My husband joked that I’d made the ‘big time’, since a black Volga followed me constantly from that day forward.

“Tails” accompanied me everywhere: to the metro, the stores, and on public transportation. To this day it is horrifying to recall the refined methods used in order to completely crush our spirits, frighten us, and keep us quiet.

After some time we received a postcard in my husband’s name. In keeping with the style and punctuation of the original Russian text, the translation follows,

“Hello from Katsenelenboigen, your cousin from Philadelphia. I am trying very hard to help you through the American government. We desperately need people here to clean up the bathroom toilets.

The OVIR didn’t give you permission to emigrate, so you decided to go to the American press for help.

The Meteorological Center of the USSR (where Edward worked) did not think that your title as Chief of Laboratory, with your Ph.D. degree, was good enough in America for you to clean bathrooms. Oh my God, OVIR doesn’t permit poor Nizhnikov to emigrate. He only wants to come to America – Israel is not good enough for him.

I am waiting for you to come to America to clean the bathrooms, pick up broken glass and be a garbage collector. I will save this job for you in Philadelphia. I am trying to get all the people in America to be involved in your cause and help you get out of the situation you are in. Regards, Katsen.”

Well, I would get used to it. Ida, I told myself, had been living like that for a long time now, and for me, she was a symbol of boundless courage.

The next day was Saturday, and we all gathered, as was our custom, near the synagogue on Archipov Street. I recounted the details of the previous day, and Natasha Rosenstein told us about her trial which had been held the night before. A poorly prepared case which claimed that Natasha had on June 1 assaulted and restrained three policemen in her apartment could hardly be taken seriously. Natasha was alone in the courtroom with the judge and two deputies. Prompted by the judge’s question about the policemen, she replied, as if thinking aloud,

“It was also a threesome who passed a death sentence on my grandfather.” (Past Soviet tribunals during the early post-revolutionary period, as well as in the Stalin era, used to mete out punishment in a peremptory fashion.) Natasha made clear her opinion, and further stated that she possessed evidence against the KGB regarding our Thursday, June 1st, demonstration. The trial was suddenly discontinued! But she did acquire tails at that point, a sign of preparation for more persecution.

Natasha and I walked to my apartment. We were followed by a young woman who continued up the stairs beyond my floor. Upon discovering that I did not have my key, we asked my neighbor if we could wait in his place until my husband returned from the synagogue. Not only could we hear our female companion’s heels descending the stairs, but from this flat we watched as all possible exits from the courtyard were blocked off. The woman who had been following us then ran outside to join her KGB colleagues.

Meanwhile, Natasha and I set about composing telegrams to President Brezhnev. We described the illegal actions of the authorities, protested current emigration policy, declared ourselves hostages of the Soviet Union, and announced our intentions to continue our struggle. I also drafted a telegram to the police demanding the return of my passport. We went for tea when Edward returned. Later when Natasha left our apartment, half the agents outside the building went with her.

Since I lived near the telegraph office, I offered to send all the telegrams. Despite my early departure the next morning, my ‘companions’ were not only with me at the office, but were actually straining to see what I was writing. Because there was so much to write, I took the forms back home to fill in. My father-in-law stopped by and then returned with me to the telegraph office.

Waiting in line with us were ‘civilians’ holding forms, but still trying to get a look at my messages. After dispatching the telegrams by registered mail, my father-in-law and I left.