This Is My War
KUR, CAROL
'THIS IS MY WAR' A DAY WITH AVITAL SHCHARANSKY CAROL KUR Avital Shcharansky has spent the last four years of her life with absolute singleness of purpose—to get her husband, Anatoly, out. Out of...
...They could have finished him...
...You know what it is like in wartime...
...To which the operator retorts, "Sorry, we can only route calls through Moscow...
...Anatoly must be released...
...It has already helped...
...Finally, after an hour and a half, the connection is made...
...Avital says she will at least tell the operator who she is calling and why, so that at least one Russian will find out about the Shcharansky case...
...With the assistance of the Union of Councils for Soviet Jewry, Avital has made several trips from Jerusalem to the United States...
...It is a capital offense...
...Those people were not real witnesses at all...
...The Russian authorities, in direct violation of the Helsinki human rights agreement, usually separate families...
...Two days earlier, on a flight from Toronto to Detroit, she had collapsed from exhaustion...
...Your life changes and revolves around one thing only...
...At the studio, she places a call to Jerusalem and learns that there has been no word from c J irr fH: -r 1 L R i " ^ Ji b1;' t. * i "ifLJN 'Jg mg*- P Anatoly's family in Moscow for more than two weeks...
...The fact that they have prolonged the investigation as they have proves that such protest is effective...
...They are sensitive to it—they have taken notice—and the protests will eventually bring a change...
...Right now, there are over 1000 families in Israel that have been separated...
...She was advised to place the call at that time in the hope that M.I.T.'s prestige might help to get it through...
...I am here for a cause—not only my husband, but the cause of the Jewish people...
...She arrived in Boston at 3:30 on a Sunday afternoon, following a speaking engagement in Detroit...
...Finally, she says to the operator, "Maybe we should try placing this call through Brezhnev...
...According to most recent information, Shcharansky will be tried on these charges, which include the specific accusation that he worked as a spy for the CIA...
...Though she is an artist, and longs for the day when she can pursue her work, she spends her time in Jerusalem working with Russian olim...
...He was the spokesman—he met with people...
...The rest of the time she spends speaking, pleading, explaining, cajoling...
...After three words of greeting are exchanged, the call is cut off...
...Until he was charged with espionage, my husband's case was typical...
...She returns to M.I.T...
...And there are three million Jews in Russia...
...Later, she takes an hour to visit a Jewish bookstore, where she buys some books for a family in Leningrad...
...Holocaust survivors tell me that they see this case as similar to what happened in the early years in Germany...
...Anatoly, who had applied for an exit visa in 1973, immediately lost his job and has been subjected to constant harassment by the KGB since then...
...The next day, she was given an ultimatum by the Soviet authorities: leave the country that very day, or never again be permitted to go...
...She believes, as others do who are working on behalf of Anatoly Shcharansky and other refuseniks, that the more opposition, the more protest, the more public demonstration that is mounted, the earlier that release will come...
...He shows a BBC film clip of Anatoly in Moscow, and, though she has seen it dozens of times, she cries...
...In many cases, families are willing to endure this in order to save the children...
...Following a newspaper interview, she speaks to a student group at M.I.T...
...More waiting...
...She has told Ana-toly's story to university communities, to organizations, to government officials and private citizens, to anyone who would listen, or who might be able to help effect his release...
...The laughter helps to break the tension...
...People see it as a symbol...
...This is my war...
...Avital Shcharansky will not talk about herself...
...My husband's case is now symbolic...
...The operator then suggests that perhaps her party does not wish to speak to Avital, who begins to plead with the operator that she must get through...
...Twenty-eight years old, she was born in the USSR, and married Anatoly Shcharansky on July 4, 1974...
...When it is time for the broadcast, the host seems totally unprepared, unsure of the right questions to ask...
...A leader of Moscow's refusenik community, he was a liaison to the Western press for Soviet Jews who had applied for exit visas, and a founding member of the Soviet group monitoring the Helsinki agreement...
...The next morning Avital is scheduled to appear on a local television talk show at 8 A.M...
...The schedules that are arranged by local Councils for Soviet Jewry for Mrs...
...The following day brings more people, more speeches, a meeting with Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis, a reception and discussions and seminars at Tufts, at Harvard, and at Brandeis...
...But the Soviet authorities are not interested in the truth—only in the interests of the State...
...She was met and hosted during her stay by representatives of Action for Soviet Jewry, the local Council group...
...At last the call is completed, and what follows is a family reunion, very long distance...
...On March 15, 1977, he was arrested and accused of treason and espionage, the first Jew since the Stalin era to be so charged...
...They rounded up about 100 people and held them as "witnesses...
...She left for Israel, hoping that her husband would be allowed to join her shortly...
...If my husband were to see me today, he wouldn't recognize me...
...for a scientific community seminar with Andrei Amalrik, Yefim Yankelevich, and Moshe Gitterman where, once again, she relates the story...
...Shcharansky would make the most seasoned politician blanch...
...and then attempts to place a call to Anatoly's mother, Mrs...
...After he is released, I never will again...
...Out of Russia's Lefortovo Prison, out of the Soviet Union...
...I never opened my mouth...
...Further, she seeks specific, direct action by the Congress and government of the U.S., action that will give the Soviet Union a reason to release her husband...
...I know women who have been separated from their husbands for years...
...No response...
...There will be recognition by the Soviet authorities—recognition of the protests that are being waged on behalf of my husband, and it will help to change public opinion...
...It is, for them, a sign that something terrible is happening again to the Jews...
...Milgrom, in Moscow...
...This is a purely political maneuver and comes from the highest echelons of government...
...An hour later she was addressing a Harvard University Colloquium on the subject of Human Rights in the USSR...
...At first, the Soviet operator claims that no one is at home, then says that the phone is out of order...
Vol. 3 • June 1978 • No. 7
