Masha Bruskina

Biography

Masha Bruskina was born in Minsk, in a Jewish family. She lived in Minsk with her mother, a senior commodity expert of the Book Trade Department of the State Publishing House of the BSSR. She studied well, read a lot, was distinguished by an active civic position. She was a pioneer leader and a member of the Komsomol committee of the school. In the newspaper "Pioneer of Belarus" dated December 18 (8?), 1938, a photo of Masha was placed with the caption: "Masha Bruskina is a student of the 8th grade of the 28th school in Minsk. She has only good and excellent grades in all subjects." In June 1941, Maria Bruskina graduated from Minsk Secondary School No. 28.

On June 28, Wehrmacht units entered the city, the period of occupation of Minsk began. The active life position of M. Bruskina did not allow her to do nothing. At first she went to the concentration camp "Drozdy", carried food and water to the prisoners. Then she got a job as a nurse in a hospital-camp for Soviet prisoners of war, located on the territory of the Belarusian Polytechnic Institute, and began to cooperate with an underground group for the rescue of commanders and political workers of the Red Army (who were in the hospital), headed by a worker of the Minsk Wagon Repair Plant. Myasnikova K. I. A coward (Coward) and a cultural worker of the 3rd city hospital O. F. Shcherbatsevich. Through friends of M. Bruskina, she obtained and brought medicines, bandages, civilian clothes, various documents to the hospital for prisoners. She managed to get and hand over to the hospital a camera (for failure to deliver and storage of which was supposed to be shot). With the help of a camera, documents were produced with which prisoners of war were supplied. In addition, Masha distributed Information Bureau reports on the situation on the fronts.