Jewish eyes, Soviet upbringing...Commissar Fomin...His favorite song was the song from the film “Children of Captain Grant” And when his soul became heavy, he sang “Captain, captain, smile...”... A black-haired young man with a slightly sad look - this is how we see Regimental Commissar Fomin in the photograph. He took charge of the defense Brest Fortress, and defended her to the last... He was only 32, and the soldiers considered him their father... But there were always traitors...
The son of a blacksmith and seamstress from the small Belarusian town of Kolyshki near Vitebsk, he grew up an orphan. He left his relatives who sheltered him after the death of his parents and went to an orphanage. So what is next, classic story growing up as a Soviet boy of that time...Work at a shoe factory in Vitebsk, moving to Pskov, promotion along the Komsomol line. And then Efim Fomin became the commander of the Red Army.
By the beginning of the war, he was already married and had a small son, Yura. On June 21, Fomin was going to Latvia to move his family to his place in Brest. Didn’t have time...Luckily his wife and son, who managed to evacuate from Latvia.
And Fomin had to become a combat commissar on June 22. He was not a classic fearless hero. And the people who knew him did not notice anything outstanding or combative in his face. But he was a Man who knew how to take responsibility for his actions. And yet, his soldiers were dear to him...
Efim Fomin is described in an essay about the history of the Brest Fortress:
“He was only thirty-two years old, and he still expected a lot from life. He had a family dear to his heart, a son whom he loved very much, and anxiety for the fate of his loved ones always lived persistently in his memory next to all the worries, sorrows and dangers that weighed heavily on his shoulders from the first day of the defense of the fortress.
Soon after the shelling began, Fomin, together with Matevosyan, ran down the stairs to the basement under the regimental headquarters, where by this time hundreds of one and a half soldiers from the headquarters and economic units had already gathered. He barely had time to jump out of the office where the incendiary shell hit, and came downstairs half-naked, when the war found him in bed, carrying his uniform under his arm. Here, in the basement, there were many of the same half-naked people, and Fomin’s arrival went unnoticed. He was as pale as the others, and just as warily listened to the roar of nearby explosions shaking the basement. He was clearly confused, like everyone else, and asked Matevosyan in a low voice if he thought that it was ammunition depots set on fire by saboteurs that were exploding. He seemed afraid to utter the last fatal word - “war.”
Then he got dressed. And as soon as he was wearing a commissar’s tunic with four sleepers on the buttonholes and he tightened his waist belt with his usual movement, everyone recognized him. Some movement passed through the basement, and dozens of pairs of eyes turned to him at once. He read in those eyes a silent question, an ardent desire to obey and an uncontrollable desire for action. People saw in him a representative of the party, a commissar, a commander; they believed that only he now knew what to do. Let him be the same inexperienced, untrained warrior like them, the same mortal man who suddenly found himself among the raging menacing elements of war! Those questioning, demanding eyes immediately reminded him that he was not just a man and not only a warrior, but also a commissar. And with this consciousness, the last traces of confusion and indecision disappeared from his face, and in his usual calm, even voice, the commissioner gave his first orders.
From that moment to the end, Fomin never forgot that he was a commissar. If tears of impotent anger, despair and pity for his dying comrades appeared in his eyes, it was only in the darkness of the night, when no one could see his face. People invariably saw him as stern, but calm and deeply confident in the successful outcome of this difficult struggle. Only once, in a conversation with Matevosyan, in a moment of brief lull, Fomin broke out what he had been hiding from everyone in the very depths of his soul.
“It’s still easier to die alone,” he sighed and quietly said to the Komsomol organizer. “It’s easier when you know that your death will not be a disaster for others.”
He said nothing more, and Matevosyan remained silent in response, understanding what the commissioner was thinking.
He was a commissar in the highest sense of the word, setting an example of courage, dedication and modesty in everything. Soon he had to put on the tunic of a simple soldier: Hitler’s snipers and saboteurs were hunting primarily for our commanders, and everything command staff was ordered to change clothes. But even in this tunic, everyone knew Fomin - he appeared on the most dangerous bridges and sometimes he himself led people into attacks. He hardly slept, he was exhausted from hunger and thirst, like his fighters, but he was the last to receive water and food, when they could be obtained, strictly making sure that no one decided to show him any preference over others.
