Abe Stolar Finally Gets Visa, Flying Free After 58 Years

After 58 years of living in the Soviet Union, American-born Abe Stolar was finally allowed to leave, together with his family, and arrived in Vienna on Monday with his wife, son and daughter-in-law.

But the 77-year-old Chicago native has no intention of returning to his old hometown. “We decided to go to Israel right away,” Stolar said from Vienna, in an interview on NBC-TV’s “Today Show.”

“I think that’s the place for Jews, really,” Stolar told program host Jane Pauley. He and his family will leave for Israel on Wednesday.

Much work went into releasing Stolar. Linda Opper of Chicago Action for Soviet Jewry has been talking to Stolar almost every week for several years, and has extensively lobbied members of Congress.

President Reagan sat with Stolar when he visited Moscow last May and spoke with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbchev about the Stolar case. Stolar has said that he believes that Reagan’s meeting with Gorbachev was instrumental in getting him out of the Soviet Union.

Fourteen years ago, when Stolar first tried to leave, he was forcibly removed from a plane together with his wife and son after they were granted permission to leave.

Stolar received a congratulatory call in Vienna from Sen. Paul Simon (D-III.), who lobbied for Stolar’s right to emigrate. Stolar said he hopes to meet Simon when he visits Chicago, which will be “as soon as we get settled, as soon as I have a house of my own,” Stolar said.

Half the work of moving was done in 1975. Although the Stolars were removed from the plane, their belongings went on ahead to Israel. They are waiting for them in Israeli customs, Stolar said.

“Whenever someone would ask me for a book I couldn’t find, I would say, ‘Oh, that must be in Israel,’ “Stolar said.

When Pauley asked him if perhaps his grandchildren might one day want to go back to Russia to visit “their home,” he replied, “Oh, God forbid, no. Anyway, I’ll teach them not. to.”