Malkin, Roitburd Appeal Hearings Due

The appeal by Anatoly Malkin, who was sentenced last month after a one day trial to three years in prison for “draft evasion,” will be heard Sept. 23 in Moscow, it was reported today by the National Conference on Soviet Jewry. An appeal by Lev Roitburd, who was sentenced last month to two years in prison, is due to be heard sometime this month, according to the NCSJ.

At the same time, Yuri Yukhananov of Derbent will have a hearing next week in regard to his medical exemption claim. The local draft board has been trying to overrule the activist’s medical exemption and forcibly draft him into the army in retaliation for his emigration-related activities, Medical authorities have affirmed medical grounds for his exemption.

The NCSJ also reported that it is rumored that Leib Khnokh, who was sentenced to 10 years strict regime at the first Leningrad trial in December 1970, will be transferred to Vladimir prison, considered the worst prison in the Soviet Union’s penal system.

‘HERO-IN-RESIDENCE’

In another development, the NCSJ announced today that Shimon Grilius, a former Soviet Jewish “Prisoner of Conscience,” will spend a month in New York as the first “Hero-In-Residence.” This project is being co-sponsored by the NCSJ and the Board of Jewish Education. Grilius, who received a five-year prison term in 1970 and spent the last two years of his term in the notorious Camp 36 in Perm, courageously upheld the tenets of Jewish law and traditions during his incarceration. He arrived in Israel in December 1974 and is now a yeshiva student.

In February 1970, a trial was held in Raizan and six young Soviet Jews, including Grilius, were sentenced to prison terms ranging up to seven years because of their interest in Jewish history, culture and religion.

Prior to his arrest in 1969, Grilius was not religious, although he had begun to study intensively with the Malkin brothers and Budka brothers (all of whom were sentenced at the same trial). By the time of his detention, Grilius had become observant, and throughout his imprisonment he courageously upheld Jewish law and traditions. Like Yuri Vudka and Joseph Mendelevish, who are still in prison, he ate only those foods he knew to be kosher.

Thus, of the 1200 calorie subsistence diet given the prisoners, they took in only 700-800 calories per day, hardly enough to sustain them during their long hours of work. The three also worked continuously, not taking any breaks in order to produce enough during the week to be able to refrain from operating their machinery on the Sabbath, and yet meet the required quotas, Grilius was subjected to constant beatings and harassments for seeking to grow a beard and wearing a skullcap while in prison.