Voluntary Organization of Patriots

(Dobrovol’naia organizatsiia patriotov; DOP), an underground komsomol and youth group that was active during the Great Patriotic War from July 1942 in the village of Alekseevka, Kamenka-Dneprovskaia Raion, Zaporozh’e Oblast. Its purpose was to carry out underground sabotage work in the rear of the fascist German invaders. Its organizer was the komsomol member N. K. Taraskin (pseudonym, Mitia Makhin). The group was headed by a committee of five persons. Taraskin was elected secretary of the committee and commissar of the combat group, and Soviet Army commander P. I. Orlov, who had escaped from captivity, was elected commander of the combat group. The DOP had 25 members and about 20 candidates who aided its work. It circulated leaflets and conducted oral agitation among the populace, especially among young people, calling on Soviet people to undertake an armed struggle against the enemy and to sabotage the measures of the occupation authorities. In early November 1942 the Hitlerites arrested the leading members of the DOP. After being tortured in a Nikopol’ prison, the arrested persons were sentenced to be shot. On Jan. 7, 1943, during transport to the execution site, the prisoners disarmed the escort in the vehicle with them. Members of the Gestapo following in a second vehicle opened fire with machine guns. As a result, ten people, including N. K. Taraskin, were killed, but two members of the underground—P. I. Orlov and L. I. Nazarenko—managed to escape.