Speaker. as a participant in the 1984 Congressional Call to Conscience Vigil for Soviet Jews. I wish to call my colleagues attention to the plight of Lev Blitshtein. Lev Blitshtein is a man bereft of his family because of Soviet repression of Jews who seek to emigrate. He has been denied the opportunity to leave the Soviet Union. not because he knows vital military secrets. but because he knows too much about canned goods and sausages. When Lev Blitshtein and his family applied to emigrate on June 9. 1974. he was a foreman in the slaughter houses and sausage plants of the Ministry of Meat and Dairy Products. He was not given an official reason for the refusal of his request. he only was told: "You know too much about the time for storage of canned meats." and "You know how to make sausages." This is a blatant example of the mindless quality of the repression of Soviet Jews. a case of thwarting a wouldbe emigrant just to thwart him. to punish a Jew for wanting to leave a country where official policy fosters and supports antiSemitism. Lev Blitshstein dared to complain about this refusal to allow his family to emigrate. He wrote letters to officials. For this he was struck a cruel and shameless blow. He was told his wife Blumah and his son Boris could emigrate if his wife would divorce him. He had to choose between freedom for his family and the warmth of the family circle. He and his wife went through the dIvorce procedure and in October 1975 his wife and son were allowed to leave the Soviet Union.
Keywords matched
emigrate emigrant