On May 10, 1978 we entered the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet in Moscow. We presented a receptionist with a letter in which we detailed our complaints regarding the application review process as well as our demand to know when exit visas would be issued.

The entire day passed without any response to our letter or our presence. The momentum of our activities picked up on Friday when we repeated the process. Only this time the secretary directed us to the Ministry of the Interior on Herzen Street where, after two hours, an official sent us to the Department of Visas and registration (OVIR). It was run as were all Soviet civilian agencies by military personnel. We were guaranteed that we would be met by Yelisov, the Deputy Minister of Internal Affairs and head of the OVIR. Instead, we saw his second in command, General Zotov, who informed us that Yelisov was busy.

We had seen Zotov so many times that he knew our first names, and we knew that all we would receive from him was abuse. Therefore, we refused his offer of a meeting with our representatives only, insisting that General Yelisov talk with us as a group. We were prepared to wait for this small advantage. The whole time we were in the waiting room, KGB personnel watched us. As evening approached, Natasha Rosenstein wanted to lead us in prayer, it being the Jewish Sabbath. The KGB men refused her request that they leave us alone. Still, she lit the Sabbath candles and led us in quiet prayer. We were strengthened spiritually in spite of cynical looks we received from the KGB.

Meanwhile, our nerves were further frayed as photographers came, and without authorization, began taking shots of each of us. Ida, as always, unhesitatingly bolstered our morale. When the cameras were pointed at Olya Serova, Ida shouted to her “Keep your head up, Olya! We are not criminals. We have nothing to fear.” The other women then took courage also and began to shout , “You have no right to do this to us.” We demanded to see the documents which authorized these men to photograph us. The photographing stopped for the moment, though later, when the police arrived and led us out single file, the photographers began again.

The work day was done, but we refused to leave. Suddenly, a contingent of police officers arrived and shouting at us to leave the premises, started to push us roughly out the door and into a waiting van. The police told us that we were going to jail for fifteen days.. But instead of being imprisoned, we were taken to a deserted part of the city where the van was parked outside a detoxification center for close to an hour without any explanation. The plan was, of course, to scare us into thinking we would be placed in with the drunks. The orders and behavior of the authorities were at once inexplicable and cleverly patterned to keep up the pressure on us.

We had no idea what was being done to us, or asked of us, or why, but this episode proved to be a critical test. Under psychological pressure, we became keenly aware of our respective reactions .Our strengths or weaknesses would prove to be the basis for the crystallization of the core group who would dare to continue. We were kept in the van until a Volga drove up and a policeman opened our door, and shouted at us, “Four of you get out!” These first four were taken into the Volga and driven away. A second car pulled up, and the pattern was repeated until only eight of us were left. Then yet another policeman opened the door of the van, and shouted at the rest of us to go home – singly – warning us against meeting each other any more.

Later on we found out that each group of four had been asked the location of their homes, and were brought to those areas by the formidable black Volgas. Thus, we were free, but wary. We realized that even giving us our freedom was a way for the authorities to generate fear. Yet, we had taken the first step, and we were free. Some of us were ready to continue the battle.

Alexander Garden below the Kremlin wall was the meeting place where we chose to gather on May 15. Of course, KGB men were there to greet us, and at Kremlin wall movie cameras trained on us by agents in civilian dress, ‘plainclothes men’ whose job it was to catch us on film. We had sent a telegram to President Brezhnev (from the moment we left the central telegraph office officers in uniform trailed us even to the rest room!). In the telegram we protested our previous treatment, stated our intention to meet with Yelisov that day, and were bold enough to warn that if we were not received within two hours of our arrival at the Ministry, we would then proceed to the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and stage a sit-down strike. Our telegram was, of course, ignored. So after waiting the specified two hours, we went from the Ministry to the lobby of the Presidium and sat.

It was after six in the evening when a police detail appeared, and their chief greeted us in a curiously affable way: “Ah, my old friends! How much longer are you going to break rules and make trouble for us?” He then threatened us with fifteen days in jail, and loudly ordered us to remove the Stars of David which we had pinned on our clothes earlier that evening. As if this command had been a signal, police surrounded us and began shouting, “You’re not allowed to wear those things. Take them off. You should be hanged by your heels!” One of them turned to me and grunted, “Next time I see you I will break your legs! You will end up in a wheelchair!” We were not intimidated, and tempers flared. Hannah Aronovna branded them fascists, and Guzelle Khait called them bandits.

The police grabbed us, tore off our stars., and then led us out to the street through a back way, while all the time we were photographed again and again. They vented their wrath especially on Lyuda Cherkasska by simultaneously kicking her from behind, and punching her stomach until she fainted. While still unconscious, she was dragged to a police van and flung onto the front seat. Lyuda was a nursing mother, and this abuse confined her to bed for three days. (Later when she filed a complaint, the prosecutor, Mr. Rodenko, noted that his investigation had found no use of force against her!).

Once again we were driven away in a police van; however we were lucky in that this evening an important soccer game was to be televised. Our guards simply dumped us on a quiet street, near the Udarnik Theater and dispatched us hastily out of public view.

For more than a year now we had sat in reception rooms of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet and the Central Committee of the Communist Party. These rooms were filled with refuseniks – veterans of waiting. Some were sixty, even seventy years old. In fact, my father-in-law led a refusenik group of more than 20 WW-II veterans. Observing these people made us realize that we, too, could easily age in reception rooms. Our fate would be that of living from one application to the next until one day our children would be adults, and we would be the veterans who had been swallowed up by time. Our struggle for freedom would be trivialized. It would be only a memory. Fearful of this outcome, we decided that since the authorities refused to take our previous attempts seriously, we would have to take drastic action.

Our only option was a public demonstration. This was a critical decision. To fight for our own rights took strength and courage, but those of us who were mothers bore the additional responsibility of deciding for our children. Nevertheless, every one of us – even those who were faced with this moral dilemma – agreed that the fight must continue. For Ida, the next step was obvious. Public demonstrations.