Separated Families Urge Andropov to Let Loved Ones Emigrate

Eighty-four Soviet Jewish families now living in Israel sent an open letter to Soviet leader Yuri Andropov urging him to let their loved ones emigrate to Israel, the National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported.

The letter, from “parents, mothers, fathers, grandfathers and grandmothers,” many of whom have been separated from their children and grandchildren for almost a decade, stated that “we are firmly convinced that there is no law in the civil code of your country according to which children have to struggle for dozens of years for the realization of their most elementary right — to be sources of joy and support for their parents.”

Appealing to Andropov on humane grounds and quoting from the Soviet Constitution, the letter listed the signators’ addresses in Israel, their relatives in the Soviet Union and the number of years they have been separated. Copies of the letter were sent to Rudolf Kuznetsov, head of the Soviet Office of Visas and Registration, newspaper editors around the world, and “press centers of public and international organizations.”

LETTER TO THE UN

A similar letter, refuting claims made by a Soviet Anti-Zionist Committee that no more Jews wish to leave the USSR and signed by nine relatives of long-term refuseniks, was sent to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar, and U.S. Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick.

The letter, from “relatives of Jews who have been… repeatedly refused” permission to emigrate by Soviet authorities, represents “thousands of people who live in Israel and are in a similar position.” It stressed that “The agony of separation and the suffering of our relatives are a living testimony to the falseness of the (Anti-Zionist Committee) allegations, which dealt a cruel blow to our hopes.”