Read When They Come for Us, We'll Be Gone: The Epic Struggle to Save Soviet Jewry Online
Authors: Gal Beckerman
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Natan Shcharansky spoke:
"Sharansky Proposes That the West Offer the USSR Quid Pro Quo," Jewish Telegraphic Agency, March 27, 1987, quoted in Feingold, "
Silent No More,
" 256.
He won no converts:
Ari L. Goldman, "Israel Asking U.S. to Bar Soviet Jews,"
New York Times,
March 1, 1987.
Yosef Begun, the Hebrew:
Account of Begun's release from author interview with him;
Refusenik
transcript of interview with Yosef Begun.
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"
There should be no":
Celestine Bohlen, "Soviet Urges New Look at History; Gorbachev Says It Is 'Immoral to Forget,'"
Washington Post,
February 13, 1987.
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"
After being punched":
Christopher Walker, "Brutal Attack on Protesting Moscow Jews,"
Times
(London), February 14, 1987.
In Leningrad that:
Details of the Leningrad protests from author interviews with Beizer and Taratuta;
Refusenik
transcripts of interviews with them.
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When he arrived:
Seder is described in Shultz,
Turmoil and Triumph,
886–87.
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At a meeting the following:
Ibid., 894–95.
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"
The degree of constraint":
Ibid., 888.
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They arrived in Moscow:
Details of the meetings, including Dobrynin's comments to Abram, in confidential memorandum from Jerry Goodman, in NCSJ Archives, box 41, folder 1.
Alexander Lerner, sitting:
Lerner,
Change of Heart,
210–11.
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A few of the most:
Letter from refuseniks to "the leadership of the state of Israel and Jewish organizations of the Diaspora in Conjunction with the Visit of Morris Abram and Edgar Bronfman," April 9, 1987, in NCSJ Archives, box 41, folder 1.
"
I know you have": Washington Jewish Week,
May 7, 1987.
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"
I must conclude":
"Soviets Said Failing to Ease Jews' Emigration,"
Washington Post,
July 10, 1987.
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Harris was tall:
Biographical information on Harris from author interview with him; Harris,
In the Trenches,
3–22.
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"
We are now being":
Friedman and Chernin, eds.,
Second Exodus,
144.
In early October:
Nudel departure from author interview with her; Nudel,
Hand in the Darkness,
297–305.
The Slepaks' phone rang:
Slepaks departure from author interview with them; Potok,
Gates of November,
230–34.
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"
For me it is":
Thomas L. Friedman, "Soviet Émigré Starts Life as an Israeli,"
New York Times,
October 16, 1987.
Later he described:
Shultz,
Turmoil and Triumph,
990: "This was one of the most moving moments of my years as secretary of state."
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In November, a group:
Author interview with Vladimir Kislik.
Goldfarb himself saw:
Alexander Goldfarb, "Testing Glasnost,"
New York Times Magazine,
December 6, 1987.
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Started in May:
Origins of Pamyat in Freedman, ed.,
Soviet Jewry in the 1980s,
51–60.
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This momentum did not:
Process of planning for rally from author interview with Harris; AJC Oral Interview, October 7, 1991.
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Walking with her:
"March by 200,000 in Capital Presses Soviet on Rights,"
New York Times,
December 7, 1987.
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Vice President George Bush:
"Free Jews, Thousands Demand,"
Washington Post,
December 7, 1987.
This book is primarily based on oral histories and backed by archival and secondary material. I was able to draw on three different sources for the interviews. The testimonies I conducted and recorded myself—mostly between the fall of 2004 and the winter of 2006—are listed below. Early in my research, I drew heavily on the oral interviews that are part of the American Jewish Committee Oral History Collection, which is now housed at the New York Public Library's Dorot Jewish Division. Hundreds of oral histories with the principal actors in the Soviet Jewry movement were recorded as part of this project, most of them between 1989 and 1992. I was fortunate to gain a third source of first-person testimony when Laura Bialis, the director of
Refusenik
(2007), a documentary film about the Soviet Jewry movement, gave me access to transcripts of the many interviews she had filmed. These two collections offered an added wealth of narrative detail to the interviews I conducted, and I was able to use them to triangulate, checking the facts in one person's story against another's and reviewing the same person's testimony in two or three different places. In the endnotes, I refer to the interviews from the film as
Refusenik
transcripts; the American Jewish Committee testimonies are referred to as AJC Oral Interviews.
I also drew on newspaper articles from both the national papers and the local Jewish press. For purposes of brevity, when the details of the newspaper items are given in the body of the text, the article is not cited in the endnotes. However, if quotations or details are taken from a newspaper article whose source is not mentioned in the text, that article is duly cited in the endnotes.
