Masha Bruskina

Maria "Masha" Bruskina (Belarusian: Марыя Барысаўна Брускіна Marïya Barïsawna Bruskina; Russian: Мария Борисовна Брускина Mariya Borisovna Bruskina; 1924 – 26 October 1941 in Minsk), was a Belarusian Jewish teenage nurse and a Communist martyr to the Antifascist Resistance to during the early years of World War II, as well as a niece of the sculptor and Soviet MP Sair Asgur. While volunteering as a nurse, she cared for wounded Red Army soldiers, and assisted them in escaping then Nazi-occupied Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic. For this, she and 11 other communists of the anti-fascist underground were imprisoned, tortured, and when the teenagers refused to reveal any secrets, was publicly executed by the German Wehrmacht.

In addition to caring for the soldiers, she helped them escape by smuggling civilian clothing and false identity papers into the hospital. A patient told the Germans what Bruskina was doing, and she was arrested on October 14, 1941, by members of the Nazi Army's 707th Infantry Division and 2nd Schutzmannschaft Battalion and Lithuanian auxiliary troops under the command of Major Antanas Impulevičius. After being arrested, Bruskina wrote a letter to her mother on October 20, 1941:

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 German Nazi authorities would not allow the victims to be cut down and buried for three days, during which time the bodies were displayed publicly as a warning to other anti-fascists, Jews and Communists.

For decades after the war, Bruskina was officially referred to only as "the unknown girl", allegedly due to antisemitism from Soviet authorities. Up to 2009, Bruskina's name was not acknowledged on the memorial plaque at the execution place. 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". Bruskina was first recognized in the 1960s, as most of her family and friends had been killed in the Minsk Ghetto. A monument for Bruskina was erected in HaKfar HaYarok in Israel, and a street was named after her in Jerusalem.

Masha Bruskina lived in Minsk with her mother, senior product manager of the Book Trade Office of the BSSR State Publishing House. She was an avid reader and learner. She was a member of the Marxist-Leninist Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization and a member of the school committee of Komsomol, both of which were youth groups of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In December 1938, the newspaper Pioneer of Belarus published a photograph of Masha with the caption: "Masha Bruskina - the schoolgirl of 8th grade in school № 28, Minsk. She has only good and excellent marks in all subjects". In June 1941, Maria Bruskina graduated from Minsk secondary school № 28.