Porik, Vasilii Vasilevich

Porik, Vasilii Vasil’evich 

Born Feb. 17, 1920, in the village of Solomirke, now the village of Porik, Khmel’nik Raion, Vinnitsa Oblast; died July 22, 1944, in Arras; buried in the city of Hénin-Liétard, France. Lieutenant in the Soviet Army (1941), active participant in the Resistance Movement in France in World War II. Hero of the Soviet Union (July 21, 1964, posthumously). Member of the CPSU from 1941.

Porik graduated from an infantry school in Kharkov in 1941. In July of that year his unit was encircled, and he was taken prisoner and sent to work in the coal mines in France. After escaping from the Beaumont camp, he formed a partisan detachment, which from July 1943 fought against the fascist occupation forces in northern France. In 1944, Porik became a member of the Central Committee of Soviet Prisoners. Wounded in combat, he was captured and incarcerated in the city of Arras in St. Nicaise Prison, from which he made a daring escape and then continued the partisan struggle. Porik was ambushed by the SS and shot.