Document 99

Denunciation of NKVD Officer in Peremysl', Western Ukraine, 30 April 1941

RGASPI, f. 17, op. 122, d. 8, ll. 91-96. Typewritten original.

From the moment Khimenko arrived as head of the City Department he made a system out of rudeness, foul language and insensitive treatment of his subordinates. While he has referred repeatedly to the need for maintaining strict secrecy, especially in the conditions of Peremysl'--a border city--Khimenko himself does not follow even the elementary rules of secrecy. For instance, he might run into any staffer in the guard room and in the presence of watchmen and other service personnel demand a report on operational work. Comrade Sokolovsky, a detective officer of the SPO, as well as other employees can confirm this.

There was even a time when Khimenko got into a car, taking Comrade Kolosov, the head of the KRO [Department of Counterintelligence] branch, with him, and rode to a village to hear information from an important domestic agent on the OUN [Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists]. Arriving in a forest, he left the car and in the presence of driver Stan'ko--a local Ukrainian whose brother is abroad, and he himself has had suspicious ties with German intelligence agent Plishke (under arrest)--received material from the agent, and Comrade Likhouzov, a KRO detective officer, can confirm this.

Plishke was in the KRO files as a German intelligence agent, nonetheless this man had free access to the building and the courtyard of the City Department for auto repairs. He was brought to the City Department by the aforementioned driver Stan'ko.

Once on a day off Plishke entered the City Department building, but instead of going to the garage, he went into the internal prison and began to look through the peepholes of the cells. City Department watchman Goropadsky noticed this, locked him in a cell and reported what had happened to me. I reported all this to Captain Sizov, the deputy head of the City Department, and he called Khimenko at home on the telephone and told him that Plishke, who was known to us as a German intelligence agent, had slipped through to the internal prison cells and peered in there, and as a result was detained and locked up in a cell. Upon hearing this, Khimenko ordered that Plishke be released from the cell and that an apology be issued to him for the fact that he was detained, supposedly by mistake. I will not begin to draw conclusions about what this response indicates.

In April 1941 we called in for questioning a man who is known in Peremysl' as a Trotskyite. In the process of working with him, he described his Trotskyite ideology and stated that he had never been a Bolshevik, just as Trotsky never was a Bolshevik. Khimenko, who entered the room during this time, began to carry on a conversation with him, explaining that Trotsky, Bukharin and the others had supported Soviet rule both before the revolution and after the revolution until the reconstruction period, but then deviated from the general line and started playing a double game. This kind of "explanation" can only come from a politically illiterate person, or one ideologically close to the Trotskyites. Comrade Chekushin, an SPO detective officer, was present during Khimenko's polemics.

It should be pointed out that Khimenko is unscrupulous when it comes to acquiring things. I will now cite an interesting example:

a well known merchant and administrator of buildings named Unger used to reside in Peremysl'. Khimenko cultivated close ties with Unger and the latter could always be found either at Khimenko's apartment or in his office. Unger would supply Khimenko with various goods.

Later complaints poured in about Unger and Khimenko issued a directive to investigate the matter. It is evident from the City Department file so far that Unger, a man who is hostile to Soviet rule, had contact with the Polish police and based on the conclusion of Comrade Kolosov, the head of the KRO, he should be dismissed from his position at the combined trading office where he worked and should be placed on file. In reality, though, Unger stayed at his job, nobody placed him on file and nobody took an interest in him, but on the other hand Khimenko did issue him a permanent entry pass to the City Department building so that he could visit Khimenko regularly and supply him with "stuff."

As a result the procurator's office arrested Unger and others and by decision of the Oblast Court Unger was sentenced to be executed.

Everybody in the City Department knew about Khimenko's connection with Unger and there was even an article in the wall newspaper, but the party organization hushed up the matter, since the secretary is Kolosov, a bootlicker of the most extreme kind . . . .