Speech #980063935

I am honored to participate in this years congressional call to conscience vigil for Soviet Jews. As elected representatives in the worlds guardian nation of freedom. we have the moral responsibility to keep the flame of hope brightly burning for the most persecuted group of people in the history of the world. Less than 40 years after the near total annihilation of European Jewry in the Holocaust. we are now witnessing a renewal of persecution of people in the Soviet Union who are asking for nothing more than to be permitted to emigrate to their ancient homeland of Israel to freely exercise their religious faith and. in a great many instances. to be reunited with members of their family. The number of Soviet Jews who are affected by the cruel and inhumane system that their countrys political system subjects them to is very significant as evidenced by the sharp decline in the number of these refuseniks permitted to emigrate in the last few years. In 1979. more than 51.000 Soviet Jews were granted emigration visas while last year only 2.670 were permitted to leave. The difficult circumstances faced by individual refuseniks are often blurred by the large numbers and statistics involved. but the case of one refusenik family. whom I have adopted and written to. serves to illustrate the agonizing plight of all refusniks. Yakov Kogan. his wife Tatiana and their daughter Olga presently reside in Leningrad and have applied to emigrate to Israel to be reunited with Tatianas parents. Mr. and Mrs. Efim Zagnitovsky and with her sister. Yakov had served in the Soviet Army in the rocket division. completing his military service in 1969. At the time he signed a document stating he would not go abroad for 5 years because of his prior access to secret military information. Yakov complied with the provisions of that document but when he and his family applied for permission to emigrate to Israel in 1976. they were refused when authorities cited his previous army service. The Kogans were told to reapply again in 6 months and after having done so. they were again refused without any reason given. Yakov is a mechanic by trade but has had to work at odd jobs. when he can get them. since his army service. Tatiana lost her position at a scientific research institute when it was learned that she had applied to emiJune 27. 1.982 grate. Thus denied of their livelihood and having complied with the requirement that they not travel abroad for 5 years after Yakov completed his military service. there is no reason why the Kogan family should not be permitted to emigrate. I wrote to the Soviet Ambassador. Anatoly Dobrynin. requesting his assistance in gaining a favorable ruling on the Kogans application for a visa allowing them to emigrate to Israel. I subsequently received a terse. unsigned. one sentence reply informing me that the Soviet Embassy in the United States does not involve itself in the cases of Soviet citizens who apply to emigrate to Israel. I hope that at least in some small way. the attention I have drawn to the plight of Yakov. Tatiana. and Olga Kogan today will help to bring their freedom one step closer.