How soon we forget.
When news arrived earlier this month that former Soviet refusenik Maria Slepak had passed away, we suspect that the reaction of many was simply: “Who was she?”
Not only have most of the heroes involved in the Soviet Jewry movement of the 1970s and ‘80s been forgotten, but the movement itself for freedom of emigration has largely been relegated to historical obscurity.
We vividly remember Slepak and what she fought for. The IJN first made contact with Maria and her husband Vladimir in 1976 in Moscow, when our late managing editor Doris Sky visited them and their fellow Jewish activists (see picture).
Maria, who apparently never spoke English, didn’t give Sky an interview, but Vladimir did, and eloquently described how steadfast and strong Maria remained during his periods in Soviet prisons, often when she was quite ill.
In 1987, after their long-delayed permission to emigrate, the IJN’s Chris Leppek interviewed them when they headlined a Soviet Jewry rally in Denver. Maria’s selflessness was striking as she explained (through Vladimir’s translation) that her primary reason for coming to the US was to advocate for those Jews still left in the Soviet Union. “The suffering of these people is meaningless and cruel,” Maria said.
Maria Slepak was hardly the celebrity type, not the sort of person that history tends to remember, but she and her husband — along with their fellow activists — were not only champions of human rights and freedom, but heroes for their courage, resilience and patience.
May her memory be a blessing, and may it and her heroic struggle never be forgotten.
Copyright © 2017 by the Intermountain Jewish News