Several times, scouts who searched the killed Nazis brought Fomin biscuits or buns found in German backpacks. He sent it all to the basements - to children and women, without leaving a single crumb for himself. One day, thirsty soldiers dug a small hole-well in the basement where the wounded were located, which provided about a glass of water per hour. The first portion of this water - cloudy and dirty - was brought upstairs by the paramedic Milkevich to the commissar, offering him a drink.
It was a hot day, and for the second day there was not a drop of moisture in Fomin’s mouth. His dry lips were cracked and he was breathing heavily. But when Milkevich handed him the glass, the commissar sternly looked up at him with red eyes, sore from insomnia.
- Take it away to the wounded! - he said hoarsely, and it was said in such a way that Milkevich did not dare to object.
Already at the end of the defense, Fomin was wounded in the arm when a German grenade thrown through the window exploded. He went down to the basement to get a bandage. But when the orderly, around whom several wounded soldiers were crowded, saw the commissar and rushed towards him, Fomin stopped him.
- Them first! - he ordered briefly. And, sitting down on a box in the corner, he waited until it was his turn.
For a long time, Fomin’s fate remained unknown. The most contradictory rumors circulated about him. Some said that the commissar was killed during the fighting in the fortress, others heard that he was captured. One way or another, no one saw with their own eyes either his death or his captivity, and all these versions had to be questioned.
Fomin’s fate became clear only after it was possible to find a former sergeant of the 84th Infantry Regiment, and now director, in the Belsky district of the Kalinin region high school, Alexander Sergeevich Rebzuev.
On June 29 and 30, Sergeant Rebzuev found himself together with the regimental commissar in one of the premises of the barracks, when Nazi saboteurs blew up this part of the building with explosives. The soldiers and commanders who were here, for the most part, were destroyed by this explosion, buried and crushed by the rubble of the walls, and those who were still alive were pulled out half-dead from under the ruins by machine gunners and taken prisoner. Among them were Commissioner Fomin and Sergeant Rebzuev.
The prisoners were brought to their senses and, under strong escort, were driven to the Kholm Gate. There they were met by a Nazi officer who spoke good Russian, who ordered machine gunners to thoroughly search each of them.
All documents of Soviet commanders were destroyed long ago by order of Fomin. The commissar himself was dressed in a simple soldier's quilted jacket and tunic without insignia. Gaunt, bearded, in tattered clothes, he was no different from other prisoners, and the soldiers hoped that they would be able to hide from the enemies who this man was and save the life of their commissar.
But among the prisoners there was a traitor who did not run over to the enemy earlier, apparently only because he was afraid of getting a bullet in the back from Soviet soldiers. Now his time has come, and he decided to curry favor with the Nazis.
Smiling flatteringly, he stepped out of the line of prisoners and turned to the officer.
“Mr. Officer, this man is not a soldier,” he said insinuatingly, pointing at Fomin. - This is the commissar, the big commissioner. He told us to fight to the end and not surrender.
The officer gave a short order, and the machine gunners pushed Fomin out of the line. The smile faded from the traitor’s face - the inflamed, sunken eyes of the prisoners looked at him with a silent threat. One of German soldiers nudged him with the butt, and, immediately fading away, the traitor again stood in line.
Several machine gunners, on the order of an officer, surrounded the commissar in a ring and led him through the Kholm Gate to the bank of Mukhavets. A minute later, bursts of machine gun fire could be heard from there.
At this time, not far from the gate on the bank of Mukhavets there was another group of prisoners - Soviet soldiers. Among them were soldiers of the 84th regiment, who immediately recognized their commissar. They saw how the machine gunners placed Fomin at the fortress wall, how the commissar raised his hand and shouted something, but his voice was immediately drowned out by shots.
The remaining prisoners were escorted out of the fortress half an hour later. Already at dusk they were driven to a small stone barn on the bank of the Bug and locked there for the night. And when the next morning the guards opened the doors and the command was given to leave, the German guards were missing one of the prisoners.
In a dark corner of the barn, lying on the straw, was the corpse of a man who had betrayed Commissar Fomin the day before. He lay with his head thrown back, his glazed eyes terribly bulging, and blue fingerprints were clearly visible on his throat. This was retribution for betrayal.”
