A rally in memory of heroes in Polotsk

Polotsk archivists took part in a rally dedicated to the memory of the heroic deeds performed during the Great Patriotic War by pilot Alexander Petrovich Mamkin and Mikhail Stepanovich Farinko, director of Polotsk Orphanage No.1.

During the Great Patriotic War, Mikhail Farinko directed Polotsk Orphanage No.1, which also housed Jewish children who had escaped from the ghetto. When the children were in danger of being exterminated by the German occupiers, the director took direct part in the evacuation of children from the occupied territory behind the front lines. To rescue the orphanage’s children, he created and led the underground group «Fearless». The rescue operation, dubbed «Star», was carried out thanks to the selfless efforts of underground members, scouts from the N.A.Shchors Partisan Detachment, and the V.I.Chapaev. Pilot Alexander Mamkin died heroically in this operation.

Literally burning alive in his canvas-and-wood R-5 biplane, shot down by a Nazi fighter, Alexander Mamkin, a pilot of the 105th Guards Aviation Regiment, managed to evacuate another group of 10 children, an escort, and two wounded soldiers from the Polotsk-Lepel partisan zone to the mainland on April 11, 1944. This was his ninth and final flight, completing Operation «Star» to rescue children who were being groomed by the German occupiers to serve as blood donors for their wounded soldiers. The seriously wounded pilot did not abandon the burning plane until he found a suitable landing site. All 13 passengers on board survived, and Alexander Mamkin himself died from his burns six days after being transported to the hospital.

Pictured: State Archives employees at a rally