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The Ukrainian Weekly 1987

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The Ukrainian Weekly 1987 ^ IІ5Ье(1 by the Ukrainian Wational Association Inc.. a fratefnal non-profit association| Шrainian WeeI:I V Vol. LV No.15 THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, APRIL 12, 1987 25 cent3 Ratushinskaya testifies on glasnost Rudenko declares hunger strike, at U.S. Helsinki Commission hearing demands freedom, return of arcliives WASHINGTON - Irina Ratushin­ was 1hor Gerashchenko, the poet's skaya, dissident poet and former politi­ Ukrainian husband and an engineer, cal prisoner, testified here on March 31 who delivered a statement on the Chor­ before members of the U.S. Helsinki nobyl nuclear disaster as a former Commission on the current human resident of Kiev. (See The Weekly, rights situation in the USSR. April 5.) Ms. Ratushinskaya, 33, now in self­ The full text of Ms. Ratushinskaya's imposed Western exile, told the con­ testimony is as follows: gressional and executive branch mem­ bers of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) that she remained sceptical about recent at­ Recently nascent democratization in tempts at democratization in the Soviet the Soviet Union has been broadly Union. discussed. As a rule, in these discussions The Odessa-born poet, who served the borderline between facts and pro­ three years in a Mordovian labor camp mises is transcended. Without touching for women for her poetry, said the upon promises and forecasts for the number of political prisoners still future, I would like to say a few words behind bars, about 4,000 according to about the facts. her own estimates, greatly QxcQQUQd the At the moment, as far as I know, 86 number released (86, according to Elena political prisoners have been released Raisa and Mykola Riidehko Bonner) in the past few months. from prisons, camps and internal exile, Aitayskaya autonomous region, report­ This is certainly good news. However, JERSEY C1TY, N.J. - Mykola Despite the recent publication of edly sent a statement to KGB chief one should remember that there are Rudenko, the currently exiled leader of several formerly forbidden literary the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, re­ Viktor Chebrikov requesting the return works, Ms. Ratushinskaya said the list about 4,000 political prisoners in the Soviet Union, according to my estima­ portedly declared a hunger strike on of more than 1,000 pages of archives, of still forbidden books "comprises a March 31 to demand the return of his including his writings, both prose and thick volume," Freedom of movement, tion. I believe that the actual situation in the USSR should be judged not by the achives confiscated by the KGB, as well poetry, confiscated by the KGB, He emigration and communication remain as his and his wife's release and emigra­ reportedly said he would remain on the severely restricted, she said. number of released prisoners, but rather by the number of those who are still tion from the USSR, according to the hunger strike until he received a reply Ms. Ratushinskaya delivered her behind bars. I would like to name only External Representation of the Ukrai­ from Mr, Chebrikov, testimony before commission Co-Chair- some of them. nian Helsinki Group, Mr. Rudenko, whose exile term is man Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Com­ The 66-year-old dissident writer, now due to end in February 1989, also missioner Rep. Jack Kemp (R-N.Y.), * Petro Ruban, a Ukrainian artist, in internal exile with his wife, Raisa, in appealed to the Presidium of the USSR executive branch Commissioner Ri­ who has spent in total 23 years in camps. the village of Mayma in the Gorno- (Continued on page 11) chard Schifter, who is assistant secre­ One of the sentences was given because tary of state for human rights and he created a commemorative gift to the humanitarian affairs, and Rep. Bill American people on the occasion of the "Ivan's" true identity revealed; Richardson (D-N.M.). Also testifying Bicentennial, a wooden carving of the Statue of Liberty. * Lidiya Doronina, a 60-year-old expert admits dossier exists Emigre scientist's Latvian. She was given her most recent Special to Svoboda and The Weekly Mr. Scheffler, 57, who is a specialist sentence for taping Western broadcasts on the Holocaust, spoke about the and giving the tapes to her friends and JERUSALEM - The name of the Trawniki camp where captured Soviet figures denounced acquaintances, She is now in internal person believed by the John Demjanjuk soldiers were trained to become guards MOSCOW - A leading Soviet scien­ exile, defense team to be the real "1van the at Nazi camps, as well as about the Nazi tist on April 2 denounced as nothing but * Leonid Borodin, a Russian writer. Terrible" of Treblinka was revealed in death camps and labor camps, a lie a recent