Isai Kazinets Belarusian engineer of Jewish origin Date of Birth: 09.04.1910 Country: Belarus

1. Early Life and Education
2. Professional Career and Party Membership
3. Underground Leadership in Minsk
4. Arrest and Execution
5. Posthumous Recognition and Legacy

Early Life and Education

Iсай Pavlovich Kazinets was born in Genichesk, Kherson Oblast, Ukraine, in 1910. His Jewish family hailed from a working-class background. Kazinets lost his father in the Russian Civil War in 1918 and spent his formative years until 1922 in an orphanage.

In 1922, Kazinets moved to Batumi, Georgia, and in 1936, he graduated from the Kiev Petroleum Institute. He then served in the Red Army from 1936 to 1937.

Professional Career and Party Membership

After his military service, Kazinets worked in Kalinin and Gorky, Russia. He joined the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) in 1938. From 1939, he served as chief engineer of the "Neftebyt" enterprise in Białystok, Poland.

Underground Leadership in Minsk

With the outbreak of World War II, Kazinets retreated with the Red Army and reached Minsk, Belarus. He remained in the city to organize underground resistance against the Nazi occupation. In November 1941, Kazinets was elected secretary of the Minsk underground city party committee. Adopting the pseudonyms "Slava," "Yurgin," and "Slavka Pobedit," he led the creation of a network of underground groups in Minsk and orchestrated over a hundred acts of sabotage.

Arrest and Execution

In March 1942, the German security services apprehended several underground leaders and seized documents. One of the arrested members betrayed Kazinets, leading to the arrest of him and other committee members on March 26. During his arrest, Kazinets fought back, killing and wounding several Gestapo officers.

On May 7, 1942, Kazinets and 28 other underground members were hanged in Minsk's central square.

Posthumous Recognition and Legacy

Twenty-three years after his execution, Kazinets was posthumously awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union on May 8, 1965, by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR. He was also awarded the Order of Lenin.

A square and a street in Minsk bear Kazinets' name. A memorial plaque commemorates him on the building of the Minsk city committee of the Communist Party of Belarus. A memorial sign marks the site of his execution in the Central Square of Minsk, and a plaque is displayed on the house at 1 Kazinets Street.

Kazinets' heroic resistance in Minsk has been immortalized in literature and film. The writer Ivan Novikov dedicated the first part of his trilogy "Minsk Front" to Kazinets and his comrades, titled "Ruins Shoot at Point-Blank Range." In the 1970s, director Vitaly Chetverikov produced a six-part television series titled "Ruins Shoot..." at the Belarusfilm studio.