President. in this second part of a series on behalf of Abe Stolar and his family. I would like to look at Abes first attempt to leave the Soviet Union. Abe first applied to emigrate with his family to Israel in 1974. In May 1975. the family received permission to leave and began making plans for their departure. They shipped their belongings to Israel and said their farewells. Immediately before boarding the plane to emigrate. the family was detained by Passport Control on the pretext that Abes wife. Gita. had been engaged in secret work at the time of her retirement in 1973. The Stolar family was officially informed that the entire family would be unable to emigrate for 2 years on the grounds of security. This notice was given orally. Officials then promised that they would be able to leave the country after 1977. Gitas alleged secrecy in previous work was clearly a pretext for preventing emigration. She had worked in a chemical laboratory in an institute under the Ministry of Geology. but was never involved in secret work. This was confirmed in writing to OVIR during the processing of their visa application. Furthermore. without such confirmation. Soviet officials would never have issued the original exit permits to the family.
Keywords matched
visa emigration emigrate