USSR Jewish Prisoner of Consciense Medal - Sylva Zalmanson

USSR Jewish Prisoner of Consciense Medal - Sylva Zalmanson

Sylva Zalmanson  (born Siberia, 1944) is a Soviet-born Jewish Prisoner of Zion, human rights activist, artist and engineer who settled in Israel in 1974.

The Leningrad plane hijackers case 

The plan was called "Operation Wedding," (AKA Dymshits–Kuznetsov hijacking affair): the group would buy all the tickets to a local flight, as if they are going for a wedding. Once on board, they would take over the controls of the "borrowed" government plane and Major Mark Dymshits, a former Soviet military pilot and Jewish refusenik, would fly the aircraft, under the radar, over the Soviet border. Sylva recruited most of the group members, including her husband Eduard Kuznetsov and two brothers: Wolf Zalmanson and Israel Zalmanson. Aware that the KGB was watching and waiting, they nevertheless decided to go through with the plan. On 15 June 1970, the group were arrested and tried for "high treason,". Sylva was the only women on trial that took place in 15 December 1970, and the first to go up the stand, she said: "If you would not deny us our right to leave Russia, this group wouldn't exist. We would just leave to Israel with no desire of hijacking a plane or any other thing that's illegal. Even here, on trial, I still believe I'll make it someday to Israel. I feel I'm the Jewish people's heiress so I'll quote our saying (in Hebrew) Next year in Jerusalem and If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. Hebrew: לשנה הבאה בירושלים‎ Hebrew: אם אשכחך ירושלים, תשכח ימיני‎

Sylva received 10 years in Soviet Gulag: 3 years for the escape attempt, 7 years of "anti Soviet propaganda", referring to Sylva's distribution of Hebrew learning books. Sylva's husband Edward Kuznetsov and the group's pilot, Mark Dymshits, received death sentence. The death sentences were reduced to 15 years after only 8 days, due to massive free world pressure. " The Let My People Go! event brought awareness to the world and tens of thousand of people demonstrated all over the world which made the Soviet release people.