June 9, 2025 • 28 mins
Join the ladies of Macabre for the final episode of Season 2 as they tell the gripping story of Zinaida Portnova. At just 16, this ordinary girl transformed into an extraordinary resistance fighter, striking fear into the Nazi regime and becoming a symbol of unwavering courage during WWII. Don't miss her incredible, tragic, and inspiring journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.
They'll eat your gods and spit them out.
And when your bones begin to rot, the worms remain, but you
do not. So don't ever laugh as the
hearse goes by. There's someday you'll be next
(00:21):
in life. And when death brings his cold
despair, ask yourself, will anyone?
Macabre may not be suitable for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. It's the final episode of Season
2. I almost said Season 3.
(00:42):
I'm getting ahead of myself now,yeah.
Oh my gosh though, it's so crazyhere.
Yeah, I am really excited for this particular episode because
one, it's the letter. Z&Z is kind of a tough letter to
pick a topic for. One of our listeners actually
(01:04):
suggested this. So thank you.
Special shout out to David. Thank you for suggesting this
incredible story. I am guessing most of you have
probably never heard of the nameZanada Port Nova, but I promise
you, after today's episode, you will never forget her.
(01:26):
Are you ready for this? Yeah.
Thanks, David. Yeah, so the letter Z is for
Zenada Port Nova, and here are my show notes.
War makes monsters, but sometimes war makes martyrs, and
sometimes war turns teenage girls into assassins.
(01:50):
Today on Macabre we tell the true story of Zanada Port Nova,
a Soviet girl who poisoned over 100 Nazi soldiers, shot 3 guards
during an escape attempt, and never said a word under torture.
(02:12):
Yeah, So what a way to end the season with a back story of a
badass young woman. And I am so here for it.
Hefia. Let's just get into it.
Yes. Her story is a harrowing tale of
defiance and of grief turned into vengeance.
(02:34):
This is like some inglorious Basterd style type shit, but
this is true. I mean, it's, it's.
Yeah, this is a reminder that sometimes history's fiercest
warriors don't wear uniforms. All right, let's set the scene.
(02:56):
It's 1941, World War 2. The Nazi war machine is tearing
through Europe, and now it's coming for the Soviet Union.
In Leningrad, a city preparing for siege, 15 year old Zanada
Portnova lives with her working class family.
Her father is a factory worker, her mother stays at home.
(03:18):
They're not political elites, just proud Soviets.
We're going to call her Zena. Zena is smart, curious, a member
of the Young Pioneers, which is a communist youth group that
trains kids to be ideal Soviet citizens.
(03:39):
But at heart, she's still a kid who loves school stories and her
grandmother. So when her family sends her to
the quiet village of Zui, Belarus, for safety, it seems
like a reprieve. But just days after she arrives,
Nazi forces invade, and suddenlyZena isn't a visitor anymore.
(04:03):
She's a witness to the war occupation.
She sees her grandmother's neighbors beaten, civilians
executed, Nazi troops stealing what they want and killing
whoever they please. Fear replaces every corner of
her childhood. Her family is 100 miles away at
(04:24):
this point, trapped in the siegeof Leningrad, and Zena is
trapped in the belly of the beast.
After weeks of living under German occupation, Zena had seen
enough. She wasn't just angry, she was
traumatized. The village she once found
peaceful had become a landscape of death and silence.
(04:46):
Her grandmother, like many of the villagers, tried to keep her
safe, told her to stay quiet, keep her head down, stay out of
trouble. But Zena wasn't wired that way
anymore, not after what she had seen.
So when the local underground resistance reached out, Zena
said yes. No hesitation, No Fear.
(05:07):
She joined a group, and I shit you not, called the Young
Avengers. That's awesome.
Yeah. A Soviet partisan group made-up
of ordinary citizens like farmers, students and in this
case, children who were sick of feeling helpless.
Zena joined the Belorussian resistance movement, the Calm
(05:29):
Some All Resistance Group, also known as the Young Avengers.
In 1942. She began her resistance by
distributing Soviet propaganda leaflets in the German occupied
Belarus. So let's just start with that
idea, right? So this young girl is such a
(05:49):
fucking badass that she joins this group fully Nazi occupied
at this point. I mean, they're killing people,
they're doing all manner of terrible things, and she's out
there just distributing this propaganda against the Germans
to the people who still remain there.
That's brave. Yeah, and the Young Avengers
(06:13):
didn't have tanks, they didn't have uniforms, but they had rage
and the will to fight. Zena's first missions were small
but dangerous. She delivered messages to
resistant cells, scouted enemy troop positions, and help
transport weapons through the forest of Belarus.
She sometimes sabotage German motorcycles and enemy trucks at
(06:36):
their base in Vitz, Tibet. It's I'm probably going to say a
lot of these things wrong because they're Russian.
The spec Xena also collected andhid weapons for Soviet soldiers
and reported back on the movements of the German troops.
