Ida was shadowed constantly and openly. Right in front of her building a car with an antenna was always parked with four people inside playing cards and one outside on watch. Whenever Ida left her building, she was followed by the four at her heels and breathing down her back. Throughout all this harassment she kept her calm and showed self-control.

We continually offered Ida help and moral support. Finally she received a summons to appear in court the next day, though we knew nothing about her case or even if the trial date had been set. As it turned out, she was granted permission to familiarize herself with the charges pending against her, to read and copy out the depositions, and thus to prepare her defense. Since no one else was allowed to see these documents, Ida, working alone, spent the entire day studying them. Her solitary labor produced some positive results. though. Ida’s detailed knowledge of the law let to the dropping of two of the charges. The first deals with the Sunday, June 4th, demonstration at Trubnay Square. Ida requested that the other participants be called as witnesses, correctly assuming that the authorities had no desire for corroborating testimony from nine refusenik women. The second charge, based on the claim made by the investigator who had searched Ida’s apartment, asserted that it was Ida’s cohorts outside the building who had broken her kitchen window as the search progressed. This was a lie, and my father-in-law, as noted, had witnessed the entire episode. Ida then filed a counter-charge against this investigator, knowing that under Soviet law his participation in the search would render him ineligible to file a deposition on the matter. Lacking his testimony, the KGB had nothing on her, so that whole matter was quietly dropped.

Five days prior to the trial, Ida was called into court. Twelve refusenik women accompanied her for moral support. As we approached the building, KGB men took the customary photographs. Elena Chernobylskaya’s husband, Boris, entered a phone booth and overheard a conversation from the adjacent booth. An agent was reporting:

“They’re coming in couples: the Nizhnikovs, Tsirlins, Rokhlenkos, Shvartzmans, and the Kremens. There’s one in a yellow jacket whose name I’ve forgotten, the one from Butler Street … ”.

Hearing that, leaned over, stuck his head in the other telephone booth and added gleefully, “You mean Rosenstein.” The KGB officer was profoundly embarrassed. Since Ida had been told that her trial date was indefinite, there was no reason for her to be called in that day. But she went to court anyway. In the corridor she was approached by an attorney whom the court had assigned to her case. She had not requested representation, and therefor refused to discuss her case with him.

The lawyer was also Jewish, and it was painful to see his humiliation as he followed her down the hall. Firmly, but kindly, Ida explained that she had nothing against him personally. However, she would act in her own defense.

After Ida had left the judge’s chambers, I went in to see him. He listened at first, but when he realized that I was there in support of Ida, he became surly, “Get out. I don’t have time for this!” He would not accept my deposition, and refused to call me as a witness. Once home, my father-in-law and I resolved to send in our depositions anyway.

My father-in-law and I had written statements of all we had witnessed, including requests to be called to testify. We sent them off by registered mail so that the receipts would be proof of delivery. But, admission of this evidence was not in our control. My father-in-law recounted all he had seen from his window and in the street on the evening of Thursday, June 1st. His statement ended with a request to be called as a witness at the trial, and the comment that the cruelty displayed towards Ida that day reminded him of the pogroms led by Petlura in the Ukraine in 1918.

My statement was shorter:

“On Thursday, June 1, around 11:30 p.m., I went to the home of my friend, Ida Nudel. The left pane of her kitchen window was broken, and glass was scattered everywhere. The wind was blowing through the apartment. I wish to be called as a witness at her trial. I also wish to be examined as a witness to the events of June fourth.”

The atmosphere grew more heavy for Ida. Her customary ‘tails’ were replaced by older, more experienced agents. Yet she tried to lead her life as normally as possible during those last days before her trial. Since she often went swimming , she set out for the pool one night, in the hope of relaxing for a while. However her ‘tails’ stopped her. Ida badly needed to swim as a way to relax, she eventually agreed to sign a form if she were allowed to go swimming She had signed a paper promising to remain in Moscow. Permission for her to swim was granted, but the agents were required to swim along. In another attempt to find relief from some pressure, Ida and her friends, the Shvartzmans, took a trip into the woods one day. Naturally, agents (companions by now) went along. They even brought their own picnic! We had offered to take Ida to the countryside, where we had rented a home on the Volga river. We planned to take our own children and those whose parents were in jail, for a temporary respite from the terror. Ida refused to join us. More than anything, she was determined to show her enemies no weakness. She imposed this discipline on herself, and never faltered.

Ida was not informed of her trial date until the day before the trial was to take place. She used the time left her to send letters and telegrams to Soviet agencies, calling on them to put an end to blatant disregard of the law. Certain that she would be imprisoned, Ida asked her friends to arrange a press conference at which she could express her opinions, and describe her situation to friends in Israel, and around the world. Ever since the preparations for the dissidents’ trials had begun, the KGB had been waging a psychological war on foreign correspondents. The goal was to divert the media’s attention, and to silence them. We were totally disheartened to find that not even one reporter showed up for the press conference about Ida’s trial. For Ida’s sake, we repeatedly called for at least one of them to come, but it was not to be.

Ida remained faithful to her principles. Even en route to her trial, Ida stopped at my in-laws’ home to give them a package to deliver to some political prisoners in Riga. Many of Ida’s friends, among them a few foreign guests, came to escort her to the court-house, and we were accompanied by six agents who made a great show of flipping over the lapels on their jackets to better transmit our whereabouts every step of the way. Cameras were flashed with the usual diligence as we arrived. Volodya Slepak’s case was to be tried on the same day as Ida’s. When we reached the courthouse, we discovered that his trial was not only set for the same day, but also for the same hour, making it impossible for all of us to be present at both trials. Hence, we divided into two groups, except for Hannah Aronovna, who was ill at home. It was through her, however, that we learned that those who had tried to get into the courthouse where Volodya was being tried had been hosed down by the KGB and had been blocked by four lines of cars.

