Jonah and the Whale in Haifa Port.
Painter: Eugene Abeshaus, 1979
The “Remember and Save” Association—the Center for Documentation of the Jewish National Movement in the Soviet Union—was founded on April 22, 2002 by former refuseniks, Prisoners of Zion and aliyah activists.
The borders of the Soviet Union did not open on their own. Emigration was won by decades of struggle, sacrifice and genuine heroism on the part of aliyah activists, supported by Jewish organizations in the West and by the State of Israel. A special role in that struggle was played by the refuseniks—those denied the right to leave, year after year.
People pass away, documents are lost, events are forgotten... This site gathers and keeps what remains: documents and memoirs, interviews and research, photographs and newspaper articles, entries on hundreds of Prisoners of Zion and a chronicle of events—the record of the Soviet Jewish struggle for the right to leave for Israel.
The Association lives on private donations and welcomes volunteers: for this history not to be forgotten, keeping it is not enough—it has to be told on.