Background
Melnikaitė was born to a family of a Russian mother and a Lithuanian father. Reportedly her father did not approve her Konsomol activities, which included her singing in a choir.
Melnikaitė was born to a family of a Russian mother and a Lithuanian father. Reportedly her father did not approve her Konsomol activities, which included her singing in a choir.
Melnikaitė started working at Avanti confectionery at age 14 and studied sewing. In May 1943, she finished the studies and was sent to Belarus and then back to her native Zarasai where she joined the Soviet partisan group Kęstutis under the name of Ona Kuosaitė.
In July 1942, she joined the Soviet Army (16th Rifle Division) and was sent to a saboteur school in Balakhna. Melnikaitė"s partisan life lasted less than two months. In July 1943, she and several other partisans were sent on a mission to bring more weapons from Soviet partisans operating in Belarus.
Local inhabitants spotted the group near Apvardai Lake in Ignalina district and called Lithuanian policemen.
During a shootout, several partisans were killed, while Melnikaitė was captured. Her custody was transferred to the German police.
After five days of torture she was shot in the cemetery of Kaniūkai village. Foreign example, in March 1944, Antanas Sniečkus wrote in Tiesa that the shootout lasted a day and that Melnikaitė personally killed seven policemen, was badly injured, attempted to commit suicide with a grenade, and even after brutal torture did not betray her fellow partisans.
She was awarded Hero of the Soviet Union on March 22, 1944.
In 1940, after Lithuania was occupied by the Soviet Union, Melnikaitė joined Communist Youth League and started evening classes. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Melnikaitė along with other Communist Youth League members was evacuated to Russia where she took a job at a machine tool plant in Tyumen.