I spent several hours in the YU library going through stacks and stacks of Vaad files, many in such poor condition that I was afraid to touch them. It seems that prior to YU receiving these files as a donation, they had been poorly taken care of and a lot had been water-logged and then had been dried. I found nothing on Dorothy’s father and mother but did accidentally stumble on a record mentioning the trip of Dorothy’s aunt and grandparents from France to the U.S., which had been expedited by the Vaad.
Boris found a Briha Association in Israel (Amutat Briha) with a contact, Dr. Miri Nahari. I wrote to Dr. Nahari on May 9 and received a prompt reply telling me that they do not have any archives but have “resources.” I immediately answered the many questions she had. Dr. Nahari never replied further, but I heard from a Moshe Ben-Dror in Israel, to whom Dr. Nahari had forwarded our correspondence. Mr. Ben-Dror repeated what we all knew—that Alexander Karpov was a very common name in the Soviet Union and therefore difficult to research under the best of circumstances. The story of Alexander is identical to tens of thousands of cases in the Soviet Union. He has several books on the subject of Beriha but could not find any reference to Alexander. Mr. Ben-Dror mentioned four different parties he was going to contact to see whether he could obtain any further information. Nothing came of any of them, although he did receive responses from all of them.
Finally, in August, Rabbi J.J. received a decision from the attorney. He wrote that the experts that he consulted all stated that unless we have specific evidence (which we don’t) that the CIA has information about Alexander, it will be impossible to get a court to overturn the CIA decision. He also suggested that, as recommended by the CIA and OGIS, we contact NARA since we are looking for information of the year 1947, which is the same year the CIA was created. Done that already. NARA supposedly has all pre-1947 records as the precursor to the CIA.
The attorney’s experts also suggested we contact the state department or other agencies and seek information under FOIA. We’ve done that too.
A long-awaited and surprising response was received to one of the Russian letters written by Boris over Dorothy’s signature and sent months earlier via registered mail. The letter was forwarded to us under cover of a letter from the Russian Embassy in Washington. Dorothy’s letter must have landed on the desk of a big chief since there was a notation in handwriting on the corner of the letter requesting a review of the documents on an Alexander Karpov that they had found in the military files. Unfortunately, all the facts they dug up contradicted what we knew already about AK. For example, the AK they found was a German prisoner from 1941 to 1944.
When in August 2018 I suggested we should respond to that letter requesting further investigation by the Russian authorities with specific reference to his execution, Boris did not feel it was doable. In other words, he felt that we had reached the end of the line. He wrote “It is not easy to admit defeat, but there is nothing else to do, really. That the Russian military archives answered mine/Dorothy’s letter was a rare exception. They would not undertake a wild goose chase looking through records of hundreds of Alexander Karpovs.”
I was mulling over in my mind what Boris had said, and although I agreed with him that we had come to the end of the line, I felt what harm can there be in writing to the Russian Military again. The worst that can happen is that I will receive no reply. Since Boris did not want to write a letter (in Russian) and I had no other Russian writer available, I wrote in English and mailed it “Registered/Return Receipt Requested” on October 10. On November 30 we received the mailed return receipt but strangely there was no signature, only a rubber stamp from the Russian Post Office, probably.
I was finally able to get a live person on the phone at the Joint Distribution Committee (The Joint), a Misha Mitsel, the JDC senior archivist. We had a lengthy email exchange ending with the conclusion that the Joint had no information that pertained to my interest. He sent me a very interesting article, published by the Bricha Legacy Association with a history of the Bricha and its founders and leaders as well as an email address of Habricha in Israel. It sounded very familiar, and after emailing to that address I received a reply Dr. Miri Nahari. I had had a lengthy, and very friendly, email exchange with her about six months earlier. Another example of going around in a circle.
(To be continued next week)
Norbert Strauss is a Teaneck resident and Englewood Hospital volunteer.
