Ethel Borko embarked on the path of revolutionary struggle in her youth, studying at the Berdichev Commercial School. In 1914, at the age of 17, she was expelled from school for participating in the May Day. In 1916, she entered the University of Rostov-on-Don, at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics. In Rostov, she established ties with a local underground Bolshevik organization.
After the October Revolution and the defeat of the Kaledin insurgency, she participated in the work of the organs of Soviet power, took part in the organization of the Socialist Union of Proletarian Youth, and spoke from the rostrum of the first congress of Soviets of the Don Republic. It was then that Ethel was entrusted with a new "party" name - Elena.
The capture of the Don by the interventionists and White Guards forced the Rostov Bolsheviks to again go underground. The brave girl became the responsible courier of the Don Committee of the RCP (B.), Helping the committee to maintain contact with the Red Guerrilla units, crossed the front line, took part in military operations. Once she brought home a fragment of a grenade, from which a comrade who was next to her died. The younger brother asked if she was afraid that she might also be killed. She replied: he who knows what he is fighting for will not be afraid of death.
In May 1919, the White Guard counterintelligence set about defeating the Bolshevik underground in Rostov. According to the denouncer of the provocateur, Elena Borko was also captured. Already being arrested, while in the counterintelligence building, she distracted the attention of the guards and helped her friend Masha Malinsky to escape from arrest.
The months of torture at torture interrogations in counterintelligence came. The brave girl did not make confessions, did not give away comrades.
On August 19, 1919, Ethel (Elena) Borko was shot dead in a prison cell. She was 22 years old ...
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A hundred years later, associates of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (AUCPB) visited the grave of Ethel Borko in the Rostov city cemetery.
As a sign of respect and memory of the brave Bolshevik, flowers tied with a red ribbon lay on the grave.
