A refusenik cancer victim who suffered a heart attack at the Leningrad OVIR emigration office has been granted an exit visa, according to reports from Soviet Jewry activists in Israel and the United States. Yuri Shpeizman, sick with lymphosarcoma, got the news from his wife, Nelly, at the Leningrad hospital where he has been since March 11.
Shpeizman collapsed minutes after leaving OVIR, where he had been told his frequently refused application was incomplete and needed a new photograph, according to his daughter in Jerusalem, Rita Levin.
Nelly Shpeizman has been very active in publicizing her husband’s condition by joining the hunger-striking women refuseniks who fasted concurrent with the International Women’s Day observances. Their fast ended a day before Shpeizman had his heart attack. Nelly Shpeizman was also among eight signators to a telegram sent to Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev last week saying they were tired of waiting to emigrate and would demonstrate this week.
Levin has been campaigning for her father’s release, along with the help of Jerusalem Mayor Teddy Kollek and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel. On Monday, she began a vigil in front of the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv despite her father’s impending release, to help publicize the plight of another Soviet cancer victim, Benjamin Charny. Charny, 49, who suffers from cancer and serious heart problems, is the fifth of an original group of five cancer patients organized as the International Cancer Patients Solidarity Committee by a Montreal oncologist, Dr. Gerald Batist. The other four, including Inna Meiman, were released in recent months. Meiman died in Washington on February 9.
SERIES OF VIGILS UNDER WAY, PLANNED
Benjamin Charny’s brother, Leon Charny, a Soviet emigre studying at MIT, began a vigil Monday in front of the Soviet Embassy in Washington to make his brother’s plight known, as well as to publicize the eight other known cancer patients, of whom the youngest is eight years old.
Charny is carrying a placard publicizing the recent deaths of cancer victims Inna Meiman and Michael Shirman, both of whom died because of delayed treatments resulting from the Soviets’ refusal to accommodate their urgent medical needs.
The Charny brothers applied to emigrate in 1979, in two separate OVIR offices in Moscow. Leon was given a visa; Benjamin was not, with reasons of “state secrets” given for his refusal.
Two weeks after Leon Charny left for America, Benjamin was diagnosed as having malignant melanoma — skin cancer. Since then, he has suffered from a host of other ailments.
The two brothers are extremely close; Benjamin, 15 years older than Leon, raised his teenage brother like a son after the death of their father 20 years ago, and their mother 14 years ago.
Benjamin’s wife, Yadwiga, will begin a hunger strike Wednesday in Moscow along with her son-in-law, Yuri Blank. Blank’s wife, Anna, wanted to demonstrate but cannot because she is six months pregnant. The Blanks were refused exit visas in 1983 because Charny is a refusenik.
On Tuesday, Leon Charny will meet with Sens. Edward Kennedy (D. Mass.) and John Carey (D. Mass.) in a meeting organized by the Massachusetts Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith.
In addition, Alexander Slepak, son of longtime refuseniks Vladimir and Masha Slepak, will begin a 19-day hunger strike Friday in the Capitol.
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