In Memoriam


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Roald Zelichenok
Aba Taratuta
Nadia Fradkova
has passed away
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Michael Sherbourne
In memory of
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By Laura Bialis
In memory of
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Death of Joe Smukler,
a Soviet Jewry Activist
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passed away
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of Evgeny Abeshaus
About Yuri Shtern

To the Memory of Roald Zelichenok


       Roald (Alik) Isaakovich Zelichenok was born in Leningrad on September 29, 1936, to a family of engineers. He was named after the Norwegian Polar explorer Roald Amundsen. His parents, who came from the "Pale of Settlement," had received a Jewish education, which later found expression in their family lifestyle and their clear pro-Israel sympathies.

       In 1960, Roald graduated with honors from the Leningrad Electrotechnical Institute with a degree in Electrical Engineering and was assigned to the Central Research Institute "Morphyzpribor," which developed hydroacoustic equipment for the Soviet Navy. In 1967, he earned his Candidate of Technical Sciences degree. In 1975, having decided to emigrate in the future, he left his classified work at "Morphyzpribor" and took a position as a senior researcher at the Computing Center of the Institute of Cytology of the USSR Academy of Sciences, where he worked until his arrest in 1985. Roald authored many scientific and technical articles and came up with a number of inventions.

       In 1978, Roald Zelichenok and his wife Galina Babrina (b. 1940) applied to the Leningrad Visa Office (OVIR) for permission to emigrate to Israel. Their request was refused. Already in 1976, Zelichenok had begun studying Hebrew in Mikhail Nosovsky's apartment ulpan, and from 1978 he taught Hebrew in his own home, quickly becoming one of Leningrad's foremost Hebrew teachers. He frequently participated in inter-city seminars for refusenik Hebrew teachers in Koktebel (Crimea). In the mid-1980s, an open seminar-lecture series on Jewish history and culture operated in the Zelichenoks' apartment on the Karpovka River embankment. Additionally, Zelichenok published in the underground Leningrad Jewish Almanac (LEA), participated in refusenik cultural events, met with political figures, cultural figures, and tourists from Israel and Western countries. He actively corresponded with Western Soviet Jewry activists, providing deep and thoughtful analysis on issues such as the situation of Soviet Jewry, the refusenik community, and the quality of Jewish programming on foreign Russian-language broadcasts. Because of his activities, intelligence, and unwavering character, Zelichenok became a recognized authority both among refuseniks and among Western supporters of the movement. In 1984 he was granted Israeli citizenship in absentia.

       Zelichenok repeatedly faced KGB intimidation and persecution. In 1980, for instance, he received an official warning, and in 1982 the KGB searched his home and confiscated Jewish literature.

       On June 11, 1985, Zelichenok was arrested under Article 190-1 of the RSFSR Criminal Code for "Creating, disseminating, or storing materials containing known fabrications that defame the Soviet social and state system." The incriminating materials included several of his private letters abroad that had been illegally intercepted and opened by the KGB. His trial took place in August 1985. He was sentenced to three years in general regime labor camps. He served his sentence in camps in the RSFSR and Kazakhstan.

       Zelichenok was released from imprisonment in February 1987, but he and wife were only allowed to make aliyah in January 1989. The Zelichenoks settled in Haifa, where Roald worked as a group leader at the Israel Electric Corporation until his retirement. He passed away on December 9, 2024.

May his memory be a blessing.
יהיה זכרו ברוך.


Roald Zelichenok: Publications and Interviews

Sketch of a Prisoner of Zion's Notes. Website of the "Remember and Save" Association.First published in the samizdat Leningrad Jewish Almanac (LEA), 1988, №18 (in Russian).

Part 1. http://www.soviet-jews-exodus.com/Memory_s/MemoryZel_1.shtml.

Part 2. http://www.soviet-jews-exodus.com/Memory_s/MemoryZel_3.shtml.

Part 3. http://www.soviet-jews-exodus.com/Memory_s/MemoryZel_3.shtml.


New Year's Reflections. More Elderly Reminiscences about the Recent Past (in Russian): http://www.soviet-jews-exodus.com/Memory_s/MemoryZelNovogodnee.shtml.


Two Years in the GULAG during "Perestroika". Published by Vladimir Kremer (in Russian): https://berkovich-zametki.com/2012/Zametki/Nomer6/Zelichenok1.php.


Final Statement at Trial (Leningrad City Court. 8.8.1985) (in Russian): https://jdoc.org.il/files/original/af4826331858def90355001bbbe64c63.pdf.


Video interview with Roald and Galina Zelichenok on the National Library of Israel website (in Hebrew): https://www.nli.org.il/he/video/NNL_ARCHIVE_AL990039482250205171/NLI?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR3GT2vS34D1qbOykYdST5CP8nEECnGgD3s4m88QA4PujrnE-ID7oM_yRbE_aem_DoQ8RrV3Z5APZZtQBES2JA&volumeItem=2.

 

Michael Beizer

Translated from Russian by Reuven Resnick

"Remember and Save" Association



Roald and Galina Zelichenok. Circa 1980.

 


Roald Zelichenok and Michael Beizer at one of the Leningrad apartment purimshpils. Circa 1984.
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