Juliana Gromova

Juliana Matveevna Gromova (Russian: Ульяна Матвеевна Громова; 1924 – 1943) was a Ukrainian Soviet member of the Soviet underground resistance in World War II (called, in the Soviet Union, the Great Patriotic War), executed by the Nazis. She is a posthumous Hero of the Soviet Union.

Gromova was born to working-class family on 3 January 1925 in the village of Pervomaysky (English: "May First", named for International Labor Day) in what is now Luhansk Province of the Ukraine (then in the Ukrainian SSR of the Soviet Union; Luhansk Province was not established until 1938).

Gromova's father, Matthew Maximovich Gromov, was born in 1880 in Poltava Province of the Ukraine, then part of the Russian Empire. Gromova's father served in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, then moved to Krasnodon and worked as mineworker, retiring in 1937. Gromova's mother (born 1884) was housewife; the family had five children, Juliana being the youngest. In March 1940 Juliana Gromova joined the Komsomol (Young Communist League).

At the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, Gromova was 17 years old and in tenth grade. Like many of her classmates, she worked in agriculture to replace farm workers and took care of wounded soldiers in the hospital (reading to them, helping them write letters, and so forth). She was graduated from high school with good to excellent marks on 3 June 1942.

When her home province was occupied by German troops, which began on 17 July 1942, Gromova was not able to evacuate because she needed to care for her sick mother. Together with Maya Peglivanovoy and Anatoly Popov, she organized a group of patriotic young people in her village of Pervomaysky who became part of the "Young Guard" of the underground resistance Komsolol organization in September 1942.

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