Like she's a full on fucking little bad ass spy.
(06:57):
That's insane. She was smart, careful, and
beyond brave, the kind of personwho could blend in until it was
too late. She learned to keep secrets, to
trust no one, and to lie when itmattered.
She learned how to use a gun. She also learned what the
(07:18):
Germans did to capture partisans.
The stories weren't just whispered, they were posted
publicly. Torture, executions.
Entire families disappearing. Some of the missions Zena was
involved in included strategic targets of Nazi control sites,
including a water pump station, a local power plant and a brick
(07:40):
factory used by the German troops.
These locations were essential to the Nazis operations in the
region because they were using them for infrastructure,
supplies and shelter. It's estimated that Zena's
contributions to the resistance led to the death of an estimated
100 German soldiers during the war.
(08:02):
Zena believed in what she was doing, and by late 1943 her work
took a more personal and darker turn, one that would make her a
fucking legend in Soviet history.
A plan was forming the Young Avengers how to target the
German mess hall in Obel, where local Nazi officers dined
(08:24):
regularly. If they could poison the food,
they could take out an entire unit of enemy troops without
firing a single shot. So in order to do this, they
needed someone who could get inside, someone who could be
pretty much invisible, who looked innocent and seemed
(08:45):
unassuming. They needed Zena, so Xena took a
job as a kitchen assistant in the mess hall.
She smiled, scrubbed pots, she ladled out Stew and cleaned up
after the meals, and no one suspected her until she poisoned
the food. She mixed a deadly substance
(09:06):
into the meals, likely a plant based toxin used by Soviet
partisans. Then she watched as the German
soldiers sat down for lunch. 1 by 1, the soldiers grew pale,
then nauseous. Then they collapsed.
By the end of the day, over 100 soldiers had fallen ill and
(09:28):
dozens had already died. It worked, but the danger wasn't
over. Someone from the inside
suspected her. Maybe it was because she had a
nervous glance, maybe it was just bad luck.
But the Germans pulled her aside, accused her, and
(09:49):
interrogated her for answers. And here's the crazy part.
Xena had to prove her innocence right.
She's on the chopping block. So she did the only thing she
could do to prove it. She ate a spoonful of the very
soup she had poisoned. Hours later, she collapsed, was
(10:10):
vomiting, seizing, and the poison nearly killed her.
But somehow, miraculously, she survived.
The Germans were convinced that she was innocent.
After all, what kind of a personwould poison themselves if they
(10:32):
were guilty? So they let her go.
But they had no idea what they had just unleashed.
They made a mistake. After the poisoning, Zena didn't
return to the mess hall. She couldn't, right?
Yeah, she she had already been suspected of the death of the
(10:52):
Nazi soldiers, and the resistance needed her now more
than ever. So she got back to doing what
she did best, this time with even more dangerous missions,
sabotaging equipment, derailing supply trains, relaying critical
intelligence to Soviet partisanswho were hiding out in the
(11:13):
forest. She was just living on
adrenaline at that. At this point, every day was
kind of a coin toss between survival and being discovered.
And in late December 1943 or January of 1944, sources kind of
differ on this timeline. Zena's luck ran out when she was
(11:36):
caught scoping out a target for the Young Avengers.
Somewhere along the way, maybe someone saw her.
Maybe someone talked. Zena was stopped by German
soldiers. They searched her and found
documents. Zena was thin captured and sent
back to Obel, where she had poisoned the mess hall just
(11:57):
months earlier. Her mission was to meet with
other partisans and deliver classified documents to
resistance commanders. It should have been like a quick
rendezvous, but the Gestapo had tightened their grip.
Obel was crawling with German troops, and the local
collaborators knew that the resistance was getting bolder.
(12:19):
After she was arrested, she was immediately dragged to German
headquarters, beaten, interrogated and threatened.
But she didn't talk. And this is where Zena's story
turns from heroic to legendary. As if she wasn't a badass enough
already. Yeah, seriously.
Oh my gosh. At some point during her
(12:42):
interrogation, Xena managed to grab the officer's pistol, and
accounts differ slightly on whattranspires after this.
Some say that the officer was soangry while he was interrogating
her and he wasn't getting anything out of her that he just
threw his gun and that the pistol went flying and she
(13:04):
grabbed it and you know, picked it up or whatever.
And others say she just straightup took the pistol.
Regardless of which story is true, Xena being the badass that
she was, got a hold of the pistol and she shot the guy
point blank. Then she turned the gun on two
other guards, shooting 1 and injuring the other.
(13:26):
And then she took off. Zena, a teenage girl, alone in
enemy headquarters, gun in hand,ran for her life, escaping into
the nearby woods. But this time, her luck had run
out. She didn't get far before German
reinforcements caught her near the banks of a river.
This time there were no more tricks, no more escapes.
(13:49):
Now the Germans were really fucking pissed off.
