A few days ago I told you elsewhere about the so-called "Regiment Sons", children who fought on the side of the Red Army against the Hitler Germans.

Here is an example of the fate of one of you ...:

Марат Иванович Казей

On May 11, 1944, Marat Ivanovich Kasej, who was only 15 years old, fell in battle with the German occupiers in the Khoromezkoye forest near Minsk.

Kasej was born on October 29, 1929 in the village of Stankowo near Minsk, where he lived with his parents and together with his sister Ariadna Ivanovna ...



... grew up in this house ...:



He could have lived a completely normal life, which the attack by the Hitler Army on the Soviet Union unfortunately prevented.

Here is a page from his exercise book ...:



Partisam groups quickly formed against the German occupying forces in Belarus, including in Marat's home village of Stankowo.

Marat's mother Anna Aleksandrowna ...



... was arrested by German soldiers for alleged contact with partisans, interrogated by the SS in Minsk and severely tortured and then hung on the gallows.

Since the father Ivan Georgievich Kasej served in the Red Army (he later fell at the front) ...



... Marat and his sister joined a group of partisans in the Stankow Forest in order to take revenge on the occupiers and certainly also to have some kind of future.

He was initially used as a reconnaissance soldier ...



... later as a courier (the following picture shows him in early 1944) ...



... and was able to provide valuable information by penetrating enemy troops, which contributed to the successful expulsion of the German troops in Dzerzhinsk.





Kasej took part in various combats and was also involved in mining the railway lines used by the German occupiers.



For this he was awarded with the medal «За боевые заслуги» («Za boyevyye zaslugi» / "For Merits in Battle") ...:





At the beginning of May the partisan group to which Marat belonged was encircled and wiped out by German "anti-gang" troops in the forest of Khorometskoye.

The boy fell in battle on May 11th. According to witnesses, after he ran out of ammunition, he was said to have allowed enemy soldiers to approach him before he detonated his last remaining hand grenade - in order to take some of the occupiers with him to their death.



Marat Kasej was posthumously named Hero of the Soviet Union in 1965, making him the second youngest person to ever receive this title ...:






His sister, Ariadna Ivanovna, was also honored. She survived the war and died in 1965 ...:



A monument was erected in honor of Marat Kasej in the city center of Minsk ...:

The youngest holder of the order and title of "Hero of the Soviet Union" was the Ukrainian boy Валентин Александрович Котик (Valentin "Wassja" Aleksandrovich Kotyk), born on February 11, 1930 ...:



His résumé is absolutely comparable to that of Marat Kasej:

He lost his parents to the German occupiers and joined a partisan association in the Ukraine.

There he was - like Kasej in Belarus - first used as a scout and, after he had proven his reliability, also used as a fighter.



While still alive, he was, twice wounded in combat operations, awarded with the "Order of the Patriotic War 1st class" and the "Partisan of the Patriotic War" medal...:



Valentin Kotyk fell a week after his 15th birthday on February 17, 1944 in combat with soldiers of the Hitler Wehrmacht during the fight for the Ukrainian city Iziaslaw.

In 1958 he was posthumously named "Hero of the Soviet Union".

I've seen that statue in Minsk, but our courier didn't tell us the story. Now I know..... respect to him and his sister, and all other kids who made the supreme sacrifice.
Thanks Martin.

Phil