“That was your father. His goal in life, what he did ... He needed a purpose, that’s what he was always looking for! He found out that enquiries about people who had gone missing during the war were officially supposed to be submitted through the Red Cross, and that was the end of it. He chose to see nothing. Of course, he knew that was not where you needed to ask questions like that, it was all in the hands of quite a different institution. I even had the impression he married Alla because her father was a general in the KGB. Your grandfather did show concern, tried to help, but he was already retired, had no influence. Whatever it was, even he could not help. They got one official response, “Died of heart failure”. I don’t know whether your father could have got anywhere nowadays. Or whe