The organizer and leader of the legendary defense of the Brest Fortress was only thirty-two... And he was scared, like everyone else. But he couldn’t do otherwise... And I was glad to know that the traitor immediately got what he deserved... Although this will not bring back the big and bright man with a slightly sad smile, who supported himself with the song “Captain, captain, smile...”
Efim Moiseevich Fomin posthumously awarded the order Lenin. And the main award was received by his son Yuri Fomin
resident of Kiev, candidate historical sciences, having learned the details of his father’s death:
In 1951, as a student, I went to Brest with the hope of finding out something about my father. At the military registration and enlistment office they showed me the district newspaper “For the Glory of the Motherland” with materials about the remains of 34 Soviet soldiers, their weapons and belongings discovered in the ruins of the fortress. A partially preserved order for the fortress dated June 24, 1941 was found in the commander’s bag, where Regimental Commissar Fomin was named among the leaders of the defense.
From the editorial office of the said newspaper they told me the address of one of the defenders of the Brest Fortress, the former clerk of the headquarters of the 84th Infantry Regiment A.M. Phil, who lived in Yakutia. I sent him a letter and received an answer in January 1952. A.M. Fil said that he fought in the fortress under the command of Commissar Fomin, he knows that the shell-shocked commissar with several fighters was captured by the Nazis and executed.”
No. 70. Letter from an ordinary clerk of the headquarters of the 84th infantry regiment, Alexander Mitrofanovich Fil, to Yuri Efimovich Fomin, the son of Efim Moiseevich Fomin.
Comrade Fomin Yu.E.
If you are the son of Efim Moiseevich Fomin, I ask you to stand up before reading my letter. Let the image of an honest warrior, a courageous defender of the Russian land, a hero stand in your filial heart as a bright memory Patriotic War with the black forces of the enemy, the fearless leader of the heroic defense of the Brest-Litovsk fortress in June 1941...
I know Regimental Commissar Efim Moiseevich Fomin from his service in the 84th infantry regiment, 6th rifle division. When he arrived to us, I was already serving at the unit headquarters. Below average height, stocky, freshly shaved, ruddy, from the first days, with his attention to every detail, to the most insignificant flaw, his responsiveness and simplicity, he acquired the good name of the Red Army environment - “father”. All members of the large team resorted to his help, without timidity in their hearts. Efim Moiseevich was always among the fighters. I don’t remember a day or evening when he didn’t visit the units in free time from class. I don’t remember such a case when the commissioner did not satisfy the request of the applicant. Strictness and kindness, exactingness and practical help were his daily routine for educating the unit’s personnel. Until late (before lights out), Commissar Fomin - “father” - moved from the location of his unit to another, talked on various topics personal life, military life, was interested in the needs and desires of the soldiers, told stories of past campaigns of the Red Army, explained the policies of the enemies, called for study, vigilance and fidelity to the oath. Sometimes, in the close circle of gathered fighters, he had, as they say, “intimate” conversations on various intimate topics, had fun and joked. Very often he was in the presence of staff workers who lived on the same floor as him, along the same corridor. When, in conversations about relatives, the staff soldiers (including me) remembered children and wives, Commissar Fomin (as I remember now), sitting on his bed, lowered his gaze, and immediately, smiling, continued the conversation with a story about his family, which was in the Latvian SSR. If you are his son, then he talked a lot about you. Then he talked about his funny, good son, whom he loved very much.
Before last day Before the war, he lived in the fortress, in his office, on the second floor. If you were there, in the fortress, you should remember...
21.VI.41 by order of the command of the West. OVO units of the 6th and 42nd infantry divisions were taken to the training ground for exercises at dawn on 22.VI.41 in a selected composition. The unit commander, Major Dorodnykh, left the fortress with the battalions at 22.30. Commissioner Fomin E.M. went to the station to pick up my family. In connection with the departure for exercises, the head. technical office work int. 2nd rank Nevzorova P., I remained by order of the command to fulfill the position of head. office work. That evening, quiet and warm, the films “4th Periscope”, “Circus”, “Ruslan and Lyudmila” and others were shown in the fortress. In the building of the garrison club (near the ruins of the White Palace of the Polish army), where the film “4- th periscope,” before the start of the show, Commissioner Fomin held a short conversation about the content of the film, pointing out the vile machinations of the enemies of the socialist Motherland, after which, surrounded by fighters, he stood near the club, as if continuing the conversation he had begun in front of the audience. Leaving the club, the commissioner said goodbye to the fighters, saying that he would have continued the conversation, but his official duty required him to leave for a short time. There was peace and happiness on this wonderful evening. The fortress was resting.
