Yefim Fomin, Belarusian politician (b. 1909)

Yefim Moiseyevich Fomin (Russian: Ефим Моисеевич Фомин), (15 January 1909 – 26 June 1941), was a Soviet political commissar. He is known for his part in the 1941 Defense of Brest Fortress, during which the German Army captured and immediately executed him.Fomin was born into a Jewish family in Kolyshki in Vitebsk Governorate (present-day Liozna Raion, Belarus) in 1909. He lost his parents as a young boy and was raised in orphanages. In 1924, Fomin joined the Komsomol, at the age of 15. He worked at a shoe factory in Vitebsk and then moved to Pskov. There, he was sent to the Communist Party school to prepare for a career as a professional party worker. In 1930, at age of 21, while at the party school, Fomin became a member of the Soviet Communist Party. When he returned from the school, he was assigned to be a propagandist of the Pskov City Committee of the Communist Party.