Family stories had Mowshe (Morris) Rosenfeld coming from “Minsk, Pinsk, Russia.” As my research progressed, I learned from Morris’ ship’s passenger list that he had, in fact, come from a place called Turovo. Slownik Geograficzny Krolestwo Poliskich, the multi-volume, standard reference for the geography of “greater” Poland, noted that Turovo also was known as Turov and was located in the Mozyr uyezd (a district, now called a raion) of Minsk guberniya during czarist times. So, although Turov was in Minsk guberniya, I have not solved the mystery of the Pinsk part.
| “Stalin’s skills were honed for the ‘Great Terror’ of 1937.” |
While further researching the shtetl of Turov, now located in the Gomel oblast (province) of southern Belarus, I learned of Rozenfelds who had survived the war. Dr. Leonid Smilovitsky, who collected written testimony from people born in Turov while working on his history of the town, reported that one Rozenfeld had immigrated to Israel. With Leonid’s assistance, I met Abram Rozenfeld during a 2004 visit to Israel. Abram’s father, Hirsch, had been Morris’ brother. According to Abram, Hirsch had immigrated to the United States, but returned after a few years since his wife had no desire to follow him. Abram also reported that his father had been arrested by the Ob’edinennoe Gosudarstvennoe Politicheskoe Upravlenie (OGPU) (State Political Administration) in 1934. Abram’s Uncle Iosif (Yesel) disappeared in 1937. Abram requested my assistance in determining what had happened to his father and uncle. I agreed, but several years passed before I pursued Abram’s request.
While reviewing notes of my 2004 trip last year, I recalled the promise to discover what had happened to Hirsch and Yesel Rozenfeld. An initial web search led to other online sources and finally to the U.S. Library of Congress in Washington, DC, where I read all the material I could find about events in the Soviet Union during the period 1934–37.
Between 1930 and 1941, Stalin’s repressions increased against those he believed threatened his personal power and/or the Soviet regime. In 1930, Stalin launched the now-infamous de-kulakization (well-off peasants and small craftsmen) and agricultural collectivization campaign against the rural population. These actions led to the infamous famine of 1932–33 in Ukraine, the North Caucasus, and the Lower Volga. According to Robert Conquest, in his book, The Great Terror: A Reassessment, the death toll among the peasantry between 1930 and 1933 was approximately 10 million, more than all those killed in World War I. A lesser-known program launched at the same time was crash industrialization, which led to the elimination of free movement between jobs and other restrictions on the work force. Under cover of these processes, Stalin’s skills were honed for the “Great Terror” of 1937.
Knowing that the OGPU became the NKVD, which in turn formed the KGB, I initiated a broad Internet search to see what might exist. Startlingly, a website appeared for the Belarusian KGB. Furthermore, Dr. Smilovitsky’s name appeared again because he had referenced records from the Belarusian KGB archives for one of his articles. With this information in hand, I consulted Jewish Documentary Sources in Belarus Archives, (Moskva : Rossiiskii gos. gumanitarnyi universitet, 2003) to see what the KGB archives held. A friend helped translate the information on its holdings from Russian into English; case files and an alphabetical name catalogue were mentioned.
In 2007, a mutual friend introduced a man attached to the Belarusian embassy in Washington, DC. During our conversation about his country and its history, I mentioned that I was researching family from Turov. The diplomat knew the town. As we talked further, I mentioned my interest in contacting the KGB archives to see if they had any records pertaining to Hirsch or Iosif Rozenfeld. To my surprise, my new friend offered to help draft a letter to send to the Belarusian KGB Archives in Minsk. In June 2007, I sent a “Global Express Guaranteed” letter from the U.S. Postal Service to the KGB headquarters (which also includes the archives) in Minsk. I chose this method of delivery because the post office guarantees delivery and provides a tracking number so one can track the letter’s progress. After several delivery attempts, the KGB finally received the letter. (This peace of mind was worth the extra cost.)
About a month later, as I was scrolling through my spam folder, I noticed an e-mail from the Belarusian embassy, which to my utter amazement contained a written reply to the letter I had mailed in June. Who could imagine that anyone in our lifetime would be writing to the KGB, expecting a reply and actually receiving one? It was a surprise to receive the KGB’s response via the Belarusian Embassy, but I learned later that Belarusian ministries use their foreign embassies to deliver overseas correspondence. My letter first was sent from the KGB to the Belarussian Foreign Ministry, which in turn forwarded the response on to its Washington Embassy and finally into my e-mail box.
The KGB archives reported that Iesel (Iosif) had been arrested in 1937, because he was “charged with conducting organizational activities of clerics against legislative enactments of the Soviet authority and party.” For this offense, he was sentenced to 10 years in a gulag. The KGB archive located no material on Hirsch Rozenfeld.
In a follow-up letter, I requested copies of Iesel’s file and asked where OGPU records might be if they were not in the Belarusian KGB archives. After several months, I am still awaiting a reply. Although my individual investigation still is incomplete, I was able to report back to Abram what I had located. It confirmed what he had always suspected and seemed to close this chapter on one man’s long and rich life.
Because of laws enacted in Belarus after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it is the legal right of every Belarusian citizen to request information on those who were repressed during the Soviet times. For any chance of success in having the archive locate any records of relatives, a request should include the individual’s name, including patronymic (father’s name), birth place and birth date.