At approximately 1.00 Commissar Fomin returned from the station. It was already the beginning of the fateful June 22, 1941. The staff staff was still awake, and he came in to find out why this was so. We did what. That evening I wrote a letter home and didn’t finish it, I left it until the morning, many were reading books. When we asked why they didn’t leave, Commissioner Fomin replied: “It’s a little strange, even a surprise, the tickets are all sold.” Then he joked a little and went to bed. We also went to bed.
At dawn at 4.00 the first exploding shell hit little house against the hospital gate, and then... the war began.
IN difficult moments battles, at the climax of attacks, your father always found words for the heart of the Russian, Soviet warrior. As a son, I want to tell you a little more than the usual story. Your father loved people very much simple life. He loved our Soviet fighters very much, and with all his heart, with every fiber of his soul, he despised enemies and alarmists. He hated the Krauts and Hans terribly. When they reported to him about the fallen soldiers, tears flowed from his courageous eyes. Many times, using all kinds of tactical cunning, he organized a breakthrough and exit from the fortress under his leadership, but... it was impossible. Our small group, almost unarmed, was surrounded by units (as I learned from correspondence in 1950) of the 12th Arm. enemy corps.
28.VI.41 was the most decisive day and the most terrible day of the war. The Germans threw everything they could throw at the fortress. On this day we were at the same entrance, in the same building where we wrote the first order. I was wounded and was on defense at one of the windows of the building. The explosion collapsed the ceiling of the building and I was crushed by the collapse. When I began to remember myself, I was already surrounded by Germans among other fighting friends of the fortress. Your father, regimental commissar E.M. Fomin, was then still with Captain Zubachev in another department of the building. According to eyewitnesses, Commissar Fomin was unconscious when the Germans burst into the building we occupied. On this day, a fate befell the survivors for the rest of their lives.
Your father, regimental commissar Fomin Efim Moiseevich was the first organizer of the defense of the fortress and until the last minutes of the struggle he himself believed and instilled in the soldiers the victory of Soviet weapons over fascism. IN last minutes During the battle, he was wearing a simple Red Army sweatshirt, a tunic with insignia and a TT pistol, when he ran along the defense line past me and other comrades, inspiring us to fight to the death. His face was already pale then. At that moment I saw him in last time, then followed what I wrote about above (he was stunned and shell-shocked by the explosion, but soon came to his senses).
The custom of fascist monsters is to remove their hats and sort them by hair cut in one direction and with hair cut in the other. From subsequent stories in the camp, it was precisely established that the regimental father was E.M. Fomin. was shot by the Nazis at the first fort on the way through wooden bridge from the fortress to the mountains. Tiraspol. There was a kind of “gathering point”, and the vile part, the smallest of the number of “Westerners” who underwent a 45-day gathering, who on 22.VI threw white sheets out of the windows, but were partly destroyed, from eyewitness accounts, pointed to your father and his title. I can't remember exactly, but maybe this will help you...
This will be an eternal and bright memory, watered with the pure blood of a faithful son of the party and Soviet people, place.
In order to give you a little idea of how courageous your father was, I will say a few words of secondary importance. From 21.6 in the evening until the last day of defense, the fighters brought together one “harvest” (as we called it then) of raw green peas. Your father also received a portion, but he gave it to the wounded. The scouts brought Efim Moiseevich other “gifts” (bread, buns), although it was in grams, but he never ate it, but gave it away with the words: “You are our strength, comrade fighters, without you I will not be able to defend the fortress, Therefore, share and eat yourself, the day will definitely come when we will gather around a big round table, eat and drink.” We didn't have water either; They drank what their comrade released. It was.
Once again I apologize for writing little and poorly. You must understand me that the memories of what I experienced very... excites me, and, despite the past 10 years, everything appears before my eyes as exciting and terrible.
19.7.52
Essay about the regimental commissar Efim Fomin, who led the defense of the Brest Fortress. The feat of the defenders. Gennady Lyubashevsky.
“I'm dying, but I'm not giving up. Farewell, Motherland! 20.VII.41.”
