Flight to Freedom Carries Bittersweet Taste After Emigration Struggle

Friends crowded into an empty kitchen. Sausage sandwiches, brandy and tears. The scene has become familiar as the exodus of Jews from the Soviet Union has gathered pace over the last year.

The people assembled know that they may never see each other again, giving a bittersweet taste to the end of a struggle for emigration and the start of a new life in an unknown world.

“Now we must all sit down,” Lena Raben said as her husband prepared to take the family’s remaining belongings to the airport for a customs check before departure.

A Russian tradition has it that sitting down together before leaving ensures that a journey will be safe and happy. But there were no chairs left at Raben’s apartment, so the crowd trooped into the bedroom and sat on the floor.

Raben won permission to emigrate with her husband Volodya Turkeltaub and their son Sasha after several tense months of separation from her parents and sister, who received exit visas last May and now live in Israel and the United States.

Her branch of the family had been barred from leaving because of allegedly secret work done by Turkeltaub’s father before he left his job as a radio engineer in 1979. Last spring they were told not to reapply for visas until 1993.

Decision Reversed

But the authorities reversed their decision early this year. So Raben and her husband set about dismantling one life in preparation for another under strict Soviet regulations, which have not been eased in tandem with emigration policy.

Departing Soviet Jews must sell or give away all belongings except what they can fit into a few suitcases. Before Raben left, her apartment was stripped bare. Only the stove remained in the kitchen, the sink having gone along with the cabinets.

When emigres set off on the first stage of their journey, usually to Vienna, they are allowed to take with them only 90 rubles--$150--per person to see them through several months before they settle permanently elsewhere.

Their savings remain in the Soviet Union, along with valuables, including art and inherited family jewels. Raben had to part with a treasured photograph of her father because he was shown in World War II army uniform, and this is banned.

Once in Vienna, emigres usually fly on to Israel or go to Rome to await transfer to the United States, where they need a sponsor for entry.

In the interim they are helped by Jewish organizations, which provide food and shelter. This aid is later repaid by the emigres once they have found work in their new countries.

Raben plans to settle in Washington, where her sister Nina now lives with her husband and daughter. Her parents chose Tel Aviv, where they thought that Raben’s father, an eminent but elderly cancer expert, would have a better chance of finding work.

For Lena, 32, and Volodya, 35, departure is tinged with hope and anxiety. They worry about getting jobs, finding a good school for 9-year-old Sasha and, mainly, loneliness.

Many Visitors

“It’s like Lenin’s mausoleum here, so many people coming to see us,” Raben said on the day before departure, referring to the long lines to enter the monument in Red Square. “Do you think we will ever have so many friends in America?”

Although Soviet Jews are encouraged by the current surge in emigration, they know that the door for exit may slam shut at any time, cutting them off from relatives, friends and traditions they regret leaving behind.

The Kremlin last year began allowing some emigres back into the country for short visits or permanent resettlement. But the selection process appears arbitrary with no sign yet that the borders may one day be opened for all.

The desire of Soviet officials to project a more positive human rights image, however, has brought slow if steady change.

Soviet Jews said recently that emigration authorities had dropped a previous requirement that documents from former employers be submitted with requests for exit visas.

Eased regulations have brought a dramatic rise in Jewish emigration, which topped 8,000 last year, contrasted with fewer than 1,000 in 1986.

But the flow remains far short of the 1979 peak of 51,000, and the Jewish community says thousands of would-be emigres are still blocked by the “state secrets” clause.

The more determined take action, from demonstrations to hunger strikes to political lobbying in the West. After arriving in Washington last summer, Nina Raben had weekly meetings with congressmen to seek help in reuniting her family.

Early Phone Call

Word that Lena Raben had finally been granted an exit visa, nine years after the whole Raben family first applied to emigrate, came in a pre-dawn telephone call from Moscow last January.

When Nina heard the news, Lena said, she paused a moment before expressing what must be a common feeling among emigres reunited with loved ones they were forced to leave behind:

“Now I am finally free.”