In 1988 Gorbachev open the door for Jews who want to leave USSR with Israeli visa to go to Israel.
We recei’d invitation from Israel.
Gaining visas to depart Soviet Union was.t easy even when we obtained our visas we know that we could be revoked at any time.
Escape at this time was considered madness
four months later we stood in the border patrol with american dollar $90 per person for 4 people we have $360 dollards
so soviets authority remove our citienship , so we displace people to apply for a refugee status
We left Gomel on August 8 , 1989 by train Gomel- Brest
The train originaly from Moskov capital of USSR , Misha( my husband brother ) and Vitalik ( my cousin )were attending University in Moskov, they secure our seats on the train from Moskov to Gomel.
Othervise , even you bought tikets the cassiri on the railway register could resold you tickets to somebody else
Syingo, we say goodbye to a lot of friends and relatives on Realroad station in Gomel wa really hard
My parents and Venyas ‘parens along with Galya , Misha, Vitalik, Naum, Benka and Lenya Shmidov and Sasha Izrailey went with us on the same train to Brest our last stop on the mother land .
Next morning our train stop in Brest .
All our 8 suitcases was check on the gates and security point its took few ours because they open all our beloning and went throuth all our staff which is mostly closing for our kids for different weather ceson , because we don’t know were will be arrive and if well be grant permission to USA.
while a snstom officer upterned our carefully packed suitcases because we were traitors
Say good bay to our parent s, siblings and relatives was extremly diffucult , At this moment we did’t know if we wiil able to see them again and when .
So we says good buy with heavy hearts
Our 1 st stop is Vienna Austria were processed new immigrant heading to Israel
Those who sought immigration to the USA like us were sent to avait permisson from the American autorities
The border police waited on the platform
Representative from HiAS ORGANIZATION meet as at realroad in venna
we have 2 interview with USa consulat and present our story why we left soviet union We were waited for paper work 4 weeks
after our paper approve we were at another train from vienna to rome italy
They place as to refugee camp in Ostia italy cal castelfusano a summer retreat outside of Rome was a temporary hoising for jewish refugee
We spent 2 months waiting for our official invitation.
Not knoing where we would end up or what would happen was truly frightening
