Inna Meiman Remembered for Her Strength and Vitality

Soviet refusenik Inna Meiman was remembered for her strength and vitality as friends and admirers gathered for her funeral Tuesday in Chevy Chase, just outside Washington. Meiman, who had been allowed to go abroad for treatment of a tumor on her neck, died February 19.

Meiman’s son, Lev Kitrosski, was permitted to leave the Soviet Union on a temporary basis to attend his mother’s funeral. He missed the services but arrived in time to lead the procession to the gravesite. Meiman’s step-daughter, Olga Plum, of Boulder, Colorado, also attended the services.

Richard Schifter, Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs, told the audience that Meiman was a “very special person whose kindness and cheer even under adversity were infectious.”

Ann Garrels, an NBC State Department correspondent who was formerly in Moscow, remembered Meiman, an English teacher, as a woman who “wrestled with giants . . . and refused to become a non-person.”

“She loved to teach her ever growing circle of friends, and although her prognosis was grim, she wouldn’t give up,” Garrels said. “And she never expected anyone to do it for her.”

Meiman refused to leave the Soviet Union earlier because her husband, Naum, a refusenik since 1975, had not been allowed to accompany her.

“We gather together to remember the destruction of that one woman and her family will never be what it might have become,” said Jerry Goodman, Executive Director of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry.

Also attending Meiman’s funeral were Sens. Paul Simon (D. III.) and Timothy Wirth, (D. Colo). Former Sen. Gary Hart (D. Col.), who had intervened on Meiman’s behalf during a visit to the Soviet Union in December, did not attend the funeral but sent remarks that although Meiman had lost a personal battle to cancer she had won many more battles than she lost.”