On Sunday, Nursultan Nazarbayev, president of the now-independent Muslim country of Kazakhstan, turned the books over to Rabbi Shalom Levine, chief librarian of the Agudas Chassidei Chabad-Lubavitch library in Brooklyn.
The volumes, which will be translated into Hebrew and English, include Schneerson’s arrest warrant and death certificate, as well as the investigation.
Rabbi Berel Lazar, the chief Lubavitch emissary to the former Soviet Union and the chief rabbi of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Russia, said he believes the documents are “100 percent credible.”
Lazar said the Jewish community did not know the files existed until 1991, when the government released a partial segment of the KGB files. They contained “an incredible insight on how strong Schneerson stood when pressured to divulge Jewish names,” Lazar said. “He didn’t budge.”
Lazar also praised the government of Kazakhstan, which he said is “very favorable to the Jewish public now. They are trying to prove they are working towards democracy by helping minorities.”
Levine will release the files to the public after the translations are complete.