A teenage girl had just killed and wounded some of their
soldiers. The Nazis wanted answers, They
wanted names, they wanted locations of the partisans that
she was working with, and they were willing to do anything to
get that information from her. So they tortured Zena.
Brutally. She was beaten, burned, starved,
(14:13):
and this went on for a while. And the entire time she did not
say a fucking word. Not one.
So you have to think about what kind of strength that takes to
face your own end and still be in the mind to protect others.
It's more than bravery, it's defiance, it's vengeance, it's
(14:35):
purpose. The Germans ended up holding her
for weeks and they held her for as long as they could until they
realized they were not going to break her.
She gave them nothing, no confession, no betrayal, no
names. They tried to break her body,
(14:56):
her spirit, but they never brokeher will.
And finally, when the Nazis realized that she was never
going to give them what they wanted, they executed her.
The records are murky, like so many stories swallowed up by
war. But we know she was killed
sometime in January of 1944, andat the time she was only 17
(15:17):
years old, a teenager, a child by every modern standard.
And yet she died a soldier, a hero, a ghost the Nazis couldn't
silence. Her body was buried in Obel.
But her story didn't end there. After the war ended in 1945,
Soviet officials uncovered the extent of Zena's resistance.
(15:40):
Her name echoed across the country.
In 1958, fourteen years after her death, she was posthumously
awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the Soviets
highest award. Pretty fucking awesome.
Yeah, incredible. Yeah, so they built statues.
(16:00):
They named schools after her. Her face was put on postage
stamps. She became a symbol not just of
Soviet patriotism, but of the raw, unshakable power of youth
in the face of evil. It's easy to hear a story like
this and a romanticize it to make Zena into some tragic
legend. But let's be clear.
(16:21):
Her death wasn't beautiful. It was fucking violent.
It was unjust. It was one child's punishment
for refusing to be powerless. And what makes her story even
more haunting is how timeless itfeels.
She wasn't a soldier by training, she wasn't drafted.
She didn't carry any medals or rank.
(16:42):
She was just a teenage girl raised in a city that was
literally starving to death, separated from her family.
And when the world was burning around her, she didn't run.
She fought back. Badass.
Yeah, badass. Yeah, so Xena didn't live to see
(17:04):
her 18th birthday. She didn't get to go home, never
saw her parents again, never walked the streets of Leningrad
after the siege, never got the normal life that every child
deserves. But what she did leave behind
was a legend. There are streets in Belarus and
Russia named after her, statues,as I mentioned, that still stand
to this day. Textbooks that still tell her
(17:27):
story, sometimes sanitized, sometimes embellished, but
always with awe and the truth. The truth is more powerful than
any propaganda. Zena wasn't perfect.
She wasn't invincible. She was terrified, angry,
grieving. Zenada reminds us that heroism
isn't always found in generals and presidents.
(17:49):
Sometimes it's a teenage girl alone in enemy territory who
decides I will not be powerless.Hell yeah.
Wow. Yeah, wow.
So let's just remember that sometimes the fiercest warriors
don't wear uniforms. Sometimes they wear braids and
(18:11):
carry books. Sometimes they're just 17.
This has been Macabre, a Dark history podcast, and it is our
final episode of Season 3. Season 2.
Season 2 is our final episode ofSeason 2.
If the Native story moved you, we invite you to share it and
(18:32):
remind others that courage doesn't always come with a
crown. Sometimes it comes with a quiet,
unbreakable will. That is all I have for you
today, listeners. That got heavier than I expected
it to. Until next time.
Well, we have. We have a few things we want to
share with you before we officially wrap up.
(18:55):
Yes, we have. Man, this is such a fucking
fantastic way to end the season.Yeah, I mean, you're getting me
over here too. Yeah, a lot of work goes into
(19:16):
these seasons. And I think really, ultimately
our goal is always to try to tell stories that matter, you
know, whether it be of heroes and or victims of tragedy.
You know, they're sometimes likethis person.
I had never heard of Zineda PortNova.
(19:38):
And how powerful was this story?Yeah.
And now I can tell other people about this story.
And especially in the time in the world that we live in, like,
stuff is scary. And, you know, we have the
choice to be silent about things.
And I'm not going to get on too big of a soapbox.
(20:00):
But, you know, there are ways that we can stand up for people
who don't have rights. And also, you know, we always
say be kind. At the end of these episodes,
like, just be fucking kind, yeah.
It's a small and as big as that at the same time.
And yeah, I think that that's a big reason why we say that at
(20:22):
the end is just even despite what we talk about sometimes, it
is very important, very important.
I think it's the simplest thing that you can do.
Yeah. In a world where people aren't
kind is just like be good to each other.
Exactly and now exactly I. Just personally want to say
(20:45):
thank you for being a part of Season 2, for all of our
listeners, for continuing to help us grow as a show and
impacting our lives. You know, just the way that you
show up for us by listening and sharing episodes with other
people, telling a friend, by leaving reviews, all those
(21:08):
things matter to us. So we just, I just want to end
this with being so grateful and appreciative and in doing so,
Season 3 get ready because we are going to say thank you by
the way, that we do Season 3. We've got some amazing content
(21:33):
planned. We're changing things up a
little bit. We're doing some mini series
focused episodes to tell bigger stories.
