Soviet Emigres See the Wonder and Joy of U.S.

The two Soviet refuseniks, sitting in the back seat of a Toyota Tercel, were chattering.

“What are they saying?” asked a passenger, curious about what triggered the lively discussion between the two who had arrived at Los Angeles International Airport with their extended family just the night before to start a new life.

“Automatic transmission,” said the driver, Joseph Lebovic, who is temporarily sharing his Huntington Beach home with his brother, Samuel, and the nine other Russian relatives who managed to emigrate together.

“They are intrigued by automatic transmission. They were talking about it last night too when we brought them back from the airport.”

Samuel and his son-in-law, Chaiem Gelb, grinned and started imitating stick-shift motions, apparently the only kind of transmission available to Soviet motorists.

End of Long Quest

On their first full day in California on Saturday, everything seemed exciting to the immigrants and nothing went unappreciated. For them, it’s been an unbearably long, difficult journey that began 14 years ago when Samuel, a mechanic, asked permission to leave the Soviet Union to be reunited with his brother and sister in California.

The family’s request to leave the town of Mukachevo was rejected repeatedly until emigration policies for Soviet Jews were relaxed last year. In a historic agreement, the government promised to allow 11,000 refuseniks and their families to depart within a year.

Since then teary reunions--complete with bilingual banners, helium balloons, streamers and tiny American flags--have become more and more commonplace at airports in Los Angeles, New York and elsewhere.

Still, it was unusual to see such a large family get through the bureaucracy of emigration intact.

Disruption of War

The Lebovics have been waiting for this reunion since World War II shattered their lives in Czechoslovakia and scattered the family into labor and concentration camps across Eastern Europe. Dozens of relatives died, including three of Samuel and Joseph’s siblings and their parents. The oldest sister, Barbara, sent to stay with an aunt in Detroit before the trouble began, waited for years before hearing any word about the fate of her family.

Barbara Chimberoff, who now lives in Norwalk, was on hand Saturday to translate and help out anyway she could. There was plenty to do. On the dining room table, next to the pile of maroon Soviet passports, were Social Security forms and rental applications to be filled out.

“They won’t find it easy here,” said Chimberoff, who was coaxing everyone to practice speaking English. “They know that.”

On Saturday, the future overshadowed the memories. Samuel’s wife, Rozalia, brought out well-thumbed black and white postcards that captured the horrors of the Nazis’ Auschwitz concentration camp and showed the number tattooed on her arm. But conversation quickly changed.

The family also didn’t want to talk about life in the Soviet Union for fear of sounding too negative. They did repeatedly express their gratitude for Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s policy of glasnost .

Signs of Emotion

Tears of joy were never far away.

When asked his first impressions of America, Samuel fought back tears and finally ran out to the patio. His brother grabbed a napkin and followed.

“To see the family, to come to a country like this is unbelievable,” said Samuel, who is already anxious about finding a job.

Later Samuel elaborated on what he likes about what he has seen so far of California, which has been limited to the route from the airport to Huntington Beach and a nearby swap meet. “The trees! The sunshine! The night lights! L.A.!”

His 16-year-old grandson, Robert Gelb, had other things on his mind after he visited the beach Saturday morning. While his feet sizzled in the hot sand, he became engrossed with the wave jockeys.

Gelb, who decided the Pacific Ocean is much nicer than the Black Sea, blurted out, “I’d love to surf.”