Tanya Baramzina

Infobox Military Person
name=Tatiana Nikolaevna Baramzina


caption=
born=birth date|1919|12|12|
died=death date and age|1944|7|5|1919|12|12|
placeofbirth=Glazov, Russian SFSR
placeofdeath=Smalyavichy, Byelorussian SSR
nickname=
allegiance=USSR
branch=Red Army
serviceyears=1943 – 1944
rank=Corporal
unit=3rd Battalion, 252nd Rifle Regiment, 70th Rifle Division, 33rd Army, 3rd Belorussian Front
commands=
battles=Great Patriotic War
awards=Hero of the Soviet Union
Order of Lenin
relations=
laterwork=

Tatiana Nikolaevna Baramzina ( _ru. Татья́на Никола́евна Барамзина́) (December 12, 1919 – July 5, 1944) was a Soviet sniper in the Great Patriotic War. She was posthumously awarded the Gold Star and achieved Hero of the Soviet Union status on March 24 1945.

Born in the city of Glazov, Baramzina graduated from the Glazov State Pedagogical Institute and spent two years teaching a kindergarten class in a village school at Kachkashur. In 1940, she enrolled at University in Perm, and when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, she began to attend nursing courses in the evening, while training to become a sharpshooter.

In June 1943 she was sent to the Central Women’s Sniper Training School outside Moscow and, upon graduation in April 1944, she was sent to the 3rd Belorussian Front. Within her first three months, she had killed at least 16 enemy soldiers, while serving in the 3rd Battalion of the 252nd Rifle Regiment (70th Rifle Division, 33rd Army).

On July 5, 1944 Baramzina's battalion parachuted behind enemy lines as part of a larger attempt to seize the crossroads near the village of Pekalin in Smalyavichy, hoping to block the retreat of German forces. An engagement broke out before they reached the crossroads, and the battalion took heavy casualties—after killing 20 German soldiers, Baramzina was re-assigned to care for the wounded personnel, due to her medical training.

The trench that was being used to hold the Soviet wounded was re-taken by German forces, and after being wounded by artillery fire, she was captured and subjected to torture in an attempt to have her divulge information. After her eyes had been gouged out, Baramzina was subsequently shot point-blank with an anti-tank rifle.

In addition to a monument in the local Gaslov park, Proletarskaya Street, on which she had grown up, was re-named in her honour, as well as streets in Minsk and Izhevsk and outside the Podolsk Central Women's Sniper Training School. [ [http://artpodolsk.ru/hero/podolsk-hero.php Подольчане Герои Советского Союза ] ] The Young Pioneers group at the school in which she had been teaching, was also renamed in her memory. A diorama at the Belarussian Museum of the Great Patriotic War depicts her last stand.

References