Yeah. We're going to up the production
value and give you some narrative style with some music
and some sound effects and, you know, making it have a little
more dramatic flair. And then we also have some
(21:56):
merchandise coming out. So we promised we would do that,
and we're doing it. Yep, finally.
I know people have been asking. It's happening.
It's. Happening.
It's official. It's.
Official, like Oh my God, it's like, I have a feeling.
I mean, I thought about this too.
We're going to have to start thanking individuals at the end
(22:19):
of every episode and starting inSeason 3 as well, just for their
help. With contributions, yeah.
Big shout out to David for doingthe design.
I think you guys are really going to like the merch and
obviously, you know, we're starting out with a couple
things. It's going to grow.
(22:40):
There'll be more on that. We are getting rid of the
hometown MC Cobb segments for our show.
But as Hallie was saying, we aredoing something a little
different. We're we're testing it out and I
think you guys are really going to like macabre feature.
(23:02):
Hallie has done a phenomenal jobon the very first one and I got
to hear a sneak peek of it already.
It blew me away. So I'm so excited and I can't
wait to hear what you guys think.
Well, it's going to get crazy onPatreon too.
You know we're still going to bethat.
You know what's happening? Yeah.
(23:23):
Well, yeah. Well, this episode will have
already aired, but we will have just had our first movie night.
Yes. With our Patreon members.
Yeah, and I can't wait to see how that goes.
I know that there will be more to come for that too.
I know that won't be the only one.
So I'm so excited. So it's macabre science.
(23:44):
It's not science theater, but macabre something Theater 3000.
It's our macabre version and we're going to watch old, scary,
funny, ridiculous movies with listeners.
And yeah, So if you're a freaky friend, deadly darling or
macabre hottie on Patreon, if you are in those tiers, you'll
(24:07):
get access to the live stream movie watch with us.
So and then we'll, we'll have some game nights coming up and
other things on Patreon. So if you're a paid member, you
get access to those things. Yeah, yeah.
It's going to be a time for sure.
And we're and we're still, you know, we're figuring out that
stuff. Obviously we've got some new
(24:28):
stuff coming over there too. So we're, we're figuring out how
to do that and making those moreregular macabre features going
to be so fun. I can't wait.
And who knows, maybe we'll pull up a little thing called the
Cobb unburied because it's weirdto say this now, but now that
(24:51):
we're getting into season 3, it's we've been, we've been
doing this for over a year and ahalf.
And it's so crazy because it's like some people are like, Oh,
I, I didn't even know. Like I've never gone back to
Season 1. I'm like go back.
You gotta start from the beginning, right?
See the evolution of that. Yeah, exactly.
(25:13):
In our in our in our wee little days, you know where we were
like, okay, me specifically hailing not so much, but me.
Or whatever was. It was really nice chatting with
you. I guess he he's seeing that next
episode, you know? Pulling out those archived
episodes, we'll have more commentary and other things to
(25:34):
add that we've maybe discovered over time that have changed the
story or added to the story. So it's it'll give like some
bonus content on the main platform for us to dig deeper,
like a macabre digging deeper inthe graves of the.
Archives Yeah. I'm so excited.
(25:54):
I'm so excited. But yeah, that's that's what I
have for you today. Sorry about breaking down and
crying. No.
No, there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean this. Moving.
Story This story moved me and I didn't expect that to happen at
the end, but it happened. It happens sometimes.
Yeah, it's, it's powerful and I've never heard of her before.
(26:18):
And I'm so glad that you presented on this because I
would have never known. Yeah, that's what's cool.
There are a lot of stories like this from that era and time
frame and you know, things that we I think we'll touch on maybe
in, in Season 3. We'll, I think.
We will dig a little bit deeper.Yeah, there's so much.
(26:39):
So much. That's from the.
Bottom of our hearts listeners, thank you so very much.
We can never, ever, ever go intodetail on how deep our gratitude
goes towards you. The fact that you come to hang
out with us means absolutely everything to us in every way.
Hanging out with you in the Facebook group, getting to chat
(27:01):
with you, it really does so much.
You don't even know what you do for us and you know we're all
people and we have lives and craziness.
And. You guys really make everything
worth it, so we fucking love you.
Yeah. Thank you for a fantastic season
(27:23):
2 and I still can't wrap my headaround the fact that we fucking
have a podcast, but we're going to see.
That's official I. Think yeah, Season 3, baby, here
we come. I'm so excited.
Until next time. Yes.
I'm going to say I'm going to say a little bit different than
(27:45):
Blair does. I'm going to say stay safe, stay
curious, and stayed dark. We hope you join us for the next
one and we'll see you in season 3.
