Zinaida Portnova

In 1941, when Nazis invaded the Soviet Union Zinaida Portnova was a 15-year-old girl away at Soviet summer camp and couldn’t reach her home in Leningrad. She joined Belarus underground as part of a unit nicknamed the Young Avengers. When she turned 17, she was prompted to scout, responsible for venturing out into the field to look for possible targets. She was finally caught one day and taken by Gestapo for questioning. While in questioning, she took an officer’s pistol from the table next to her, killed the interrogator and two armed soldiers and escaped. Though she was captured again and executed a year later, she was made a hero of the Soviet Union.