Posted on 09/11/2003 6:25:08 PM PDT by Pan_Yans Wife
A U.S. military official presented a granddaughter of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin with copies Thursday of World War II documents confirming the death of her father, Stalin's oldest son, in a Nazi prison camp.
Jerry D. Jennings, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for POW/Missing Personnel Affairs, handed a blue folder to Galina Dzhugashvili during a visit to discuss U.S.-Russian efforts to learn the fate of servicemen missing from World War II and Cold War conflicts.
Dzhugashvili was the daughter of Yakov Dzhugashvili, a Soviet senior lieutenant who died at the Sachsenhausen camp in 1943 after Stalin declined to swap him for a captured German general.
A U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the documents indicate the son was shot while trying to escape.
The original documents have been returned to Germany, but a researcher found copies in the National Archives in Washington and the U.S.-Russian commission gave them to Dzhugashvili after she requested help.
The papers included U.S. State Department cables, a copy of the protocol of Yakov Dzhugashvili's interrogation by the Nazis, a death notice signed by Heinrich Himmler, the head of Adolf Hitler's police forces, and statements from guards and a physician at the camp.
"We on the American side are honored today to bring some answers to a Russian family member ... and some measure of closure on the unfortunate loss of your father in World War II," Jennings said during a ceremony.
One cable included a footnote saying that the United States and Britain had decided not to share the information it had about Dzhugashvili's death with Stalin because it would "not bring him comfort," Jennings said.
Dzhugashvili, who lives in Moscow, said she was "extraordinarily grateful" and called the swift response to her request a "display of goodwill." She expressed regret it occurred on Sept. 11, a "day of mourning" for the victims of the attacks two years ago.
The handover served as a modest symbol of renewed cooperation between Washington and Moscow, Cold War foes that fought Nazi Germany together and have drawn closer again since the 1991 Soviet collapse.
"We fought together as allies during that great and terrible war, and it's never too late to honor the sacrifice and service of those who never came home," Jennings said. The joint commission on POW/MIAs is a product of post-Cold War cooperation.
Stalin, whose original surname was Dzhugashvili, ruled the Soviet Union with an iron fist until his death in 1953. Tens of millions of people were executed or deported to prison camps under his rule.
Stalin considered Soviet soldiers who were taken captive as traitors and sent many who survived to the gulag after the Nazi defeat.
Dzhugashvili said that she last saw her father when she was three years old, shortly before the war, and that her recollections of her grandfather were "a child's memories - the best and most tender." She said Stalin had been "very tender" with her because she was a girl.
I'd always known it as "Dzugashvili," but that "Joe Steel" was such a monster to his own family is a new revelation.
But I will ask: What kind of person would resist such a situation? Now I haven't given it hours and days of thought with the thought of the life of a family member resting on the outcome, and I don't have myriad advisors advising me with all the ramifications of doing it or not doing it... so to give Stalin the benefit of the doubt... perhaps this general was far too terrible and effective against the Soviets to be let loose.
But the article didn't say as much.
And I am at least aware of the overall (Western) reputation of "kindly Uncle Joe" Stalin as cold-blooded murderer of millions, uncontradicted so far as I know...
Please, share what you know.
Yeah, but at least he provided free health care and education.
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