Until then, we'll shock you later.
Indeed, don't hold your breath, but you're waiting for two.
(28:08):
Until then, farewell. Back.
None.
When the worms crawl in, the worms crawl out.
They'll eat your gods and spit them out.
And when your bones begin to rot, the worms remain, but you
do not. So don't ever laugh as the
hearse goes by. There's someday you'll be next
(00:21):
in life. And when death brings his cold
despair, ask yourself, will anyone?
Macabre may not be suitable for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised. It's the final episode of Season
2. I almost said Season 3.
(00:42):
I'm getting ahead of myself now,yeah.
Oh my gosh though, it's so crazyhere.
Yeah, I am really excited for this particular episode because
one, it's the letter. Z&Z is kind of a tough letter to
pick a topic for. One of our listeners actually
(01:04):
suggested this. So thank you.
Special shout out to David. Thank you for suggesting this
incredible story. I am guessing most of you have
probably never heard of the nameZanada Port Nova, but I promise
you, after today's episode, you will never forget her.
(01:26):
Are you ready for this? Yeah.
Thanks, David. Yeah, so the letter Z is for
Zenada Port Nova, and here are my show notes.
War makes monsters, but sometimes war makes martyrs, and
sometimes war turns teenage girls into assassins.
(01:50):
Today on Macabre we tell the true story of Zanada Port Nova,
a Soviet girl who poisoned over 100 Nazi soldiers, shot 3 guards
during an escape attempt, and never said a word under torture.
(02:12):
Yeah, So what a way to end the season with a back story of a
badass young woman. And I am so here for it.
Hefia. Let's just get into it.
Yes. Her story is a harrowing tale of
defiance and of grief turned into vengeance.
(02:34):
This is like some inglorious Basterd style type shit, but
this is true. I mean, it's, it's.
Yeah, this is a reminder that sometimes history's fiercest
warriors don't wear uniforms. All right, let's set the scene.
(02:56):
It's 1941, World War 2. The Nazi war machine is tearing
through Europe, and now it's coming for the Soviet Union.
In Leningrad, a city preparing for siege, 15 year old Zanada
Portnova lives with her working class family.
Her father is a factory worker, her mother stays at home.
(03:18):
They're not political elites, just proud Soviets.
We're going to call her Zena. Zena is smart, curious, a member
of the Young Pioneers, which is a communist youth group that
trains kids to be ideal Soviet citizens.
(03:39):
But at heart, she's still a kid who loves school stories and her
grandmother. So when her family sends her to
the quiet village of Zui, Belarus, for safety, it seems
like a reprieve. But just days after she arrives,
Nazi forces invade, and suddenlyZena isn't a visitor anymore.
(04:03):
She's a witness to the war occupation.
She sees her grandmother's neighbors beaten, civilians
executed, Nazi troops stealing what they want and killing
whoever they please. Fear replaces every corner of
her childhood. Her family is 100 miles away at
(04:24):
this point, trapped in the siegeof Leningrad, and Zena is
trapped in the belly of the beast.
After weeks of living under German occupation, Zena had seen
enough. She wasn't just angry, she was
traumatized. The village she once found
peaceful had become a landscape of death and silence.
(04:46):
Her grandmother, like many of the villagers, tried to keep her
safe, told her to stay quiet, keep her head down, stay out of
trouble. But Zena wasn't wired that way
anymore, not after what she had seen.
So when the local underground resistance reached out, Zena
said yes. No hesitation, No Fear.
(05:07):
She joined a group, and I shit you not, called the Young
Avengers. That's awesome.
Yeah. A Soviet partisan group made-up
of ordinary citizens like farmers, students and in this
case, children who were sick of feeling helpless.
Zena joined the Belorussian resistance movement, the Calm
(05:29):
Some All Resistance Group, also known as the Young Avengers.
In 1942. She began her resistance by
distributing Soviet propaganda leaflets in the German occupied
Belarus. So let's just start with that
idea, right? So this young girl is such a
(05:49):
fucking badass that she joins this group fully Nazi occupied
at this point. I mean, they're killing people,
they're doing all manner of terrible things, and she's out
there just distributing this propaganda against the Germans
to the people who still remain there.
That's brave. Yeah, and the Young Avengers
(06:13):
didn't have tanks, they didn't have uniforms, but they had rage
and the will to fight. Zena's first missions were small
but dangerous. She delivered messages to
resistant cells, scouted enemy troop positions, and help
transport weapons through the forest of Belarus.
She sometimes sabotage German motorcycles and enemy trucks at
(06:36):
their base in Vitz, Tibet. It's I'm probably going to say a
lot of these things wrong because they're Russian.
The spec Xena also collected andhid weapons for Soviet soldiers
and reported back on the movements of the German troops.
Like she's a full on fucking little bad ass spy.
(06:57):
That's insane. She was smart, careful, and
beyond brave, the kind of personwho could blend in until it was
too late. She learned to keep secrets, to
trust no one, and to lie when itmattered.
