Soviet Dear Comrade Beria

[Chuck In Oregon]

Simply addressed to Moscow Kremlin NKVD SSSR Tov. Beria.

Lavrenty Beria must have gotten a lot of these. Plaintive appeals for the release of loved ones arrested by state security. But who knew they kept the envelopes?! It looks like they were all catalogued or at least kept with the prisoner's file.

This envelope was in a stash of minor NKVD documents that I bought a couple of years ago. It has always appealed to me for some reason. Not much doubt about what happened to the prisoner, I guess.

Chuck

[NavyFCO]

I once had a chance to pick up several prisoner files from GULAG prisoners that were either executed or died in captivity. I only picked up one... a Jewish partisan who was blowing up Soviet equipment behind the lines and was captured (probably not the smartest move...) I think I kept some scans of it somewhere, and as I recall it had several letters like this in it. I wonder if, at the fall of the USSR, some of the local KGB archives were opened and the paperwork released?

Dave

[Stogieman]

HI Dave, I think "looted" would be a more appropriate term......... same thing happened with Stasi archives and files.... rest assurred, there were West German agents in and amongst the files being pillaged as well as "rioters"

[Chuck In Oregon]

HI Dave, I think "looted" would be a more appropriate term......... same thing happened with Stasi archives and files.... rest assurred, there were West German agents in and amongst the files being pillaged as well as "rioters"

* * * * *

Yes, that's exactly right. Although the most important files were long since transferred to KGB archives in Russia, there were far too many to do that with them all. Some Georgian KGB offices were ransacked after the fall, including some of the archives. I have a couple of 1920s Cheka case files that I think came from that. I can't think of any other reason for them to have left the building. I don't think that simple theft of Cheka case files would have been a profitable crime, back in the day. "What's that you have there in your bag, comrade?" Well, ummm ...

Chuck