Refusenik Report

Nadezhka Fradkova, a former Prisoner of Conscience who spent 1984-86 in a labor camp, arrived in Israel in June. Refuseniks recently granted exit visas, in addition to Ida Nudel include:

• Anna Lichterova of Moscow, refused permission 10 years ago and granted a visa in September.

• Elena Prestin of Moscow, with her husband Vladimir and son Mikhail, who applied in 1970.

• Evgenya Palanker, a computer engineer from Yerevan, Armenian SSR, her husband Vili and sons Dmitri and Evgeny and mother-in-law Elizabeta Demanovskaya, who applied in 1980.

• Emma Landsman, a computer programmer from Moscow, with her husband Boris and daughter Aviva, who applied in 1976.

• Janna Lerner of Moscow, with her husband Valery and son Igor, who applied in 1977.

• Cherna Goldort, reunited with her two daughters in Israel. Goldort was twinned with Sandra Goldberg of Palm Beach FL, at Goldberg’s Bat Mitzvah ceremony at age 50.

• Dorina Paritsky of Kharkov whose father Alexander, is a former Prisoner of Conscience.

• Maria Slepak and husband Vladimir, who first applied in 1970. Maria is a radiologist known by the nickname Masha. Both were arrested in 1978 for hanging a banner outside their Moscow apartment stating, “Let us go to our son in Israel” (Alexander was allowed to immigrate in 1977). After Vladimir was sentenced to five years’ exile in Siberia, Masha, though given a three year suspended sentence, voluntarily shared her husband’s exile.

There are reportedly at least two groups of women refuseniks, and one each of families and children. One of the larger groups, “Jewish Women for the Repatriation to Israel and Survival in Refusal,” claims 120 members throughout the Soviet Union.

They applied to attend the international World Congress of Women, held in June in Moscow, hoping to present a picture of their lives in refusal, but were denied permission because they are not “an official group.”