Born: 21 September 1921, Ukraine
Died: 29 January 1943
Country most active: Ukraine
Also known as: Tetyana Markosidze, Tatiana Markusidze, Тетяна Йосипівна Маркус
The following bio was written by Emma Rosen, author of On This Day She Made History: 366 Days With Women Who Shaped the World and This Day In Human Ingenuity & Discovery: 366 Days of Scientific Milestones with Women in the Spotlight, and has been republished with permission.
Tetyana Yosypivna Markus, also known as Tatiana, was born in Romny, Ukraine, to a Jewish family, in 1921. She later moved to Kyiv, where she completed her education at school No. 44 and worked as a secretary in 1938. During the summer of 1940, she was stationed in Kishinev.
When Kyiv fell under German occupation in 1941, Markus joined the underground resistance. She carried out sabotage missions, often disguised as innocent gestures, like throwing a grenade hidden as a bouquet. Using a false identity as “Marcousisse,” she worked at an officer’s dining facility, poisoning SS officers’ meals and eliminating a valuable Gestapo informant.
Markus’s actions resulted in the deaths of numerous German soldiers and officers. She left a chilling note after one assassination, signing it as “Tetyana Markosidze.” Despite several attempts to extract her to join the partisans, she was captured by the Gestapo in August 1942.
Enduring torture without betraying her comrades, Markus was executed on January 29, 1943.