Freedom for a Poc and Refuseniks

Prisoner of Conscience Vladimir Lifshitz was released Tuesday from a Soviet labor camp and allowed to return to his Leningrad apartment, according to Lynn Singer, executive director of the Long Island Committee for Soviet Jewry. Lifshitz was in the hospital of the Kamchatka labor camp at the time of his release, suffering from chronic hypertension. He served fifteen months of a three-year sentence for “anti-Soviet slander.”

His release follows by a week an announcement by Soviet authorities that he would be allowed to leave the labor camp. Lifshitz’s wife, Anya, traveled to Moscow last week from their Leningrad home to speak personally with an official of the Procurator General’s Office in Moscow.

Lifshitz has been a refusenik since 1981. The 44-year-old electrical engineer and mathematician was arrested in January 1986 on his way to work and sentenced March 19 of that year to three years in labor camp for having written letters to the West describing his situation as a refusenik.

FOUR GIVEN PERMISSION TO EMIGRATE

In a related development in refusenik circles, four Leningrad Jews who have been waiting many years for exit visas received permission Monday to emigrate, according to Singer. “Hallelujah” she cried as she read out the names, which were topped by that of Daniel Fradkin, a refusenik since 1971.

Daniel and Sarah Fradkin are observant Jews and both children of rabbis who emigrated to Israel many years ago. Sarah’s father died in 1985.

Daniel Fradkin, 48, is one of the longest-waiting refuseniks in the USSR. A mathematician, he worked until 1964 in an institute where there was no access to “state secrets,” and in 1964 he became a lecturer at the Leningrad Institute of Communications and Electronics.

Although he had no access to secrets there either, he was fired for having applied to emigrate on grounds of knowing secrets. Since then, his fortitude has been admirable: he has worked as a lift operator, postman, caretaker, bus ticket inspector and parking lot attendant. He has also tutored math privately when able.

Sarah Fradkin, 46, is a music teacher. They have two children: Vladimir — Ze’ev in Hebrew–born in 1968, and Fania, born in January 1971.

Daniel’s father and uncle have been living in Israel. Daniel taught Hebrew and Judaism to his children as well as to children of other refuseniks.

Also told they could leave are:

Mark Resnik, 48, a computer programmer, who has sought to emigrate since 1977, but has been turned away because of supposed access to “state secrets.” Resnik and his wife, Elena, were divorced in 1979 so that she and their two sons, Evgeny, now 12, and Leonid, now 19, could emigrate. But Elena was told, nevertheless, that her ex-husband’s “secrecy” classification was being applied to her also, and, moreover, that the veil of “secrecy” would not be lifted until 1988.

Resnik reapplied in 1981 and was refused in 1982 and again in 1983 because his emigration was “not in the state’s interest.”

Anatoly Chechik, 55, a teacher, one of the Hebrew-speaking people of Leningrad. He is married to Olga, and they have a daughter, Marina, 26, who was expelled from school as a result of her father’s application to emigrate.

Grigori Genusov, 40, a well-known refusenik, whose brother has been in Israel several years, living in Haifa. Genusov first applied in 1976 and was refused on the basis of his army service, which ended in 1973, and any access to “army secrets.” Although the statute of limitations of five years exists on “army secrets,” 14 years have elapsed since Genusov last saw army service. Genusov is a radio engineer. Married to Elena, 35, the couple has two daughters, Rachel, 13, and Alissa, 6.

A COLORFUL AND OPTIMISTIC OCCURRENCE

One of the most colorful and optimistic of this week’s occurrences in the Soviet Union concerning refuseniks centers around Michael Fuchs-Rabinovich.

The 50-year-old meteorologist, who was stripped of his Ph.D. and has not been permitted to work in his profession for seven years, decided to go for broke. After a month-long hunger strike protesting the Soviets’ refusal to allow his family to leave, following an invitation by a Massachusetts synagogue to Bar Mitzvah their son, Fuchs-Rabinovich wrote a letter to the authorities in Moscow saying that on March 17 he, his wife, Marina, and their son, Mishka, would demonstrate in front of the Lenin Library.

Last Friday, the Fuchs-Rabinoviches were called from OVIR and told by an official that they should come down any time within the next three working days. They collected all their papers and brought them to OVIR Monday, but they balked at the bureaucrats’ request to provide one more document, which had not been required all along. Michael announced there that he would go ahead and demonstrate the next morning at 10 a.m.

At 9 p.m. Monday, they received a call from OVIR inviting them back at 10 a.m. Tuesday. To which, Michael Fuchs-Rabinovich said, “I’m sorry, I’m busy. I’m demonstrating.”

The following morning, the long-awaited March 17, with thoughts of jail on their minds, Marina and Michael went in two separate directions — she to OVIR, he to the Lenin Library, where a coterie of invited reporters was waiting.

And at the OVIR offices, Marina Fuchs-Rabinovich was told that their papers were accepted, as is, and that an answer would be given them this week. Marina ran to the Lenin Library, and Michael called off his demonstration.