Babaryka recounts visiting the KGB to learn about the case of his repressed grandfather, who may have been shot in Kurapaty

Former political prisoner, banker, and ex-presidential candidate of Belarus, Viktor Babaryka, recalled a conversation at the KGB in an interview with the Polish "Memorial", where he went to learn more about his repressed grandfather. Thanks to his status as Chairman of the Board of Belgazprombank, he was able to arrange the meeting.

“A young man, a major, came out. We talked, he brought me the file, but didn't hand it to me. There was a problem, I don't know how true, that a significant part of the archive had been lost, including some papers concerning my grandfather,” Babaryka recounts.

According to the former banker, he very much wanted to find out who had written the denunciation against his grandfather. He said that there were different family versions of who might have done it. However, the KGB officer “didn't let him read anything special.”

“I ask: ‘Why can't I see it?’ (…) He says: ‘Because you might take revenge on relatives.’ I say: ‘Do you imagine that after three or four generations, someone would want to accuse someone?’ — ‘No, we can't.’”

"Give me a certificate so I can contact Polish intelligence for my grandfather's salary"

But, according to Babaryka, what surprised him more in the conversation with that KGB officer was that the young state security officer, more than 70 years after a person’s execution, continued to seriously consider the accusation made during Stalin's time, despite subsequent rehabilitation.

“I read that my grandfather was an employee of Polish intelligence, Defensywa. (…) I say: ‘I was in that forest where he lived, there’s not much there…’ And the young man, in all seriousness, tells me: ‘You are wrong to think that.’”

I turn to him and say: “What do you mean, I’m wrong to think that?” He says: “Anything is possible. Do you know that in 1937 there was a border between Western and Eastern Belarus? And there were troop movements all over that territory.”

I look at him and say: “So you mean to say that, despite the rehabilitation, you admit that it could have been true?” And he, in all seriousness — I repeat, the man was about thirty — says to me: “And why not?”

After such a reply, Babaryka decided to continue the conversation in an ironic tone:

“I couldn’t resist then, I say: ‘Could you give me a certificate so I can contact Polish intelligence for my grandfather’s salary? If he was there from 1937, maybe something accumulated. He probably didn't just work for an idea, and I have a chance to get something from Polish intelligence.’”

According to Babaryka, the KGB officer looked at him in surprise, but he continued his thought.

“I say: ‘If I follow your logic and accept it, then as an aggrieved [descendant] of a Polish intelligence officer, I am entitled to compensation.’”

Babaryka notes that as a result of the meeting, he learned almost nothing new about his grandfather. However, the conversation with the KGB officer made him reflect on the attitude of people in this system towards the past.

“I realized for the first time that people who work in this system have a somewhat altered psyche. For them, discovered, proven facts are not a reason to re-evaluate their attitude towards the cases of their predecessors.”

"I might have been lying on the very same bed my grandfather lay on"

According to Viktor Babaryka, his grandfather was held in a state security isolator in Minsk, after which he was shot in Kurapaty.

Many decades later, he himself ended up in the same building.

“I have a feeling that due to some incomprehensible coincidence, I might even be in the same cell and even lying on the very same bed my grandfather lay on. (…)

The thought arose: ‘Well, it's come full circle.’ (…) It's a feeling of a strange return to something that happened very, very long ago and, it seemed, would never be repeated,” the former political prisoner notes and adds:

“I very much hope that for my grandson, this topic will end with me. Unfortunately, it didn't end with my son, because he was also with me in the very same building.”

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