Riddled, burned and silenced by history: this was the life of the night witches, the Soviet scientists who fought the Nazis.

According to its etymological root, the word witch means wise woman. In the Celtic tradition, such reference was made to those who had a deep knowledge of the nature, the thought and being human. Throughout history, however, the word has acquired a negative connotation. The witches of the night, during the Second World War, unfairly fell under this category.

Airmen of the 588th Night Bombardment Regiment. Photo: TASS via .

Like many of its historical predecessors, a number of Soviet women engaged in science they fell prey to machismo. In this case, in the rigid scheme of National Socialism during the Third Reich. Like thousands of soldiers, these women carried the burden of being separated from their families by being enemies of National Socialism.

It didnt matter that they cut their hair and dressed up as men to pass as soldiers. Many of them suffered of sexual abuse and violence to bring down Adolf Hitlers army. According to the Russian researcher Lyuba Vinogradova, they were the key to end the hostilities of World War II:

The Germans did not have women as fighters in their army, let alone pilots. They were naturally very curious about the aviators. However, those who were caught were treated harshly .

Despite being an active part of the Soviet Army, many of them were riddled and burned alive as they fell prisoners. To verify their identity, they were stripped naked. Some were victims of rape and torture. Some, to avoid giving information, decided To shoot oneself before revealing anything.

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588th Night Bombardment Regiment. Serafima Amosova (left) and Rufina Gasheva. Photo: TASS via .

Despite the fact that many female warriors in the Soviet army were raped by their own comrades, the female aviators were a privileged group. They were even more prepared than many of the male soldiers, and had a remarkable knowledge of combat techniques and warfare.

At the time, they were so efficient and so feared that they earned the title of witches of the night: they shot down multiple Nazi bombers and successfully claimed more than one mission to weaken the German army. The tactic was so effective that more than a million women were recruited by the Red Army.

As sappers, manipulating war tanks and even as snipers, many of them claimed their place in history in a double fight: against the nazis, and against heteropatriarchal system of male oppression. At the end of the war, more than a hundred of them received the title of Heroines of the Soviet Union. Another 50, posthumously.

Piloting fighter jets or engaging melee in battle change against the enemy, the night witches were a lethal element of the USSR. They were students, peasants or workers, they actively participated in the communist youth against Hitlers troops. Today in Russia no distinction is made in honors for them, that shine like hardened national heroines.

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The 'witches of the night': the story of the female pilots who terrorized the Nazis - Explica