Colin ShindlerSOVIET Jews are facing their worst crisis since the collective trials of 1970. Mathematician Anatoly Shcharansky, seized by the KGB last week, is the first major Moscow activist to be arrested since the new movement came into existence after the Six-Day war. He is being held in Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison, accused of “anti-state activities”. This … Read more
VORKUTA, by Edward Baca. 352 pages (Constable). 15.95. In 1945, Edward Buca was a 19-year-old member of the Polish Home Army. Poland at the end of the war was no place for an ardent nationalist. The victorious Red Army was in no mood to tolerate an independently-minded man and Buca soon found himself in a … Read more
Many Soviet Jews who do not share Bukovsky’s views hold him in high esteem for his guidance in the early days of the exodus movement in showing it how to contact western correspondents in Moscow and thus publicise even the smallest aspect of KGB harassment. Together with his friend, Vladimir Telnikov, he organised a … Read more
Duringthe past month, three Soviet Jews have been accused of criminal offences. Amner Zuvurov was sentenced to three years Zuvurov in Uzbekistan on parasitism and hooliganism charges and the failure to possess an internal passport. In Vilnius, physicist Naum Salansky is in his eighth week of investigation, accused of “slandering the Soviet Union for its … Read more
President-elect Jimmy Carter’s position on human rights in the USSR is being deliberately examined by a relentless KGB offensive. Beginning with an unexpected willingness to release Vladimir Bukovsky, the KGB has stepped up its campaign to intimidate Soviet Jews and human rights activists. Two weeks ago, Amnir Zavurov was arrested in Uzbekistan for violating passport … Read more
What did you do on arriving in Moscow? I tried to contact the people involved in the seminar and found that all the telephones had been cut. I then attempted to approach some of these people personally. For example, I went to the home of Professor Benjamin Levich. He had earlier been accosted as he … Read more
Despite the severe measures taken by the KGB last week against the organisers of the Jewish cultural seminar in Moscow, 1976 was a better year in some respects for the Jewish activist movement in the Soviet Union than the previous one. There were no trials (there were eight in 1975) and the activists adopted a … Read more
There are now grave doubts about whether the KGB will permit the Jewish cultural seminar to open in Moscow next Tuesday. Five of its 13 organisers were warned by the Deputy Minister of Culture last week that the symposium was a “provocation contrary to the interests of Soviet Jewry and to Marxist-Leninist ideology”. In addition, … Read more
There is growing disquiet among Moscow activists over the fate of Edward Kuznetsov. He was sentenced to 15 years’ imprisonment in the first Leningrad trial, the sixth anniversary of which will be marked next week, but no one now knows for cerrtain where he is. A letter sent to him at the strict regime Potma … Read more
There was rejoicing in Moscow this week—and indeed throughout the Jewish world—at the surprise announcement that the authorities were dropping their charges against two Jewish dissidents, Boris Chernobilsky and Iosif As. The two men had been held in prison since their arrest last month following sit-ins staged by a group of refuseniks. It had … Read more