Yefim Fomin - Biography

Yefim Moiseevich Fomin (Russian: Ефим Моисеевич Фомин), (15 January, 1909–30 June, 1941), was a Soviet political commissar. He is known for his part in the 1941 Defense of Brest Fortress, at the end of which the German Army captured and immediately executed him.

Fomin was born into a Jewish family in Kolyshki in the Vitebsk Voblast of northern Belarus in 1909. He lost his parents as a young boy and was raised in orphanages. In 1924 Fomin joined the Komsomol.

Army career

In 1930, at age of 21, Fomin joined the Soviet Communist Party. The Party assigned him to the Soviet Army, in which he became a political commissar.

In August 1938 Fomin was made divisional commissar of the 23rd (Kharkov) Rifle Division and in 1940 he served in Daugavpils, Latvia. However, in March 1941 he was demoted to regimental commissar and sent to the 84th Rifle Regiment of the 6th Rifle Division at Brest, Belarus.

On 21st June 1941 Fomin wanted to travel to Daugavpils to bring his family to Brest, but he was unable to get a train ticket. On 22nd June Fomin was at the Brest Fortress, where after the German attack he took over the leadership of the group that defended the Kholm Gate.

The Soviet garrison held out until German forces overcame it and stormed the fortress on 30th June. Fomin was identified as a commissar and a Jew and as a result of the Commissar Order he was summarily executed.

Posthumous honours

In January 1957 Fomin was posthumously awarded he Order of Lenin for his role in the defense of the Brest Fortress. In May 1991 at a reunion of veterans of the 6th Rifle Division, Fomin's demotion to regimental commissar was posthumously revoked and he was restored to the rank of divisional commissar.