At 18, she was captured behind enemy lines, tortured, and hanged by the Nazis. Her last words: "There are two hundred million of us. You can't hang us all." November 29, 1941. Petrischevo, a small village about 80 kilometers from Moscow. A crowd of German soldiers and local villagers gathered in the cold to watch an execution. A young woman stood on a makeshift gallows, a noose around her neck, a wooden sign hanging from her chest: "Arsonist." She was barefoot. Her feet were black with frostbite. Her face was swollen from beatings. She had been tortured for hours. The Germans asked her one final time: What is your name? Who sent you? Who are your accomplices? She looked at the crowd and said: "There are two hundred million of us. You can't hang us all." Then they hanged her. She was 18 years old. For weeks, her body hung there as a warning. German soldiers posed for photographs with her corpse. Local villagers were forced to walk past it daily. The Germans thought they were making an example. They thought fear would stop the resistance. Instead, they created a legend. Her name was Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. And she would become the first woman awarded Hero of the Soviet Union during World War II. Zoya was born on September 13, 1923, in a small village in Russia. She was a good student, serious, dedicated to her studies. She loved literature and dreamed of becoming a teacher. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Zoya was 17 years old, about to start her final year of school. By October 1941, German forces were approaching Moscow. The Soviet Union was losing. Millions had died. Cities had fallen. The situation was desperate. Zoya volunteered. .