 Boris Chernobilsky
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He was born in 1944 in Moscow, in a assimilated family where the Jewish traditions were not observed, but, nevertheless, the Jewish sentiments remained. In June of 1975 the Chernobylsky family submitted documents to OVIR for the exit visa to go to Israel, and in January of 1976 they were refused on the pretext of the secrecy clearance. Boris immediately joined fight of the refuseniks for repatriation. In 1976 Boris together with others refuseniks participated in a sit-down demonstration of protest in the reception room of the Supreme Council of the USSR with the requirement of delivery of an answer to each family about cause of the refusal and its term. Participants of the demonstration have been arrested, taken out to woods outside Moscow and beaten. The next day about a hundred of refuseniks with yellow stars on their breasts gathered in the reception room of the Supreme Council. At the end of the day the majority of this group was arrested. Boris and Joseph Ash were charged with criminal case of hooliganism, others have received the sentence of 15 days in jail. However in connection with forthcoming presidential election in the USA it was possible to organize pressure upon the State Office of Public Prosecution of the USSR, and in a month Boris and Joseph's case was closed because of «change of the situation». Further Boris took an active part in the refuseniks movement. Three times he was arrested for participation in demonstrations, spending each time 15 days in jail. As one of the important aspects of his activity Boris considered the support of the Jewish community of the Ilyinka village of the Voronezh district, the most part of which lives now in Israel. In 1981 the authorities decided to stop the meetings of refuseniks, which they held regularly in the outskirts of Moscow. After one of such meetings, devoted to the celebration of the Independence Day of Israel, Boris was arrested on the charge that he ostensibly struck a militiaman, and sentenced to one year of imprisonment in Gulag. His transportation to the town of Susuman in Kolyma region lasted about three months. In November of 1982 he was released, though even during the process of the release KGB tried to scare him of the new term based on the inspired denunciations of his fellow inmates. Finally in 1989 the exit visa for the Chernobylsky family was authorized, and they left for Israel. In 1998 Boris perished, having drawn in the sea. |