The fight lasted the whole day. In the evening of the next day they decided to break through. A shock group was organized, armed with everything available. We went through swamps with water up to the waist, we had to hold on thin branches not to get sucked down in the bog. We roamed about the forests for a week unable to find a place for a refuge – a shelter of branches. We had injured persons.

The Germans were so close that I could see them putting their handkerchiefs on their heads and foreheads to protect themselves against the mosquitoes. We arrived there in the evening, and first thing in the morning the fight started. We, the women, were filling the cartridge belts and making sandwiches . We brought them water. That’s how it was – all day, till the evening, the fight lasted from dawn till sunset.

Despite heavy losses, Anna’s detachment escaped the Nazi encirclement.

Anna met her future husband in the resistance. He was a commander in a demolitions group, active in The Rails War:

“It was very dangerous. They needed to install a shell and to get away from the railroad quickly. They derailed 13 trains!”.

Anna accompanied her husband on one of these demolition runs. She also went on reconnaissance missions and helped sabotage train tracks:

“Every detachment was ordered by the brigade staff to destroy a definite kilometer of the railway to disrupt railway communication the Germans used as supplies lines with armament, troops, food supplies that’s what was called the Rails War”.

After the war, Anna’s husband was arrested for profiteering and spent 6 years in prison. The couple lived in Minsk before immigrating to Canada.