Monument to the Heroes of the Komsomol - Cahul

A monument to the heroes of the Komsomol, leaders of an underground organization that operated in Cahul from September 1941 to March 1942. The granite wall, 15.5 m long and 3.25 m high, with bas-relief portraits of the young heroes, was erected in 1968 in a small square that at that time bore the name of Clara Zetkin. Nearby is the central park and the Cahul Museum of History and Local Lore. The monument was erected on the initiative of the youth of Cahul, as evidenced by the memorial plaques inscribed in Russian and Moldovan: “To the young underground heroes of Cahul from the Komsomol and the youth of the city.” («Молодым героям-подпольщикам Кагула от комсомольцев и молодёжи города») In Moldova, one of the first to engage in partisan activity were the volunteer assistants of the border guards of K.F. Vetchinkin's outpost. A small partisan group destroyed dozens of Romanian soldiers and officers, but then, when the border guards had to retreat after receiving orders from the command, the young partisans returned to Cahul and formed an underground group. The initiators of its creation were Komsomol members Pavel Polivod and Timofey Morozov, as well as a teacher from the village of Zyrneshti, Mikhail Krasnov. Another youth organization emerged in the Lipovani district (on the outskirts of Cahul). On the evening of July 22, worker Nikolai Kavchuk and former chairman of the Vulcanesti District Council of Physical Culture, Komsomol member Vasily Kozhokaru, carried out a daring attack on a German patrol, disarmed it, and beat it up. After this attack, a curfew was imposed in Cahul. Kavchuk and Cojocaru initially acted together, and then created a small underground group in Lipovani. At the end of September 1941, the two cells merged, and the Moldavian Komsomol underground committee was created in Cahul, headed by Mikhail Krasnov. His assistant was Pavel Polivod, political instructor – Timofey Morozov, committee member – Nadezhda Semenko; Kavchuk also joined the committee. Patriotic forces in the city of Cahul rallied around this group, and then underground groups from a number of villages in the Cahul district joined the organization. By the beginning of 1942, there were more than 50 people in the ranks of the Kagul underground. All members of the underground organization were young; the youngest member of the underground, Ivan Sivakov, was 16 years old. For a long time, the Romanian police searched for underground activists. In February 1942, after a tip-off from Securitate agent Maria Zherebtsova, secret agents Konstantin Potapenko and Dmitry Levitsky were able to infiltrate the organization, leading to its destruction. In early March 1942, when the underground fighters were preparing to blow up a bridge over the Prut River, the arrests began. Most of the underground members were arrested by the Romanian Securitate and subjected to excruciating torture. On July 14, 1942, a military field court sentenced the leaders of the Kagul underground, M. Krasnov, P. Polivoda, T. Morozov, N. Kavchuk, and V. Kozhokaru, to death. They were placed in the death row cell of the Chisinau military prison. On the eve of their execution, the underground fighters managed to escape, but they were soon caught and then shot in the Skulian Forest on the outskirts of Kishinev. Nadia Semenko died in prison in 1943, and Ivan Sivakov was killed by machine gun fire while attempting to escape.