She learned how to use a gun. She also learned what the
(07:18):
Germans did to capture partisans.
The stories weren't just whispered, they were posted
publicly. Torture, executions.
Entire families disappearing. Some of the missions Zena was
involved in included strategic targets of Nazi control sites,
including a water pump station, a local power plant and a brick
(07:40):
factory used by the German troops.
These locations were essential to the Nazis operations in the
region because they were using them for infrastructure,
supplies and shelter. It's estimated that Zena's
contributions to the resistance led to the death of an estimated
100 German soldiers during the war.
(08:02):
Zena believed in what she was doing, and by late 1943 her work
took a more personal and darker turn, one that would make her a
fucking legend in Soviet history.
A plan was forming the Young Avengers how to target the
German mess hall in Obel, where local Nazi officers dined
(08:24):
regularly. If they could poison the food,
they could take out an entire unit of enemy troops without
firing a single shot. So in order to do this, they
needed someone who could get inside, someone who could be
pretty much invisible, who looked innocent and seemed
(08:45):
unassuming. They needed Zena, so Xena took a
job as a kitchen assistant in the mess hall.
She smiled, scrubbed pots, she ladled out Stew and cleaned up
after the meals, and no one suspected her until she poisoned
the food. She mixed a deadly substance
(09:06):
into the meals, likely a plant based toxin used by Soviet
partisans. Then she watched as the German
soldiers sat down for lunch. 1 by 1, the soldiers grew pale,
then nauseous. Then they collapsed.
By the end of the day, over 100 soldiers had fallen ill and
(09:28):
dozens had already died. It worked, but the danger wasn't
over. Someone from the inside
suspected her. Maybe it was because she had a
nervous glance, maybe it was just bad luck.
But the Germans pulled her aside, accused her, and
(09:49):
interrogated her for answers. And here's the crazy part.
Xena had to prove her innocence right.
She's on the chopping block. So she did the only thing she
could do to prove it. She ate a spoonful of the very
soup she had poisoned. Hours later, she collapsed, was
(10:10):
vomiting, seizing, and the poison nearly killed her.
But somehow, miraculously, she survived.
The Germans were convinced that she was innocent.
After all, what kind of a personwould poison themselves if they
(10:32):
were guilty? So they let her go.
But they had no idea what they had just unleashed.
They made a mistake. After the poisoning, Zena didn't
return to the mess hall. She couldn't, right?
Yeah, she she had already been suspected of the death of the
(10:52):
Nazi soldiers, and the resistance needed her now more
than ever. So she got back to doing what
she did best, this time with even more dangerous missions,
sabotaging equipment, derailing supply trains, relaying critical
intelligence to Soviet partisanswho were hiding out in the
(11:13):
forest. She was just living on
adrenaline at that. At this point, every day was
kind of a coin toss between survival and being discovered.
And in late December 1943 or January of 1944, sources kind of
differ on this timeline. Zena's luck ran out when she was
(11:36):
caught scoping out a target for the Young Avengers.
Somewhere along the way, maybe someone saw her.
Maybe someone talked. Zena was stopped by German
soldiers. They searched her and found
documents. Zena was thin captured and sent
back to Obel, where she had poisoned the mess hall just
(11:57):
months earlier. Her mission was to meet with
other partisans and deliver classified documents to
resistance commanders. It should have been like a quick
rendezvous, but the Gestapo had tightened their grip.
Obel was crawling with German troops, and the local
collaborators knew that the resistance was getting bolder.
(12:19):
After she was arrested, she was immediately dragged to German
headquarters, beaten, interrogated and threatened.
But she didn't talk. And this is where Zena's story
turns from heroic to legendary. As if she wasn't a badass enough
already. Yeah, seriously.
Oh my gosh. At some point during her
(12:42):
interrogation, Xena managed to grab the officer's pistol, and
accounts differ slightly on whattranspires after this.
Some say that the officer was soangry while he was interrogating
her and he wasn't getting anything out of her that he just
threw his gun and that the pistol went flying and she
(13:04):
grabbed it and you know, picked it up or whatever.
And others say she just straightup took the pistol.
Regardless of which story is true, Xena being the badass that
she was, got a hold of the pistol and she shot the guy
point blank. Then she turned the gun on two
other guards, shooting 1 and injuring the other.
(13:26):
And then she took off. Zena, a teenage girl, alone in
enemy headquarters, gun in hand,ran for her life, escaping into
the nearby woods. But this time, her luck had run
out. She didn't get far before German
reinforcements caught her near the banks of a river.
This time there were no more tricks, no more escapes.
(13:49):
Now the Germans were really fucking pissed off.
A teenage girl had just killed and wounded some of their
soldiers. The Nazis wanted answers, They
wanted names, they wanted locations of the partisans that
she was working with, and they were willing to do anything to
get that information from her. So they tortured Zena.
