Soviet Jewish Prisoner of Conscience Ida Nudel is scheduled to be released next month, after having spent four years in harsh exile in a remote Siberian village, it was reported here by the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry. Ms. Nudel, who will be 51 years old on April 27, first applied for an emigration visa to Israel in 1971.
According to Zeesy Schnur, executive director of the New York Conference, no one can be sure whether she will be allowed to emigrate to Israel upon her release. “As a former prisoner, Ida cannot look forward to an easy re-entry into Soviet life if she is forced to remain in the Soviet Union,” Ms. Schnur said. “Ida’s greatest wish is to live in Israel and be reunited with her only close living relative, her sister, liana Friedman.”
Ms. Schnur added: “It is crucial that we communicate with the Soviets, and insist that Ida be given permission to go to Israel at once.” She suggested contacting Secretory of State Alexander Haig at the State Department in Washington, D.C., and to Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin at the Embassy of the USSR, 1125 16th Street, Washington, D.C. 20036.
‘I DO NOT RENOUNCE … MY ACTIONS’
In 1978, Ms. Nudel hung a banner from her Moscow apartment window which stated, “KGB, give me my visa.” When agents tore down her banner, she replaced it with others, and finally with a cloth bearing the Star of David. For this, she was arrested, imprisoned and sent into exile — on charges of malicious hooliganism. Her stalwart support of Prisoners of Conscience, despite all risks, earned her the name “Guardian Angel” long before her own exile.
In a film that showed her life in exile, Ms. Nudel declared: “No matter how I am tormented, how weak I am, how lonely or senseless my present life, I do not regret or renounce any of my actions. We believe our suffering is not for nothing, and this belief keeps us from despair. I believe that some day I will walk up the steps of an EI-AI aircraft, and my suffering and my tears will remain in my memory only, and my heart will be full of triumph. God grant that it will happen soon.”
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