At the entrance of the courthouse where Ida was to be tried we were blocked by an officer stationed there. We lacked the necessary passes, white cards that were issued only to certain people. The visitor’s area was full, or so the officer claimed, and the court was closed to the public on Wednesdays. A policeman asked Ida to enter the court alone. When Ida refused to enter without her friends, the court officer resorted to a little deception. We were to go inside, and up to the second floor where we would be directed to the courtroom. We entered, but, suspicious of the sudden change, just a few followed the officer’s instructions, only to discover that the door to which they were sent led through an emergency exit to the street. Having discovered the ruse, we were even more determined to remain with our friend Ida, so we made use of what we had. We formed a human wall around her. Twice a secretary tried and failed to get Ida inside, so a judge came and read a statement authorizing the use of force to bring Ida in to the proceedings. Of course, this only served to strengthen our will, and we tightened the ring. Among the plainclothesmen was one whom I recognized from the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, the one who had threatened to break my legs and promised me emigration in a wheelchair. Now he was in charge of the police. “Rougher, rougher,” he ordered when it came to crowd control. A ruckus began with the appearance of a dozen policemen who used physical force to break through our walls, spirit Ida away, and eject all of us from the building. Evgeny Tsirlin and Arik Rokhlenko, custodians of Ida’s legal papers, had to be literally carried outside.

When my father-in-law showed his postal receipt to an officer and explained that he expected to be called to testify, he was allowed back in. This was just another trick, however, as they held him, an elderly man, in a small room for several hours without food, water, or any outside contact. When the authorities released him, claiming that his testimony was not required, he unhesitatingly expressed his contempt for this system as a mockery of justice. Desperate for information, we asked a cleaning lady who came out of the building whether she knew anything about the trial. We knew that her job allowed her a chance to see and hear everything and that she would be completely unnoticed by the authorities. Since she was not an official of any kind, we expected that she would talk with us. We asked her if the trial had ended yet, or if she had heard any verdict. She just laughed, and said, “Are you serious? In this country the verdict is always known before the trial begins!”

Thus, Ida was tried in a closed session. All attempts at access by friends and witnesses were denied. We waited. Our only contact with her was during a dinner break when she opened a window to tell us that the charges relative to the Sunday, June 4th demonstration had been dropped. She was eating a sandwich, and seemed in good spirits. Then someone came and ordered her away from the window and closed it.

We continued to wait. Finally people began to leave the building and to mix with the crowd outside. Some of them formed a barricade around the car parked at the back entrance to the courthouse. Ida was then led out. We glimpsed her smile and the wave of her hand.

“Ida, we’re with you!” we shouted, and then the car sped off carrying Ida away to imprisonment. Someone tried to persuade a taxi driver to follow the car so that we would know where she was being taken. The taxi was stopped by KGB agents.

My father-in-law had words with one of the people who had been ‘invited’ to attend the trial. This spectator exclaimed excitedly:

“Proper legal procedures were followed. Even a lawyer was provided for the defense, and there were witnesses. If only you could have heard the speech that the prosecutor made! I gathered from the proceedings that these acts had been committed by a well-organized, and centrally controlled group!” The authorities had obviously succeeded in convincing their audience!

Why was it necessary to create this impression? The authorities, whose thinking never went beyond the Marxist-Leninist framework regarding groups, collectives and the Party, knew the situation. They believed that the actions of the individual were of no great importance. Dealing with a single person was rather dull. It was much more productive to uncover a group, an anti-Soviet organization. That kind of thinking could determine one’s career. Moreover, that kind of thinking was something the masses could ‘understand’. They had been saturated with enough Communist Party history to ‘know’ that the enemies of the Soviet Union, whether foreign or domestic, had always banded together in groups. Furthermore, Ida, the accused, was Jewish. What could be more simple than to link this group to those reactionary Zionists they had heard about since grade school? Pure Socialist class orientation. The invited spectator had been pleased with the trial, perhaps even moved. There had been an investigation, a judge, jurors, lawyers. Everything looked fine. What was missing was any support for the defense, though court records made no note of this. Their only reference was that the trial had observed all the rules of socialist law.

But, what kind of justice can there be without the right to a fair trial? All other rights are worthless without it. Not only do citizens need the right to demonstrate freely, but also the right to remain at liberty after the demonstration. All of this we realized, but the Soviet government would not, and did not, acknowledge.

Ida had been no stranger to the Soviet judicial system. Using all possible means, she had been supportive of its victims. She had corresponded with political prisoners, traveled to prisons for visits, and fought with the prison bureaucracy. She had been present at many trials similar to her own, and her opinion of the system was as clear and simple as the statement she delivered that day, “I do not wish to take part in this spectacle. This is not a trial, it’s a reprisal. I ask only that I be allowed to make a final statement.” Her thinking was influenced by, and her position is best explained through the following words of the Jewish journalist, Vladimir Zhabotinsky:

“Once again we have become the accused. How long can this go on? Tell me my friends, are you not weary of these long, drawn-out proceedings? Is not now the time to respond to these and all future accusations, reproaches, suspicions, slanders, and denunciations; to cross our arms over our chests and in a loud, clear, cold and calm voice utter the only statement that this public can hear and understand: Go to hell all of you! What sense is there in all these farces called trials where the outcome is predetermined? What kind of joy do we get out of voluntarily participating in this farce, in sanctifying these infamous legal proceedings, with speeches in which we defend ourselves? Our enemies will not believe us, the indifferent will not be listening.”

Ida read these lines. She understood them with the heart of a Jewish woman.