Major Pyotr Gavrilov: Hero of the Brest Fortress Defense

On June 22, 1941, the Germans planned to capture the Brest Fortress, but its defenders held out for over a month. Among them was Major Pyotr Gavrilov. The officer did not leave the fortress, staying with wounded soldiers and assigned equipment. He commanded about 400 men with artillery and machine guns. On June 29, most of the unit died during a bombing, and 12 soldiers led by Gavrilov took shelter in casemates. Soon, Gavrilov was left alone. On July 23, 1941, the exhausted major was taken prisoner. The Nazis tried to extract information from him, but he remained silent. They stopped only when German doctors declared the prisoner near death. Pyotr Gavrilov spent nearly four years in concentration camps and returned in May 1945 from Mauthausen. He was awarded the title Hero of the Soviet Union in 1957. In 1979, he died and was buried at the garrison memorial cemetery in Brest, alongside his comrades-in-arms.