(Inscription on the wall of the barracks of the 132nd battalion
NKVD escort troops in the Brest Fortress)
That day I woke up very early. A vague anxiety crept into my soul, forcing me to get out of bed and go to the open window. There was that special silence that happens before the emerging summer morning. The city, with its avenues outstretched, was fast asleep. The clock behind the wall struck four times dully. The low, drawn-out sound of the last blow gradually died down, dissolved in the air, and the feeling of anxiety did not go away. Lord, it’s four o’clock now, today is June 22... 70 years ago at this very time, according to the destinies of people, like a machine gun burst, a time line passed, dividing life into “before the war” and “after the war.” And I almost physically felt next to me the person I want to tell you about in this story.
I felt his shoulder in an officer’s jacket touching my shoulder, I heard him breathing heavily, peering out the window. We were separated by 70 years, and we saw completely different pictures outside the window: I saw a peacefully sleeping city, and he saw the silhouettes of German planes, exploding bombs and shells. I enjoyed the silence, and he heard the screams and groans of the wounded, the crackle of machine gun fire, and the explosions of grenades. Another moment and my vision was gone. The man looked away from the window and, fastening his collar as he walked, stepped into the doorway. Thirty-two-year-old regimental commissar Efim Moiseevich Fomin passed away into immortality on June 22, 1941 - he will lead the heroic garrison that defended the Brest Fortress.
He will never know about the bitterness of our retreat, or about the battle near Moscow, or about Kursk Bulge, nor about Stalingrad. He will not see the ruins of defeated Berlin and the bright, like a drop of blood, red flag of the Victory Banner over the Reichstag. And he will not have the opportunity to stand in the ceremonial columns of the victorious soldiers on Red Square. Although... who knows - maybe that’s why Marshal Zhukov’s horse stumbled, because on the right flank of these ceremonial columns there stood a column of those, known and unknown, invisible to the human eye, who could not get into the ranks of the living... Let us bow to them again Let us once again remember the words of A. Tvardovsky:
“And the dead, the voiceless, have one consolation:
We fell for our Motherland, but it was saved.”
Brest Fortress... Many books have been written and several films have been made about the feat of its defenders. Alas, the further the events of those heroic days move away from us, the more speculation, and even outright lies, about the events of the first days of the war appear on the pages and movie screens. I will not argue with those who had the conscience to distort history, but will act as I did in my time when writing the story “For Posterity as an Example” about the Hero Soviet Union North Sea submariner Israel Fisanovich: I will give excerpts from a letter to me from a person whom you and I can trust - the son of Efim Fomin. I managed to find Yuri Efimovich, he turned out to be our fellow countryman, lives and works in Kyiv. Yuriy Fomin – Candidate of Historical Sciences, Honored Lawyer of Ukraine. We communicated with him on the phone more than once; the commissioner’s son sent his story about his father. Let's read his filial memoirs together.
“The bright image of my father, regimental commissar E.M. Fomin, lives in my memory. He was one of the organizers and leaders of the heroic defense of the Brest Fortress and died heroically at the very beginning of the Great Patriotic War in July 1941.
I was 11 years old then, and my memories of my father are naturally associated with childhood. Like all boys my age, I loved to play “war” and was very proud that my father was a military man. When we lived in Kharkov, I remember he carved for me a wooden saber with a beautiful hilt. True, it soon broke, and I cried bitterly, and my father, comforting me, promised to make me a new one and kept his word. Returning from business trips, he brought gifts and interesting books, trying to instill in me a love of reading.
I saw my father little at home, especially in the troubled pre-war years, when we lived in the Latvian city of Daugavpils. He left for work at dawn and returned late in the evening, when I was already asleep. But, despite being very busy, my father was interested in my studies at school and found time to talk with teachers.
I remember my father’s neatness and exactingness towards himself. He was always smart, dressed in shape and shaved. At the same time, my father was not a dry, callous pedant. He was distinguished by his love of life. On occasion, he joked and laughed, was fond of playing chess, which he called “combat training,” and was happy about a new book, a movie, a good song.
Many of my father’s colleagues noted his sincere attention to people, and my mother, Augustina Gerasimovna, and I knew that at any time a Red Army soldier, commander or political worker could turn to him with a request or for advice. One day in Daugavpils, he learned that one fighter, originally from the Caucasus, was very worried: his mother was ill. Thanks to his father's help, the guy was granted leave. Father always tried to encourage a person, if necessary, help him in word or deed.
