Human Rights Day. is a fitting time for this Congress to reaffirm its deep respect for the courageous Soviet Jews willing to make this sacrifice at a time when too many people believe that this is a world without heroes. These prisoners of conscience. some of them held captive in the bitter cold of Siberia. should remind us all that the will to religious freedom is so strong that no government. no matter how pervasive its network of secret police. can ever sap its vigor. This human rights resolution accuses Soviet authorities of a triple assault against its Jewish community: Fewer than 100 families are granted visas to leave the country each month. only 10 percent of the 1979 total. ceaseless harassments. arrests. and trials have become almost daily occurrences. and unparalleled assaults on Jewish selfstudy groups have taken place in urban areas. But the statistics can never reveal the human anguish that lurks behind them. neither can they conceal the inspiration of Soviet Jews such as Ida Nudel. an economist arrested in June 1978 and charged with "malicious hooliganism." I adopted Ida Nudel as my Soviet Jewish prisoner of conscience and. although I have written to Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko and other Russian officials urging her release as an humanitarian act. she remains in prison today. She did not kill. rob. or slander anyone. Ida Nudel simply hung a banner from her Moscow flat reading. "KGB. give me my visa." KGB agents standing in the street tore down the banner. but she prepared new ones. For this. she was arrested and held prisoner despite suffering a heart ailment and kidney problems. But while Soviet officials may restrict her movements. they cannot silence her eloquent voice.
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