Brutally. She was beaten, burned, starved,
(14:13):
and this went on for a while. And the entire time she did not
say a fucking word. Not one.
So you have to think about what kind of strength that takes to
face your own end and still be in the mind to protect others.
It's more than bravery, it's defiance, it's vengeance, it's
(14:35):
purpose. The Germans ended up holding her
for weeks and they held her for as long as they could until they
realized they were not going to break her.
She gave them nothing, no confession, no betrayal, no
names. They tried to break her body,
(14:56):
her spirit, but they never brokeher will.
And finally, when the Nazis realized that she was never
going to give them what they wanted, they executed her.
The records are murky, like so many stories swallowed up by
war. But we know she was killed
sometime in January of 1944, andat the time she was only 17
(15:17):
years old, a teenager, a child by every modern standard.
And yet she died a soldier, a hero, a ghost the Nazis couldn't
silence. Her body was buried in Obel.
But her story didn't end there. After the war ended in 1945,
Soviet officials uncovered the extent of Zena's resistance.
(15:40):
Her name echoed across the country.
In 1958, fourteen years after her death, she was posthumously
awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union, the Soviets
highest award. Pretty fucking awesome.
Yeah, incredible. Yeah, so they built statues.
(16:00):
They named schools after her. Her face was put on postage
stamps. She became a symbol not just of
Soviet patriotism, but of the raw, unshakable power of youth
in the face of evil. It's easy to hear a story like
this and a romanticize it to make Zena into some tragic
legend. But let's be clear.
(16:21):
Her death wasn't beautiful. It was fucking violent.
It was unjust. It was one child's punishment
for refusing to be powerless. And what makes her story even
more haunting is how timeless itfeels.
She wasn't a soldier by training, she wasn't drafted.
She didn't carry any medals or rank.
(16:42):
She was just a teenage girl raised in a city that was
literally starving to death, separated from her family.
And when the world was burning around her, she didn't run.
She fought back. Badass.
Yeah, badass. Yeah, so Xena didn't live to see
(17:04):
her 18th birthday. She didn't get to go home, never
saw her parents again, never walked the streets of Leningrad
after the siege, never got the normal life that every child
deserves. But what she did leave behind
was a legend. There are streets in Belarus and
Russia named after her, statues,as I mentioned, that still stand
to this day. Textbooks that still tell her
(17:27):
story, sometimes sanitized, sometimes embellished, but
always with awe and the truth. The truth is more powerful than
any propaganda. Zena wasn't perfect.
She wasn't invincible. She was terrified, angry,
grieving. Zenada reminds us that heroism
isn't always found in generals and presidents.
(17:49):
Sometimes it's a teenage girl alone in enemy territory who
decides I will not be powerless.Hell yeah.
Wow. Yeah, wow.
So let's just remember that sometimes the fiercest warriors
don't wear uniforms. Sometimes they wear braids and
(18:11):
carry books. Sometimes they're just 17.
This has been Macabre, a Dark history podcast, and it is our
final episode of Season 3. Season 2.
Season 2 is our final episode ofSeason 2.
If the Native story moved you, we invite you to share it and
(18:32):
remind others that courage doesn't always come with a
crown. Sometimes it comes with a quiet,
unbreakable will. That is all I have for you
today, listeners. That got heavier than I expected
it to. Until next time.
Well, we have. We have a few things we want to
share with you before we officially wrap up.
(18:55):
Yes, we have. Man, this is such a fucking
fantastic way to end the season.Yeah, I mean, you're getting me
over here too. Yeah, a lot of work goes into
(19:16):
these seasons. And I think really, ultimately
our goal is always to try to tell stories that matter, you
know, whether it be of heroes and or victims of tragedy.
You know, they're sometimes likethis person.
I had never heard of Zineda PortNova.
(19:38):
And how powerful was this story?Yeah.
And now I can tell other people about this story.
And especially in the time in the world that we live in, like,
stuff is scary. And, you know, we have the
choice to be silent about things.
And I'm not going to get on too big of a soapbox.
(20:00):
But, you know, there are ways that we can stand up for people
who don't have rights. And also, you know, we always
say be kind. At the end of these episodes,
like, just be fucking kind, yeah.
It's a small and as big as that at the same time.
And yeah, I think that that's a big reason why we say that at
(20:22):
the end is just even despite what we talk about sometimes, it
is very important, very important.
I think it's the simplest thing that you can do.
Yeah. In a world where people aren't
kind is just like be good to each other.
Exactly and now exactly I. Just personally want to say
(20:45):
thank you for being a part of Season 2, for all of our
listeners, for continuing to help us grow as a show and
impacting our lives. You know, just the way that you
show up for us by listening and sharing episodes with other
people, telling a friend, by leaving reviews, all those
(21:08):
things matter to us. So we just, I just want to end
this with being so grateful and appreciative and in doing so,
Season 3 get ready because we are going to say thank you by
the way, that we do Season 3. We've got some amazing content
(21:33):
planned. We're changing things up a
little bit. We're doing some mini series
focused episodes to tell bigger stories.
