AJC Mourns the Passing of Yelena Bonner, Champion of Human Rights

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Jun 19, 2011, 10:26 ET

NEW YORK, June 19, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- AJC mourns the passing of Yelena Bonner, a human rights champion of extraordinary courage, valor, and determination. She died in Boston yesterday.

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Bonner, born in the USSR in 1923, experienced the full brunt of the Stalinist era. Her father was executed in the 1930s, during the period known as the Great Terror (or Great Purge). Her mother was sentenced to eight years of forced labor, followed by internal exile. By the 1960s, Bonner became involved, at great risk to herself, in the embryonic Soviet human rights movement and was a founder of the Moscow Helsinki Group.

In 1972, Bonner married the legendary Andrei Sakharov, a distinguished scientist and human rights activist. Together, they came to symbolize the human rights movement in the USSR. They fought in defense of human freedom and dignity for a country that systematically, often brutally, suppressed them. They spoke out for the victims of Soviet abuse of power. They defended the human rights of Jews and others to emigrate, and the right of Israel, deemed an enemy of the Soviet Union, to live in peace and security.

In 1975, Bonner traveled to Oslo to receive the Nobel Peace Prize for her husband, who was denied permission to travel. In 1980, her husband was banished to Gorky to punish him for his activities and further isolate him. Bonner became his sole link, as she traveled between Moscow and Gorky until she herself was arrested in 1984 and sentenced to five years internal exile in Gorky. In 1986, Soviet President Gorbachev allowed the couple to return to Moscow. Sakharov died three years later, while Bonner continued to speak out for human rights in the post-Soviet space created by the Soviet Union's demise in 1991.

She also authored several books and devoted herself to preserving Sakharov's legacy, including establishment of the Andrei Sakharov Museum and Archives in Moscow, and the creation of the Andrei Sakharov Prize as the premier annual human rights award by the Council of Europe.

"The world has lost a rare human being," said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Yelena Bonner experienced the full force of Soviet totalitarianism over the span of decades. But her spirit could not be broken and her voice could never be silenced. She was a tower of strength, and history was made because of her lofty ideals and steely determination, together with her late husband. They are surely among the most remarkable human-rights couples in history."

"I first met her in 1977 in Italy," Harris continued. "The Kremlin, under international pressure, allowed her to leave for eye surgery. She used the occasion to accompany her daughter, Tatiana, son-in-law, and grandchildren to Rome, as they had been given permission to emigrate. I was working then with the migration flow and dealt with their case. What was most astonishing to me was that Bonner, who could have stayed in the West and been given political asylum, opted in a heartbeat to return to the USSR and the daily struggle and hardships. She told me that was her place alongside her husband, not some quiet neighborhood in the United States."

Bonner's human-rights activities brought her into close contact with AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights (JBI). To mark the institute's 40th anniversary this year, Bonner wrote: "In the early 1970s, JBI was unique in its deep concern not only with Jewish dissidents and Jewish emigration, but with the general state of human rights in the Soviet Union. Your endeavors lent authority to the Soviet movement for democratic change." JBI's director, Felice Gaer, serves on the board of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation.

"In recent years," Harris concluded, "Bonner devoted growing attention to what she viewed as increasing threats to Israel and a rise of anti-Semitism. Her no-holds-barred speech at the Oslo Freedom Forum in 2009 http://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfconf2011/english/articleseng/4 is a must-read. She ended her talk with the following words: '[I feel] alarm because of the anti-Semitism and anti-Israel sentiment growing throughout Europe and even further afield. And yet, I hope that countries, their leaders, and people everywhere will recall and adopt Sakharov's ethical code: In the end, the moral choice turns out to be also the most pragmatic choice.'"

SOURCE American Jewish Committee