Refusenik Who Lost Wife in ’87 to Emigrate
Naum Meiman, a mathematician whose wife died a year ago after a four-year battle to travel abroad for medical treatment, said today he has been told that he can emigrate.
Meiman, 76, said he plans to leave for Israel as soon as departure formalities can be completed.
Meiman is one of the last of the prominent Soviet refuseniks, although many other Soviet Jews are still seeking permission to leave.
He applied to emigrate 12 years ago but was repeatedly refused permission to leave because, officials claimed, he had access to state secrets based on classified mathematical calculations he did in 1955.
Officials said concern for state security was the reason his late wife, Inna Kitrosskaya, was refused a visa to go to the United States for cancer treatment.
After a four-year struggle and numerous appeals by American congressmen and diplomats, Kitrosskaya was allowed to leave last January for Washington, She died of a stroke in a nursing home there just four weeks after arrival. Meiman was not allowed to attend her funeral.
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