FEATURE

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Es: Thanksgiving, I spread out on our ~

dining room table the pink and gold
linen tablecloth given to us seven years ago
by Dr. Anna Wolpe, a Jewish emigre from
Leningrad. The cloth has the distinctive
sheen of the highest quality linen and is
embroidered with two stylized roosters, a-
traditional Russian motif.

This year, I will remember Dr. Wolpe
with more than the usual poignance
because of Svetlana Alliluyeva’s (Stalin’s
daughter) successful repatriation to the
Soviet Union. The best that can be said for
Dr. Wolpe is that she died trying to return
to her homeland. - :

I first met Dr. Wolpe when she visited my
office in the National Press Building in the
spring of 1977. She was a half-starved gray-
ing wraith of a women with large, haunted
blue eyes. Her bony fingers trembled as she
sat telling me how she had made the fateful
decision to leave Leningrad where she had
been director of a neighborhood polyclinic.

Her eldest son, she said, a restless, mal-
contented person, was an inveterate listener
to the Voice of America and a year or so
earlier had emigrated to the U.S. where he
settled in the Washington suburbs. He
bombarded her with letters, telegrams and
phone calls urging her to renounce Soviet
citizenship and join him in the U.S.

Finally, longing to see her son, she
decided to accept his proposal. She applied
for an exit visa and soon it was approved.
She flew to the U.S., leaving her younger
son_behind.

__ “I found my son was a changed person,”
Dr. Wolpe said. “All he and his American
. wife talked about was money. All they were
interested in was buying more and more
things. In his letter, he promised I could
resume my medical practice. But when I got

PA!

less. They gave me a job emptying bed-pans
at a home for the aged.” ste

Her son pressured her to attend meetings
of Soviet emigres sponsored by an anti-
Soviet Zionist relief agency in Washington.
The officials of the agency urged her to
agree to appear at congressional hearings
and news conferences to testify on “Soviet
anti-Semitism.” 2

“I could not agree,” Dr. Wolpe said,
speaking in fluent though Yiddish-accented
English. How, she asked, could she
denounce as “anti-Semites” neighbors who

_had shared their starvation rations with her
during her teenage years under Nazi seige?
How could she accuse of “anti-Semitism” a
nation and a government that enabled her
to become a medical doctor?

When she refused to appear at the con-
gressional hearings, all offers of assistance
ended. She lost her job. Her son was so
hostile, she moved out of his home into a
seedy, downtown hotel. Her meals, when
she took them, were at a gospel mission for
the homeless. ;

“Have you ever been to Leningrad?” she
suddenly asked me. “I believe it is the most
beautiful city in the world. In summer, the
sun never sinks below the horizon. We call it
‘white nights.’ The light is like gold.” She
was overcome by emotion. Tears welled in
her eyes.

ful city again. I cannot live as you live here,
where money is everything. I only want to
be useful. All my life I have been useful. I
just want to go back home to my city.”

She suggested that she write an article for
the Daily World about her ordeal and I
agreed that she should. I promised to read it
and send it to the editors. _

here, I was told my credentials were worth-

“I don’t believe I will ever see my beauti-

Best wishes
to all our friends
in Canada and in Chile. —

Make 1985 another year of —
_ support for Chile. :
Boycott Chilean goods

- Canadians for Democracy in Chile —
P.O. Box 65664, Sin. F, Vancouver, VSN 1K7.

Phone: 254-9797 or 875-0004"

Daily World reporter
Tim Wheeler recalls the
tragedy of Dr. Anna

Wolpe, a casualty of

anti-Sovietism

Dr. Wolpe had granted an interview to
Yuri Barstkov, the Soviet correspondent
for Izvestia newspaper. After she left my
office, I telephoned him and he confirmed
that, yes, Izvestia had published his inter-

view with her. I telephoned an official in the:

Soviet Embassy who told’me Dr. Wolpe
had indeed filed for permission to return to
the Soviet Union.

Her appeal, he said, is under “active
review.” It is just a matter of time, he said.
“But she must be patient. Her case is com-
plicated because she is no longer a citizen. It
will take time to process her application for
a reversal.”

I saw Dr. Wolpe perhaps once a week

after that for two months or more. Some-

times we had lunch together in a nearby
cafeteria. Then, one Friday afternoon in
November, she came by briefly to deliver
her article for the Daily World.

I read it carefully over the weekend. It
was so incoherent, her English so broken, I
knew it could not be salvaged even by a
complete rewrite. When she returned to my
office that Monday morning, I broke the
news to her. She seemed crushed, as if a last
ray of home was blotted out by darkness.
To ease her disappointment, I urged her to
join us for Thanksgiving dinner that Thurs-
day. :

She joined us that chill, bright day in

Baltimore, She was so grateful that we had
lifted, even for one day, the crushing burden
of loneliness that she brought a gift. It was
the tablecloth. After my wife, Joyce, had

_ table, smoothing away every crease. —

_ New York, the ship’s officer discovere

the linen tablecloth from Leningrad 4

opened the package, Dr. Wolpe took it
the dining room and spread it out on

We joined our neighbors for a tu
feast and Dr. Wolpe’s spirits seemed to
especially when I recounted a trip Jayce
I had taken to Leningrad four years ea
Her eyes sparkled like the Neva itself
rhapsodized over the glory of the “Veni
the North.”

As she left to return to Washington
afternoon, I suggested that I interview
as a substitute for the article. She embrae
me. “We should do this,” she said. “perha
others will learn to avoid my mistake.”

I never saw her again. She did not
the appointment we had made for
interview. Several months later, Yuri
sukov visited my office. Usually a su
sociable person, he was weighed-down
withdrawn as he sat down.

“Have you heard the news about A
Wolpe?” he asked me. “She bought at
on a cruise ship that stopped in Leni
But when she attempted to board the sh

had no visa or even a valid passpo
was not permitted to board the ship.
vessel sailed. A few hours later, Dr. WO!
leaped into the harbor and was drow:
just learned at the embassy that her appl
tion to return home was to be appro
Yuri said, shaking his head sadly.

This Thanksgiving I will, as usual, unit

remember gentle Anna Wolpe, a casualty
cold war anti-Sovietism.

Canadian Cuban
_ Friendship
. Association

We extend season's greetings
and heartfelt wishes
to all our friends
for all peace and friendship

A nuestros amigos en Cuba
iFelizanoneuvo! ...
iPaz y amistad! -

in 1985

cae hor. ves