Farida Saliksjanowa – A female paratrooper in a Buchenwald subcamp

The Red Army counted some 800,000 women among its ranks: they served as military doctors and nurses and fought at the front. The architecture student Farida Saliksjanowa enlisted in the army in 1941 and became the commander of a reconnaissance unit. She was taken prisoner in 1943. After being transferred from one camp to the next, she ultimately landed in the Meuselwitz subcamp. The women inmates there worked for the HASAG armaments company manufacturing ammunitions. Shortly before the war’s end, Farida escaped a death march. She returned to the Soviet Union. In her professional life as an architect, she was involved in major construction projects.