Archives
Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry Archives at Yeshiva University
Cleveland Council on Soviet Anti-Semitism Archives at Western Reserve Historical Society
Union of Councils for Soviet Jews Archives at the American Jewish Historical Society (I-410)
National Conference on Soviet Jewry Archives at the American Jewish Historical Society (I-181, I-181A)
Abraham Joshua Heschel Papers at Jewish Theological Seminary
Louis Rosenblum Papers at Western Reserve Historical Society
Herb Caron personal papers
Yaakov Birnbaum personal papers
Nizkor Project, "The Trial of Adolf Eichmann,"
http://www.nizkor.org/hweb/people/e/eichmann-adolf/transcripts/
Author Interviews
| Abeshaus, Evgeny—July 3, 2005 | Chlenov, Mikhail—May 5, 2006 |
| Abramovich, Pavel—June 21, 2005 | Cohen, Pamela—December 7, 2006 |
| Alexandrovich, Ruth—May 25, 2005 | Dashevsky, Zev—May 23, 2006 |
| Alexeyeva, Ludmilla—May 5, 2006 | Drabkin, David—June 19, 2005 |
| Altman, Anatoly—May 19, 2005 | Dreizner, Shmuel—May 23, 2005 |
| Amitay, Morris—November 22, 2006 | Dymshits, Mark—July 17, 2005 |
| Begun, Yosef—July 11, 2005 | Einbinder, Boris—July 10, 2005 |
| Beilin, Dina—July 6, 2005 | Essas, Ilya—July 5, 2005 |
| Beizer, Michael—June 24, 2005 | Fain, Benjamin—June 29, 2005 |
| Birnbaum, Eli—July 17, 2005 | Frauenglas, Robert—February 24, 2005 |
| Birnbaum, Yaakov—March 16 and March 23, 2003; April 12, 2005 | Frucher, Sandy—January 7, 2005 |
| Boguslavsky, Irina—May 26, 2005 | Frumkin, Si—October 13, 2005 |
| Brailovsky, Victor—June 28, 2005 | Goffin, Sherwood—February 14, 2005 |
| Butman, Hillel—May 9, 2005 | Goldfeld, Anatoly—June 2, 2005 |
| Caron, Herb—January 28, 2005 | Goodman, Jerry—October 9, October 17, and December 2, 2004 |
| Chernoglaz, David—June 9, 2005 | Gorodezky, Yakov—March 28, 2005 |
| Green, Susan—February 2, 2005 | Schapira, Morey—January 23, 2008 |
| Greenberg, Irving—February 17, 2005 | Sharansky, Natan—July 24, 2005 |
| Gulko, Bella—July 1, 2005 | Sheer, Charles—January 13, 2005 |
| Halevi, Yossi Klein—May 5, 2005 | Shepshalovich, Misha—June 6, 2005 |
| Harris, David—February 23, 2005 | Shipler, David—March 3, 2008 |
| Kaminsky, Lassal—May 24, 2005 | Shpilberg, Aron—May 26, 2005 |
| Kazakov (Kedmi), Yasha—May 17, 2005 | Shtern, Yuri—May 19, 2006 |
| Khassina, Natalia—July 21, 2005 | Shtilbans, Victor—February 7, 2005 |
| Khavkin, David—June 1, 2005 | Singer, Lynn—December 6, 2004; January 31, 2005 |
| Khnokh, Aryeh—June 22, 2005 | Slepak, Vladimir—April 1, 2007 |
| Kholmiansky, Alexander—May 22, 2006 | Slovin, Boris and Leah (Lydia)—June 9 and June 16, 2005 |
| Kislik, Vladimir—July 1, 2005 | Sprayregen, Joel—September 12, 2005 |
| Kochubievsky, Boris (later Barach Ashi)—May 18, 2005 | Stein, Mel—January 12, 2005 |
| Korey, William—March 22, 2005 | Stonov, Leonid—December 8, 2006 |
| Kosharovsky, Yuli—May 9, 2005 | Taratuta, Aba—June 22, 2005 |
| Kuznetsov, Eduard—June 29, 2005 | Uspensky, Igor and Inna—May 18, 2006 |
| Lookstein, Haskel—February 1, 2005 | Vasserman, Grigory—June 30, 2005 |
| Lunts, Alexander—May 11, 2005 | Volk, Eli—June 1, 2005 |
| Lvov, Leonid—May 6, 2006 | Volvovsky, Leonid—June 28, 2005 |
| Mendelevich, Yosef—May 16, 2005 | Voronel, Alexander—May 17, 2006 |
| Nudel, Ida—July 21, 2005 | Weiss, Avi—January 4, 2005 |
| Penson, Boris—May 15, 2005 | Wurtman, Enid—July 24, 2005 |
| Perle, Richard—November 21, 2006 | Yagman, Lev—May 19, 2005 |
| Prestin, Vladimir—June 27 and 28, 2005 | Yakir, Evgeny—June 21, 2005 |
| Richter, Glenn—February 27 and October 3, 2005 | Zalmanson, Israel—March 26, 2005 |
| Rosenblum, Louis—January 27 and January 28, 2005 | Zalmanson, Sylva—May 22, 2005 |
| Rosenne, Meir—May 18, 2005 | Zalmanson, Vulf—May 27, 2005 |
| Rubin, Inna—June 24, 2005 | Zelichonok, Roald—July 8, 2005 |
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———
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———
.
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