In March 1941, my father received a new assignment - to the western border, to the city of Brest. My mother and I stayed temporarily to live in Daugavpils. From my father’s letters it was known that he had a lot of work to do at his new duty station: he sought to bring his regiment to the forefront. Having no apartment, my father lived in the regiment's location in the Brest Fortress, in a service room where there was a table for work and a bed. Father promised to come and take us to Brest as soon as possible.
Last phone conversation with him took place in the early morning of June 19, 1941. Mom said that some military families were leaving Daugavpils and asked what we should do. The father replied: “Do as everyone else does...” Three days later the war began...
For a long time there was no news about the fate of my father. Only in 1942 did a notification arrive that he had been listed as missing since September 1941.
In 1951, already as a student Kyiv University, I went to Brest with the hope of finding out something about my father. At the military registration and enlistment office they showed me the district newspaper “For the Glory of the Motherland” with materials about the remains of 34 Soviet soldiers, their weapons and belongings discovered in the ruins of the fortress. In the commander's bag, a partially preserved Order No. 1 on the fortress dated June 24, 1941 was found, where Regimental Commissar Fomin was named among the leaders of the defense.
From the editorial office of the said newspaper they told me the address of one of the defenders of the Brest Fortress, the former clerk of the headquarters of the 84th Infantry Regiment, A. M. Fil, who lived in Yakutia. I sent him a letter and received an answer in January 1952. A. M. Fil said that he fought in the fortress under the command of Commissar Fomin, he knows that the shell-shocked commissar with several fighters was captured by the Nazis and executed.
After this, I turned to the USSR Ministry of Defense and other authorities with a request to take measures to establish the fate of the defenders of the Brest Fortress in the summer of 1941, in particular, my father. However, I was told that the military district does not have the opportunity to conduct excavations in the Brest Fortress. Nevertheless, I continued my search.
As you know, the remarkable front-line writer, Lenin Prize laureate Sergei Sergeevich Smirnov did a lot to study the defense of the Brest Fortress. We first met him in July 1956 in Moscow at a meeting of the defenders of the Brest Fortress, dedicated to the 15th anniversary of its heroic defense. The writer gave me his book “Fortress on the Border” with the inscription: “To the son of the hero and head of the defense of the fortress, Yuri Fomin, as a memory of our meeting and with deep respect for the memory of the hero father. S.S. Smirnov.”
At the same time, I met the participants of the Brest Defense who came to Moscow. They said that from the first minutes of the battle, regimental commissar E.M. Fomin became the organizer of the defense, showed exceptional courage, bravery, personal example attracting warriors to fight the enemy.
The heroic feat of the commissioner, of course, was not accidental. Its origins are connected with life's path father, unfortunately, short, but illuminated by loyalty to the ideas of freedom and social justice, devotion to the Soviet Fatherland. This is confirmed by the condensed facts of his biography.
Efim Moiseevich Fomin was born on January 15, 1909 in the town of Kolyshki, Liozno district, Vitebsk region, into a Jewish working family. His parents - his father was a blacksmith, his mother was a seamstress - died early, and he was raised first by his aunt, then by his uncle. Started at age 12 labor activity a student, or rather a servant, for a hairdresser in the city of Vitebsk, then he was an apprentice shoemaker. He was brought up in an orphanage, worked at the Vitebsk shoe factory, where in 1924 he was admitted to the Komsomol.
In 1927, Efim moved to Pskov to live with his older brother Boris. Here he entered the district Soviet Party school. During his studies he was accepted into the ranks Communist Party. After graduating from the Soviet party school, my father worked in trade union and party bodies, and studied by correspondence at the Leningrad Communist University.
Following party mobilization in March 1932, my father became a career political worker in the Red Army. He served first in Pskov, then in Feodosia and Simferopol as secretary of the Komsomol organization of an anti-aircraft regiment, political instructor of a company, instructor of the political department of a rifle division, commissar of a rifle regiment.
In August 1938, he was appointed to the post of military commissar of the 23rd Kharkov Order of Lenin Red Banner Rifle Division. Together with this division in 1939 he took part in the liberation Western Ukraine. For successes in his service he was promoted twice ahead of schedule. military rank, in 1939 he was awarded the rank of regimental commissar, corresponding to the rank of colonel.
