Most of them did not live to tell what horrible fate awaited them in the Nazis’ hands, as the Germans knew the best way for them to remain silent was to execute them.

Some others, however, survived the war and were able to tell their stories.

The Nazis’ extraordinary cruelty against women, the story of Tatiana Nikolayevna Baram, might perhaps be the best example, both of the bravery of Soviet women during World War II and the incredible cruelty exerted by Nazi soldiers, specifically on enemy women.

Baram Zina had been born in a small Siberian town in 1919.

Hearing stories of the glorious Red Army, one of her dreams was to become a military pilot.

Instead, she studied to become a teacher.

When the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union and Baram Zina learned that other women were volunteering, she immediately entered a six-month nursing course just so she had something to offer.

In the Army, the recruitment office initially refused entrance into the army.

She went on to graduate with honors from a sharpshooting course, leading to her being accepted into the central women’s sniper training school in June 1943.

After graduating from the school in March 1944, she was deployed to the Western Front as a sniper in the 252nd Rifle Regiment.

Having arrived on the warfront on the 3rd of April 1944, within a week, she had already made her first kill.

Showing amazing skills, she quickly improved her tally to 16 kills with a sniper rifle.

Her comrades were impressed by her marksmanship, and she was assigned to increasingly more dangerous operations.

Later in 1944, she was transferred to Bessarabia as part of Operation Bagration.

At this point, she had begun to experience sight issues, so her superiors chose to give her telephone operation duties far from the front line.

For this reason, she was not intended to take part in a special operation scheduled for the 4th of July.

However, in the end, she managed to convince her commander to let her go, citing her sniper and medical training.

Baram’s unit hid in a village named Pekka, where they intended to ambush the German column, who were not expecting any resistance.

The Germans were retreating from a battle elsewhere, and the Soviets counted on them being disorganized.

Soon, Red Army artillery ambushed the column from both sides as it approached the outskirts of the village.

With nowhere to retreat to, the Nazi troops fought nonstop and eventually managed to hold the village for several hours.

Some of the Soviet soldiers, who were too badly wounded in the battle to retreat into a grain field for concealment, were placed in a dugout recently taken from the enemy.

There, Baram Zina chose to stay with them, placing herself in mortal danger of being attacked, despite having every opportunity to leave the dugout and crawl into a field where she would be safe.

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