Yeah. We're going to up the production
value and give you some narrative style with some music
and some sound effects and, you know, making it have a little
more dramatic flair. And then we also have some
(21:56):
merchandise coming out. So we promised we would do that,
and we're doing it. Yep, finally.
I know people have been asking. It's happening.
It's. Happening.
It's official. It's.
Official, like Oh my God, it's like, I have a feeling.
I mean, I thought about this too.
We're going to have to start thanking individuals at the end
(22:19):
of every episode and starting inSeason 3 as well, just for their
help. With contributions, yeah.
Big shout out to David for doingthe design.
I think you guys are really going to like the merch and
obviously, you know, we're starting out with a couple
things. It's going to grow.
(22:40):
There'll be more on that. We are getting rid of the
hometown MC Cobb segments for our show.
But as Hallie was saying, we aredoing something a little
different. We're we're testing it out and I
think you guys are really going to like macabre feature.
(23:02):
Hallie has done a phenomenal jobon the very first one and I got
to hear a sneak peek of it already.
It blew me away. So I'm so excited and I can't
wait to hear what you guys think.
Well, it's going to get crazy onPatreon too.
You know we're still going to bethat.
You know what's happening? Yeah.
(23:23):
Well, yeah. Well, this episode will have
already aired, but we will have just had our first movie night.
Yes. With our Patreon members.
Yeah, and I can't wait to see how that goes.
I know that there will be more to come for that too.
I know that won't be the only one.
So I'm so excited. So it's macabre science.
(23:44):
It's not science theater, but macabre something Theater 3000.
It's our macabre version and we're going to watch old, scary,
funny, ridiculous movies with listeners.
And yeah, So if you're a freaky friend, deadly darling or
macabre hottie on Patreon, if you are in those tiers, you'll
(24:07):
get access to the live stream movie watch with us.
So and then we'll, we'll have some game nights coming up and
other things on Patreon. So if you're a paid member, you
get access to those things. Yeah, yeah.
It's going to be a time for sure.
And we're and we're still, you know, we're figuring out that
stuff. Obviously we've got some new
(24:28):
stuff coming over there too. So we're, we're figuring out how
to do that and making those moreregular macabre features going
to be so fun. I can't wait.
And who knows, maybe we'll pull up a little thing called the
Cobb unburied because it's weirdto say this now, but now that
(24:51):
we're getting into season 3, it's we've been, we've been
doing this for over a year and ahalf.
And it's so crazy because it's like some people are like, Oh,
I, I didn't even know. Like I've never gone back to
Season 1. I'm like go back.
You gotta start from the beginning, right?
See the evolution of that. Yeah, exactly.
(25:13):
In our in our in our wee little days, you know where we were
like, okay, me specifically hailing not so much, but me.
Or whatever was. It was really nice chatting with
you. I guess he he's seeing that next
episode, you know? Pulling out those archived
episodes, we'll have more commentary and other things to
(25:34):
add that we've maybe discovered over time that have changed the
story or added to the story. So it's it'll give like some
bonus content on the main platform for us to dig deeper,
like a macabre digging deeper inthe graves of the.
Archives Yeah. I'm so excited.
(25:54):
I'm so excited. But yeah, that's that's what I
have for you today. Sorry about breaking down and
crying. No.
No, there's nothing wrong with that.
I mean this. Moving.
Story This story moved me and I didn't expect that to happen at
the end, but it happened. It happens sometimes.
Yeah, it's, it's powerful and I've never heard of her before.
(26:18):
And I'm so glad that you presented on this because I
would have never known. Yeah, that's what's cool.
There are a lot of stories like this from that era and time
frame and you know, things that we I think we'll touch on maybe
in, in Season 3. We'll, I think.
We will dig a little bit deeper.Yeah, there's so much.
(26:39):
So much. That's from the.
Bottom of our hearts listeners, thank you so very much.
We can never, ever, ever go intodetail on how deep our gratitude
goes towards you. The fact that you come to hang
out with us means absolutely everything to us in every way.
Hanging out with you in the Facebook group, getting to chat
(27:01):
with you, it really does so much.
You don't even know what you do for us and you know we're all
people and we have lives and craziness.
And. You guys really make everything
worth it, so we fucking love you.
Yeah. Thank you for a fantastic season
(27:23):
2 and I still can't wrap my headaround the fact that we fucking
have a podcast, but we're going to see.
That's official I. Think yeah, Season 3, baby, here
we come. I'm so excited.
Until next time. Yes.
I'm going to say I'm going to say a little bit different than
(27:45):
Blair does. I'm going to say stay safe, stay
curious, and stayed dark. We hope you join us for the next
one and we'll see you in season 3.
Until then, we'll shock you later.
Indeed, don't hold your breath, but you're waiting for two.
(28:08):
Until then, farewell. Back.
None.
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