Shocking surprise reveals itself on grandparents’ marriage record

I have been waiting to see my maternal grandparents’ marriage record for many years. It was only recently that the record arrived at Kyiv archives.

Thanks to having a contact living in Kyiv, my bill of 41 hryvnia (about $1 U.S. dollar) was paid within 24 hours of receiving the bill. I was hoping to see where my grandmother lived and worked before she got married  in 1939.

None of that information was on the record but four letters were listed as my grandfather’s employer, NKVD, the agency that sent too many innocent Ukrainians to the gulag and later became the KGB. My grandfather is listed as a “planner at construction office of NKVD” and “forwarder/dispatcher” who was temporarily not working.

It is not a surprise that my grandfather worked for the NKVD. My grandmother later in life questioned to my mother who her husband was really as a person. He was a great husband, father, brother, son and grandfather but his social connections in Ukraine and Germany were quite quick and easy, opening questions of a secret life.

Seeing NKVD on my grandparents’ marriage record doesn’t give me much closure on who was my grandfather. My grandmother was a very quiet person and she had to be in the same room with my grandfather when they requested the marriage license. I wonder what she thought her husband would be doing for the NKVD and I have even more questions than answers.

So I e-mailed the archives office of the Ukrainian Secret Service (arhivsbu@ssu.gov.ua) to request the file it could have on my grandfather. The office answered my e-mail message the next morning that my request will be answered in the required time by law.

I truly wonder if the office would release any information on my grandfather. My worry is the work file on my grandfather was destroyed when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. Ukrainian archives have been busy posting records on the Soviet-era persecution victims but will the Ukrainian Secret Service reveal information on employees of the agency that falsely persecuted Ukrainians?

I feel guilty that I am researching the grandfather whose lap I sat on as a child. My other grandfather, who I never met, was mostly likely a NKVD agent but I cannot double confirm the file I obtained from a Russian archive was truly my grandfather.

I am giving my search in the archive office of the Ukrainian Secret Service a 10% chance that anything will be found. The search will not end there. Requests for information will be sent to the FBI and the parallel office in Germany, where my grandfather lived from 1943-1951 before arriving in the USA.

After years of suspicions from my grandmother and mother, it is time to know the truth. I never expected finding this information on a marriage record of all places. It shows the importance of obtaining any possible record that Ukrainian archives will release on relatives and ancestors.

Upcoming this month: The journey of documenting my maternal grandmother’s brother who died as a baby in the 1930s will be continued this month. It will include a downloadable file on reading communist-era Ukrainian birth, marriage and death records. Read the original post here. Follow this blog with the top right button to catch the post.

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