Arriving in April 1941 at a new duty station in Brest, E. M. Fomin in a short time managed to win the trust and love of soldiers and commanders. His fellow soldier A.M. Fil later recalled this: “From the first days, with his attention, his responsiveness and simplicity, he acquired the good name “father” among the Red Army. All members of the large team resorted to his help without timidity in their hearts. Strictness and kindness, exactingness and practical assistance were the main methods of his work in training personnel.”
At dawn on June 22, with the first explosions of enemy shells in the Brest Fortress, Commissar Fomin found himself at the center of events. Due to the absence of commanders, he took command of the units of the 84th Infantry Regiment of the 6th Infantry Division located in the barracks, and ordered the soldiers to take up defense in the area of the Kholm Gate of the citadel. The Nazis' attempt to break through these gates was repulsed. After this, he organized a counterattack against a German detachment that broke through the nearby Terespol Gate in the center of the fortress. As a result, this detachment was defeated and driven back. The first success inspired the defenders of the citadel.
So that the soldiers would see another senior commander in their ranks, he ordered the Komsomol organizer of the regiment, S. M. Matevosyan, to put on his spare tunic with the insignia of the regimental commissar. On his orders, the Komsomol organizer tried to break out of the fortress in an armored car to contact the command Soviet troops, but unsuccessfully. The Nazis blocked all exits from the fortress.
Commissar Fomin took part in battles with the Nazis, often leading bayonet attacks himself, leading the fighters by personal example. At the same time, he understood that the separated groups from different military units They would not be able to resist the superior forces of the Nazis for long, so they tried to unite all the defenders of the fortress.
On June 24, 1941, on his initiative and with his active participation, during a break between battles, commanders gathered for a meeting in one of the casemates separate groups who fought in the citadel. They decided to unite into a consolidated group and create a single command and defense headquarters.
ABOUT moral qualities Efim Moiseevich is also evidenced by the fact that he, being the most senior in rank among all the officers, gave the right to command the garrison to a career military man with combat experience. The commander was appointed a communist, a participant civil war, captain Zubachev, and regimental commissar Fomin became his deputy.
Together with Captain Zubachev, my father led the fighting of an organized breakthrough from encirclement, but they were unsuccessful - the enemy’s advantage was too great. The strength of the defenders of the fortress, who did not receive help from anywhere, melted away, and their situation became more and more difficult.
The Nazis blocked all approaches to the Mukhavets River, which washes the fortress. As a result of this, the defenders of the fortress (and many of them were wounded) suffered severely from thirst. There was no water, food, medicine, and ammunition had run out. However, the heroes held out until the last bullet, until last straw blood.
According to the surviving defenders of the fortress, Commissar Fomin showed will and endurance in incredibly difficult conditions. No wonder they called him the soul of defense. When one of the fighters said that he would keep the last cartridge for himself, the father objected: “We can die in hand-to-hand combat, but we will shoot the cartridges at the fascists.” He convinced those who were discouraged that aimless death and suicide are cowardice, and life must be devoted entirely to the fight against a fierce enemy.
Along with all the defenders of the fortress, Commissar Fomin suffered from thirst and hunger, but did not allow him to be given any preference. Paramedic S.E. Milkevich once brought the commissioner some muddy water, which was collected with difficulty in a hole dug under the floor. My father had been thirsty for several days, but he said: “Water is only for the wounded.” When he was wounded in the arm, he went down to the basement, where several wounded were waiting for bandages. The paramedic rushed to him, but the father said: “Them first,” and began to wait for his turn. The scouts brought the commissar bread and biscuits found from the killed Nazis, and he gave food to the wounded, women and children who were in the basements.
In the rare breaks between battles, Efim Moiseevich tried to encourage the fighters with a heartfelt word, instilled in them faith in our victory over the enemy, and called on them to fulfill their military duty to the end.
When the Nazis captured a group of wounded, hungry soldiers, exhausted from days of heavy fighting, among whom was the wounded Commissar Fomin, the traitor handed him over to the Nazis. As eyewitnesses said, the Germans shot the commissar at the fortress wall. Before his death, he managed to shout to the soldiers: “Don’t lose heart, victory will be ours!”
What can be added to these sincere filial memories? Yuri Efimovich writes very sparingly about the details of his father’s death, and I understand why. He is a historian and is used to trusting verified facts. For him, his father still remains alive, the way he was remembered in those “fateful forties.” The father is still an example for his son.
