A long wait for some to get away from Russia

Press, 26 October 1982, Page 24

A long wait for some to get away from Russia

By

WILLIAM FRANKEL

The taxi driver to Babi Yar was young, rotund and jolly, compensating for our language difficulties with expansive gestures and exuberant sound effects. As his speed quickened on the main road from the centre of Kiev, an elderly .couple who had begun to cross were forced to retreat hurriedly. Our ebullient driver, laughing uproariously, pointed his hand in their direction and yelled "Yevrei" — Yids. It was an appropriate cur-tain-raiser for the pilgrimage. At the Babi Yar ravine on September 29, 1941, 33,000 Kiev Jews had been rounded up by the Germans and machinegunned. After the war, Russian officialdom was at no great pains to identify the victims of the massacre as Jews. Today, the Intourist city tour of Kiev includes a visit to the cemetery of. those who died in what is officially termed the Great Patriotic War; but not Babi Yar. Only the persistent tourist will get to see the impressive monument to these victims of Nazism, the inscription on which makes no reference to their Jewish identity, even though this fact was recorded in all their passports when they were alive. Anti-Semitism is proscribed by Soviet law as is racial or religious discrimination, but the Jews I met in four Russian cities just a few weeks ago all testified, with graphic personal examples, that the anti-Semi-tism which has been endemic in Russia for centuries continues unabated. “The Russian masses have always been anti-Jewish and still are,” said one of them. Anti-Semitism is rampant in the Army and Jews are widely discriminated against in employment. ' Those who now encouter anit-Semitism most directly are the “refuseniks,” the word applied to Jews who have been refused exit permits to go to Israel. In the cities on my tour, Kiev, Odessa, Leningrad and Moscow, I met dozens of them, individually and in small groups. At bus stops, in parks and at other “safe” locations, I learnt of the experiences of these representatives of the thousands of refuseniks in Russian

who are forced to live a quarantined existence in a nation which rejects them but does not allow them to leave. No general right of emigration exists in Russia but an exception has been made, both on the humanitarian ground of reuniting families and repatriation, for Jews who have very close relatives in Israel. Some 250,000 have left during the past decade. Since 1979, when 51,000 emigrated during the year, the number allowed out has declined sharply and at present the average is 250 a month. An application to leave has to be accompanied by extensive documentation and takes at least six months to process. But there is one immediate effect. Most applicants lose their jobs because of their lack of patriotism in wishing to leave the country. Unemployment without good cause, called “parasitism,” is a crime in the Soviet Union so' these Jews take whatever work they can get and they are in no position to choose. Among those I met, a young woman teacher was working as a street sweeper, a biologist as a laboratory assistant, a mathematician as a computer operator and an engineer as a lift attendant. Young refuseniks are unlikely to be admitted to institutions of higher learning and those already there face expulsion, thus losing their exemption from conscription, and then begins a cat-and-mouse game. One victim I met in Leningrad was 22-year-old Grigory Geishes. When he applied for an exit permit in 1979 he was dismissed from his institute and immediately received conscription papers. Were he to join the forces, his chances of being allowed to emigrate afterwards were negligible because he would then be considered to possess military secrets. He therefore deliberately refused to serve and was sentenced to two years imprisonment. I saw him a few weeks after his return from Siberia and already he had received a summons to attend a medical examination as a preliminary to another conscription notice. He is now faced with the same

dilemma as that of 1979 and, in theory, the process can be repeated until he is above military age. Older refuseniks, particularly the teachers and leaders, are liable to other forms of harassment. I met gentle and scholarly individuals who have served terms of imprisonment for “hooliganism” and for using obscene language. There are more subtle pressures. It is, for example, a lawful occupation to teach languages. But in Moscow, the authorities refuse to register Hebrew teachers for tax purposes, which means they always remain at risk. Refuseniks are not dissidents in the same category as Sakharov or Solzhenitsyn, who want to change the system. The refuseniks only want to leave, most of them because they cannot live as Jews in the Soviet Union. This is not only because of anti-Semitism but because of the restrictions, official and administrative, on the practice of the Jewish faith and the study of Jewish culture. It amounted, so I was repeatedly told, to cultural genocide. On what, I asked them, did they base their hopes of leaving? In reply, many of my refuseniks referred to themselves as “currency,” by which they meant their rulers would use them to make "purchases” abroad. Thus, while detente prevailed, more Jews were released in return for American good will. Today the American Government isn't selling and so the Russians need not expend their “currency.” Not that the refuseniks are critical of the Reagan Administration’s hard line. Indeed, the most knowledgeable .and sophisticated among them were convinced that toughness was the only way to wrest concessions from the Kremlin. They hoped that, eventually, their release would constitute one of the concessions. Nor, they urged, need the process be limited to the United States. They are asking other governments, academic bodies and even pipeline contractors to include the departure of refuseniks as part of the price for their services. Copyright, London Observer Service.