Zhu Min

Zhu Min (; 18 April 1926 – 13 April 2009), originally Zhu Minshu (朱敏书) and also known as He Feifei (贺飞飞), was a Chinese professor of Russian at Beijing Normal University. She was the only daughter of the Chinese revolutionary Zhu De.

Born in Moscow to parents from Sichuan, China, Zhu was raised by her grandmother in Chengdu and never had a close relationship with her mother. While studying in the Soviet Union as a teenager, she was captured by Nazis and held in a concentration camp until 1945. During her imprisonment she kept her identity a secret, telling no one that her father was a high-ranking Chinese military commander.

After the end of World War II, Zhu was able to return to Moscow and continue her studies. She graduated from Lenin Teachers' College in 1953, then moved back to China and taught Russian as a professor at Beijing Normal University. She retired from her position in 1986 and helped found what is now Beijing Military-Civilian Specialist College.

She died in 2009 after a prolonged period of illness and was cremated at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing.

Early life Zhu Min was born on 18 April 1926 on the outskirts of Moscow in what was then the Soviet Union. Her father Zhu De and her mother He Zhihua (贺治华) had met in Shanghai, then moved to Germany and to Moscow together. Zhu De gave her the milk name Sixun (四旬), Zhu Min later wrote that she could never forgive her birth mother for abandoning her and her father in this way. She flew to Moscow with the children of other Communist Party leaders, who were accompanied to the airport by Zhu De, Zhu Min's stepmother Kang Keqing, Mao Zedong, and Jiang Qing.

Conditions in the camp were terrible: Zhu was forced to eat moldy bread and was frequently beaten. In recognition of her tenacity and endurance in the concentration camp, the Russian government awarded her a medal in 1995 for heroism in the Great Patriotic War. She was one of 18 people from China to be so honored.

After Zhu graduated in 1953, she returned to China and began teaching at Beijing Normal University, where she stayed for decades, first in the education department and then in the Russian department.

From 1979 to 1980 she assisted the Military Museum of the Chinese People's Revolution in compiling information about revolutionaries, and in 1980 she was temporarily transferred to the research room of the embassy of China in Moscow.

She rarely spoke about her time in the concentration camp, even to her family. The memories were too painful. She was cremated at Babaoshan Revolutionary Cemetery in Beijing on 19 April.

Family Zhu Min was Zhu De's only daughter.

She had six children, five sons and one daughter: Zhu Chenghu (朱成虎) (originally Liu Jian 刘建), vice president of the People's Liberation Army antichemical research institute (wife Wang Ling, son Liu Ning) Liu Kang (刘康), international businessman who traded with Germany Liu Min (刘敏), French translator

Publications Remembering My Father Chairman Zhu De (《回忆我的父亲朱德委员长》) Chairman Zhu De Teaches Us to Make a Revolution (《朱委员长教育我们干革命》) My Father Zhu De (《我的父亲朱德》)