We also cannot describe with documentary accuracy what happened in the fortress in those terrible days. Built according to all the rules of fortification art, it was capable of surviving a long siege if... If its defenders had had plenty of weapons, ammunition, food, water, medicine, if in the heat of retreat they had not simply been abandoned to their fate. And how can one not remember the words of the writer Boris Vasiliev: “The fortress did not fall. She bled to death."
The Germans were unable to immediately take the powerful fortifications and were unable to break the resistance of the garrison. Then they began a methodical siege. Endless bombing, shelling from giant 600-mm mortars specially delivered to Brest, the use of flamethrowers and poisonous gases did their job. The ranks of the defenders were melting. At the end, the Nazis began to drop super-heavy bombs weighing half a ton on the fortress, the explosions of which shook the earth and collapsed the walls of the casemates. And, to top off this nightmare, a monster bomb weighing almost two tons was dropped on the fortress on June 29. The shock, terrible in its force, like an earthquake, shook not only the fortress, but the entire city. Many fortifications were destroyed, some people died under the rubble, some were wounded or shell-shocked, covered with earth and fragments of walls and could no longer physically resist the enemy.
Apparently, Fomin was among these wounded and shell-shocked defenders. According to the recollections of other miraculously surviving defenders of the fortress, its commissioner was still alive on July 15, after 24 days of stubborn defense. Maybe the fortitude of this man, his influence on those around him were so great that people did not want to believe in his death and continued to consider him alive?.. You and I will never know this. One thing is known for certain: Efim Moiseevich Fomin died a heroic death, but remained to live forever in the memory of our people.
The writer S. S. Smirnov, who revealed many of the circumstances of the heroic defense and resurrected the names of the heroic defenders of the Brest Fortress from oblivion, petitioned for Commissar Fomin to be awarded the title of Hero of the Soviet Union. However, the USSR Ministry of Defense nominated him for awarding only... the Order of the Patriotic War. Remember my story “Commissar”, about the feat of the commissar of the icebreaking steamer “Sibiryakov” - the Soviet “Varyag”). Sibiryakov commissioner Elimelakh was also awarded posthumously... only with the Order of the Patriotic War. Alas, the Motherland, generously showering some with the highest awards, was clearly stingy with respect to others, no less worthy of its sons.
And yet, Sergei Smirnov made petitions again and again. As a result, E. M. Fomin by Decree of the Presidium Supreme Council The USSR was awarded the Order of Lenin on January 3, 1957. Since 1981, war veterans and their organizations have repeatedly appealed to the top leadership of the USSR, Russian Federation, Republic of Belarus with petitions to confer posthumously the title of Hero to E.M. Fomin, but in vain.
Memory of faithful son of the Soviet people - commissar both by position and by vocation - Efim Fomine lives. Streets are named after him in the Belarusian cities of Brest and Minsk, in the village of Liozno in the Vitebsk region, where he is from, and in Russian Pskov, three schools in Belarus and Russia, and memorial plaques have been installed in the Brest Fortress, the Ukrainian cities of Kharkov and Simferopol.
Every summer on June 22, on the anniversary of the start of the war, our neighbor Uncle Seryozha early in the morning, when everyone was still sleeping, put on a jacket with an empty left sleeve and an Order of the Patriotic War with chipped enamel on one of the rays of a five-pointed star. He went out the gates of his old house, and, cupping the palm of his surviving right hand, looked for a long time in the direction where the dawn was born. The timid rays of the morning sun slid across his face and dried the tears rolling down his unshaven cheeks. He stood alone until the first passers-by appeared on the streets. Then he went home, sat down under an apple tree and sang the same song in a dull, intermittent voice:
“The twenty-second of June, at exactly four o’clock
Kyiv was bombed, they announced to us that war had begun...”
Neither Uncle Seryozha nor his old house have been gone for a long time. But the song is alive. How vivid the memory is. The memory of those heroes who were the first to take the battle and for whom the front line on which they fought became the last. Memory of the millions who fell for the Victory and of those who returned with the Victory.
I put the last point in this story and stood up. In the twilight of the summer evening, I again saw the silhouette of the commissar at the window and stood next to him. Stand up too, my reader. Remember the fallen and be silent. We all live thanks to them. They will remain with us forever.
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