? We will both die, you must go…. call ours … remember this place. I order you! -The intelligence chief said menacingly. Nadia plucked spruce branches, made a bed of them for Uncle Feropont, laid him down and went.
Nadya ran to the partisan detachment, at night, in the cold. It was about 10 kilometers to the detachment, the wind whipped her face, she fell through the snowdrifts, but went forward. Suddenly she saw a small farm, a house and a light in the window. A horse with a sleigh stood near the house. Exactly what you need, she thought. Slowly sneaking up to the house, she looked through the window and saw several policemen at the table having dinner. Hearing the horse stomp, the traitor policemen jumped out onto the porch, but Nadia was already far away and they could not catch up with her. She found Slesarenko in the same place where she left him. Together they made it safely to the partisan detachment. So Nadya, risking her life, saved her comrade in arms.
Nadya could have done many more things for the speedy liberation of our Motherland from the Nazis, but in February 1942, she parted with her comrades in arms. She, along with the demolition guerrillas, was ordered to destroy the railway bridge. When the girl mined him and began to return to the detachment, she was stopped by the police, Nadia began to pretend to be a beggar, then they searched her and found a piece of explosives in Nadya's backpack. When they began to ask her what it was, there was a huge explosion and the bridge flew into the air right in front of the policemen. The police realized that it was Nadia who had mined him. She was tied up, put in a sleigh and taken to the Gestapo. There they tortured her for a long time, burned a star on her back, doused her with icy water in the frost, threw her on a red-hot stove … All in blood, tortured, exhausted little girl betrayed no one.
She withstood all the torture and the Nazis decided that she was dead and threw her out into the cold. Nadia was picked up by the villagers, went out and cured. But it was no longer possible for her to fight, she practically lost her sight. At the end of the war, Nadya spent several years in the Odessa hospital, where her sight was restored.
Nadya went to work at the plant and did not tell anyone about how she fought the Nazis. More than 15 years have passed since the war. Nadia and those with whom she worked heard on the radio how the chief of intelligence of the 6th partisan detachment Ferapont Slesarenko - her commander - said that the fighters would never forget their dead comrades, and named among them Nadya Bogdanova, who to him, wounded, saved a life …
Only then did she appear, only then did the people who worked with her learn about what an amazing fate she is, Nadya Bogdanova, who was awarded the Orders of the Red Banner, the 1st degree of the Patriotic War, and medals.
Nadezhda Alexandrovna is not alive, she died in peacetime. But we will always remember how a little eleven-year-old girl fought for the Motherland, so that you and I could live in this world and enjoy life. For our country to live, just live … …
Eternal memory to you, Nadezhda Bogdanova.