Ella: Refusenik in the USSR
Ella earned a master’s degree in Urban Planning from the Moscow Institute of Structure Engineers and completed her PhD while working at the Institute of Urban Development and the Institute of Urban Studies. In 1982, her life changed dramatically when the KGB searched her apartment. That same year, her family applied for immigration but was denied, marking them as ‘refuseniks.’ As an active member of the Refusenik movement, Ella fought tirelessly for the right to emigrate. Her family remained under KGB surveillance until 1987, when they were finally allowed to leave the USSR. In the United States, Ella dedicated herself to supporting refugees from the former Soviet Union, collaborating with Jewish organizations to help newcomers adjust to their new lives. She also gained extensive experience helping children navigate the challenges of adaptation. In 2003, Ella founded the Shalom Education Center, a Sunday school for Russian-speaking Jewish children, fostering a connection to their heritage and community.
Refusal
My name is Ella Kogan, and I came to America in 1987 when I was 50 years old—not exactly the best age to start over in a new country. We applied for an emigration visa through the Jewish visa program in 1982, and for five long years, we lived as Refuseniks, what in the USSR we referred to as those awaiting permission to leave - stuck in a limbo of hope and fear.
Our ordeal began with a search. One day in Moscow, eight apartments belonging to friends of ours were raided. Someone in our circle had informed on us to the secret police (KGB), and we were all targeted. The KGB took everything—our personal archives, typewriter, address books with phone numbers—and they even took my husband, Pavel, in for questioning. Thankfully, he was released later that day. The search terrified us, but strangely, it also gave us a glimmer of hope. It meant our emigration process had truly begun.
After the search, the KGB cut off our telephone line. The official reason? We were accused of "associating with unreliable people." My elderly mother, desperate to stay in touch with her friends, relied on me to push her wheelchair through freezing cold and slippery streets to a payphone so she could call them. She never mentioned that we had applied for a visa to leave the USSR and had become ‘refuseniks’. Instead, she told them the phone line had been broken for months. They believed her, blaming Soviet inefficiency and exclaiming, ‘What a disgrace! How can they not fix a phone line for so long?’
The trouble also spread to our jobs. My husband was demoted to a lowly position and given a meagre salary. I wasn’t so lucky—I lost my position entirely. To make ends meet, I began writing dissertations, managing to complete seven in five years, including a doctoral one. None of them were in my field of studies or expertise.
The KGB constantly summoned my husband for ‘conversations’, picking him up in their car, interrogating him, and then dropping him back home. They wanted him to inform on our friends. But Pavel wasn’t that kind of man—they underestimated him.
While awaiting permission to leave, we didn't sit quietly. We staged protests and hunger strikes, demanding justice for those oppressed. Once, we marched down New Arbat street for five days, calling for the release of dissident Yosef Begun. They sent skinheads from Lyubertsy after us—young thugs who kicked us in the kidneys. We learned to tie scarves around our waists for protection.
Another time, when Vladimir Albrecht was released from prison, crowds gathered at the Yaroslavsky train station to welcome him home. The Soviet authorities responded by sending bulldozers, claiming they were for snow removal, to scatter the crowd. That evening, we went to Vladimir’s home, where his wife prepared food for everyone. I still remember how he devoured everything she placed on the table—years of hunger in the work camps left him famished.
When we were finally allowed to leave, we could only take what little we could carry. For Pavel, that meant his geography books. For me, it was my family’s treasures: a small volume of Lermontov and my grandfather’s antique Jewish Bible.
Passover
In the 1950s, Stalin's campaign against ‘cosmopolitanism’ cast a long, dark shadow over Jewish lives in the Soviet Union. Rumors spread about plans to deport Jews from major cities to Siberia.
I remember one night when an old family friend, Shura, came to visit my parents. They whispered in the kitchen, thinking I was asleep. Shura, who was Ukrainian, had been sent to Siberia to build barracks. He confided that these were meant for Jews who would be forcibly relocated. He begged my father to hide, but my father refused, saying, ‘They’ll find us wherever we go.’
Amid this fear and uncertainty, a friend of mine quietly invited me to her home. “Come tomorrow night,” she whispered. “Grandfather is making a real Passover. Don’t tell anyone, and don’t bring food.”
The next evening, I went to their apartment—a quiet, old building tucked away in a small Moscow alley. The windows were tightly covered, and everyone spoke in hushed tones. Her grandfather led the seder, explaining the story and meaning of Passover. He read from the Haggadah, pausing to explain sections to those of us who were unfamiliar with the traditions.
It felt like every word he spoke carried immense weight, transporting us far from our daily struggles. It was a night filled with reverence - we were united in our defiance of the fear that surrounded us.
That Seder, my very first, left an indelible mark on me. Seventy years have passed, but the memory remains as vivid as ever—a beacon of strength and faith in the darkest of times.