statement by an emigre He is serving his sentence in camp for court this week on Thursday, April 9. He testified also about Wor1d War П Soviet physicist's statement that 15,000 his books published in the West. The name: Alfred Billitz. The revela­ documents and the types of documents people died in Kiev in five months after I will not read the whole list of Soviet tion came as a result of research by issued to the camp guards, the nuclear disaster at the Chornobyl prisoners of conscience, or our meeting Cleveland archivist William Turchyn. During cross-examination by the station last year. would continue until tomorrow. I Under questioning by the defense, a defense, Mr. Scheffler stated that he Ihor Gerashchenko, husband of would like only to point out that even West German historian, Wolfgang had never in his years of research come dissident poet Irina Ratushinskaya, those who have been released have not Scheffler, admitted that he knew this across the name of John or Ivan Dem­ told U.S. Helsinki Commission mem­ been rehabilitated. Even the decrees of name and that there is a dossier on janjuk on any document. bers on March 31, that he heard from the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Alfred Billitz (listed as No. 53 on a Soviet on their release were not pub­ Polish war crimes list). Mr, Scheffler, who has been a witness friends in Kiev who work in two hospi­ at nearly 50 Nazi war crimes trials and tals there that "15,000 individuals died lished if the prisoners had not re­ Another important development at nounced their views in writing. I can proceedings, including the U.S. pro­ in five months in those hospitals alone." the Demjanjuk trial this week was Mr. ceedings against Mr. Demjanjuk in Leonid I1in, vice-president of the testify to the fact that the authorities Scheffler's revelation under cross­ tried to force prisoners to write such Cleveland, began his testimony on Academy of Medical Sciences, repeated examination that Karl Streibel, com­ Monday, April 6. the Soviet figures that two people died recanting statements by means of black­ mandant of the Trawniki training mail and torture. Rowever, the majority He described in detail the concentra­ immediately after the accident on April camp, had in fact seen the ID card tion camp system in the Lublin area, the 26, and 28 died later in hospitals, of the prisoners have not signed such purportedly issued to the defendant. statements, "recruitment" of camp guards from according to the Reuters news service. Streibel had stated in 1983 that he had among prisoners of war and their Mr. Gerashchenko was fired in I980 Why did the Soviet authorities force never seen this card before, that the training at camps like Trawniki. from his post as a nuclear physicist at clearly innocent people to make false signature on it is not his, but a forgery, the Thermophysical Institute in Kiev admissions? Why are they so reluctant and that there is no date of issue on the The prosecution introduced into because of his human-rights activities. to publish their own decrees, and in card. evidence copies of several identification He and his wife, who was released conditions of the broadly publicized Mr, Scheffler testified for the prose­ cards issued to camp guards, including from prison in October, left the Soviet "glasnost" (openness)? Because other­ cution for two days and then was cross­ that of Liudas Kairys, who is now being Union last December. They have de­ wise they would t)e obliged not only to examined by the defense for two days prosecuted by the OSI in Chicago, The cided to settle in the United States. (Continued on page 16) during this week's court proceedings. (Continued on page 10) THE UKRAINIAN WEEKLY SUNDAY, APRIL 12, 1987 No.15 A OLIMPSE OF SOVIEr REALITY Milgrom calls glasnost PR ploy by Michael Bociurkiw Mrs. Milgrom, "nothing would have happened. He would still be in the OTTAWA — Western governments Soviet Union. Western protests are very Poldnd to open Lviv consulate shouldn't get too excited about Soviet important." by Roman Solchanyk Party (PUWP) last June, and in the leader Mikhail Gorbachev's "glasnost" Mrs. Milgrom, who currently resides appraisal of Polish-Soviet ties by the policies because they are nothing more in 1srael with Mr. Sharansky, came to Polish government spokesman Jerzy Politburo of the PUWP the following than a public relations policy designed North America to drum up support for Urban announced at his weekly press October. to improve the Soviet Union's image, dissidents and refuseniks who want to conference on March 10 that Warsaw And, in January of this year, the says the mother of former Soviet dissi­ leave the Soviet Union. will soon open a consulate in the west concept of direct links was embodied in dent Natan (Anatoly) Sharansky. A woman who appears extremely Ukrainian city of Lviv.
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