Dinkum Refuseniks join the ‘Australian family’

Press, 1 February 1988, Page 2

Dinkum Refuseniks join the ‘Australian family’

By

ELIZABETH RENNICK

NZPA-AAP Melbourne At first you would swear they were dinkum Aussies from way back. With their T-shirts and shorts, bare legs, summer dresses, jogger shoes and jeans, they would pass unnoticed in any suburban shopping centre or beach resort. You could find the young blonde guy anywhere from here to Surfer’s Paradise. And the lean fellow in the shorts and beard could hail from any university campus from Wollongong to Darwin. It is only when you hear their names - Sergei, Valery, Vladimir and Tatiana - hear them struggle with English, or signal to interpreters, and hear their stories that you realise they are part of that historic push of people, Jews emigrating from the Soviet Union. Refuseniks. The 20 Soviet Jews who arrived in Melbourne to join families here were officially welcomed by Federal and State authorities and the Jewish community at the Jewish Welfare Society’s headquar-

ters in inner suburban South Yarra. The House of Representatives Speaker, Mrs Child, who with the Prime Minister, Mr Hawke, succeeded in persuading the Soviets to let the refuseniks leave, said that during her visit to the Soviet Union last year she had been determined to push the plight of Jews “to the limit.” Mrs Child said the former Soviet Foreign Minister, Andrei Gromyko, had asked if "we had travelled half way round the world to see a few families reunited.” “I said that wasn’t our main purpose, but if that’s what we achieved it was well worth the trip.” She told the newcomers: “Welcome, and be happy.” The Victorian Ethnic Affairs Minister, Mr Spyker, recalling his own family’s arrival as emigrants from Holland in 1955, said: “We’re a nation of immigrants — some four or five generations — so you should fit in very successfully.” All the newcomers A.A.P. spoke to had no regrets about leaving the Soviet Union, welcoming

their new freedom and reunion with relatives, but each had special reasons for emigrating. For Mrs Maria Karpenko, aged 65, joining relatives in Australia means freedom from a lonely old age in a flat by herself. A Polish-born accountant and economist, Mrs Karpenko had worked in a food distribution organisation in the town of Vinnitsa, in the Ukraine, until her retirement. Speaking through relatives, Szul and Gitla Koperszmidt, of suburban Caulfield, she confessed she was shocked when she arrived in Vienna and saw the plentiful lifestyle of Westerners. "In Russia you would spend five or six hours queueing for 200 grams of butter,” she said. Mrs Karpenko is by no means ignorant about Australia. She used to subscribe to the Soviet equivalent of “National Geographic” and took great interest in articles about Australian wildlife. A photographer, Valery Bromberg, from the town of Rovno, in the Ukraine, had an even more inti-

mate knowledge of Aus- 1 tralia — he visited with < his brother in 1978 and I again in 1983, touring the 1 Queensland coast. s He is glad to get out of i the Soviet Union because ] of the anti-Semitism and because his 18-year-old ( son, Sergei, would have i been due for military ser- i vice. < Mr Bromberg said the < anti-Semitism wasn’t < open, but “it’s there all s the time.” 1 Sergei, whose hobby is collecting stamps, will go i to school in outer subur- j ban Mulgrave this year and, with a typical teen- 1 age shrug, says he doesn’t i know what he wants to do I after that. 1 By contrast, blonde 18-year-old Roman Sikach, in 1 jeans and joggers, wants to master English, then 1 become a car mechanic. < Roman can’t speak much English, but a i couple of the words he knows are "Jaguar” and i “Rolls-Royce” and says one day he might own a i Rolls or a Jag himself. i With his parents and ■ other members of his I family, he has joined rela- I tives Sam and Lily Shat- i khin, of bayside Hampton. Lean, blue-eyed twins !

Vladimir and Alex Belkin, aged 29, formerly of Minsk, capital - of Byelorussia, got the message they weren’t wanted very soon after they applied to emigrate. Both computer engineers with a good command of English, they were sacked from the company they worked for and turned their hands to anything they could, street sweeper, yard keeper, postman. Even getting the postman’s job was difficult, Alex said. The official at the local town hall said: "Do you really believe if you want to emigrate anybody would employ you? You’ve got to be loyal to the Soviet Union.” Vladimir and his wife, Rimma, have three children, Khatya, 10, Natan, 7, and Caroline, who missed out on being an Australian citizen by five months. Alex and his wife Tatiana feel the lot of the refugee in a special way — Tatiana gave birth to their baby 24 hours after they arrived in Rome en route to Australia. The baby girl did not survive.