Part 11

(Continued from last week)

Another appeal to Mr. Likita of the embassy for help produced results. He wrote that we should send him a letter in Russian with enclosures showing the relationship between Dorothy and Alexander (etc., as before) and all notarized. Now I had two requests both for the same documents. The one to Likita would go by mail, and therefore it had to be originals, but the earlier request was by email and therefore it would be copies of the same. Likita said he would send all my papers to the KGB Central Archives for investigation. Boris already had been in contact with the same parties in April 2017, but never with notarized documents in Russian. They at the time just referred him to the Belarus Embassy and the U.S. State Department.

I do not think there are any more stones to turn over, but if I find some new pebbles I will still look underneath.

I found several businesses that for a (substantial) fee would translate whatever I gave them and notarize everything. By July 24 all the translations had been received and everything the embassy had asked for was mailed out to them on that day.

Only a few days after I had emailed the letter in Russian with all the notarized attachments that had been requested to the Baranovichi archives, I received an emailed reply telling me that they do not have any of the requested information but that for “Citizenship and migration of Baranavichy MILITIA DEPARTMENT,” I should contact the “Internal Affairs Department of the Baranavichy City Executive Committee” giving me only the mailing address. Furthermore, for information “on the participation in hostilities during the great patriotic war,” I should contact the state institution “The Central Archive of the Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation,” again giving me only the mailing address. All quotes in this paragraph are Google translations. I have emailed back asking for email addresses for both parties. Naturally the Russian Ministry of Defense had been contacted by me previously, but I was going to repeat it once more. Maybe this time the letter would land on someone’s desk who is more simpatico to my inquiry, or who has a new source of information.

Two new pebbles to turn over and look underneath.

I waited a week to see whether I would receive a reply to my request for the above-mentioned two email addresses. When I had not heard anything, I decided to make copies of the letter and attachments that I had sent to the Belarus Embassy and wrote a cover letter. I tried unsuccessfully to have my computer translate it into Russian. I was just going to send it out in English and hope that someone at the receiving end spoke English or would understand my inquiry from the enclosures, which are all in Russian.

To my surprise I received an email from the embassy on August 8 telling me that they cannot process the documents as received since the letter addressed to the embassy for forwarding also shows the name of the individual with whom I had been dealing there. It would have to be eliminated. In addition, now they requested the English version of the letter and all enclosed documents as well as a copy of Dorothy’s passport with Russian translation and notarized. Also, a prepaid return envelope was now requested.

That meant some cosmetic work on the letter to eliminate the unwanted name, and sending a copy of Dorothy’s passport to the translator. On August 21 everything the embassy had requested (I hoped) was mailed to them. On August 26 all the documents were mailed to the embassy with a request to let me know when they have sent everything to the KGB. I hoped that the embassy was now satisfied with what I sent.

The wait then started to see whether a reply was received and what the KGB had to say.

(To be continued next week)

By Norbert Strauss