Yelena Bonner.

On June 18 of 2011 in Boston, MA died well know dissident and critic of ruling regimes in Soviet Union and Post-Soviet countries as well as a widow of Academic Andrei Sakharov – Yelena Bonner. She was 88 years old in a frail health, however she still was active in her fight with injustice and carrying the work started by her husband for twenty something years after his death.




The life of Yelena Bonner and story of my family have a couple crossings through out the second half of the 20 century, which changed our family history the way our family member would not plan. First time it happened back in 1943 , when my Grandmother Anna Kaprav (Gilman) and Yelena Bonner were coworkers as medical personal in a military hospital train. They would pick up heavily wounded and sick soldiers treat them with a first medical aid and transport them to the hospitals behind front line. I would not say that they become best friends after that, however after the war they would meet on a couple of occasions back in sixties. My mom (she was a kid back than) , was a witness of one of this coincidence meeting then my grand mother met Yelena Bonner and her children while strolling in Moscow Sokolniki park with my mom and mom’s younger sister Olga back in early 60’s.

Medical personal on a military hospital train.

 Irkutsk September, 24 1943

My Grandma - Anna Kaprav ( 1st raw 1st from the right)

Yelena Bonner (1st raw in a center)

Back in a 70’s my parents tried to exercise the idea of leaving our dear homeland for a batter shores. Back than the Jewish emigration was in a full swing, and many members of our family as well as friends of my parents left for Israel or US. However my family was forced to stay behind for another 10 years. Why it happened, no one knows, but who will look for any rime or reason in actions of officials back in Soviet stagnation era. However, as I presume , they did have explanation to do what they did. Because right after that our family was cough by the eye of Soviet inelegance officials, they were posing as journalist-writers who were writing a book about war experiences of one of military hospital trains. And what a coincidence , they were interested only in a train where my grandma and Yelena Bonner were working as an nurses. In a beginning my grandmother was telling them a stories of courage and heroism of all members of medical group she was part of. But for some reason they experience strange interest only to one member of medical personal on a whole train, it was not a director or main physician of the train, it was no one special, it was simple nurse – Yelena Bonner. After “journalist-writers” were done with a interview, my grandma was puzzled, why do they have such a unhealthy interest to the simple nurse and overlooking so many of good stories of courage and heroism during World War 2 which would be great for a book which they writing on. And after putting two and two together, we figured out that nurse from the train and a wife of leading dissident Academic Andrei Sakharov was a same person. After death of my Grandmother and complete closing down the door of Jewish emigration from Soviet Union to the west, the interest to the book about military hospital on a tracks start to diminish and book never was published or even written. I still not sure that it was a reason to let us not to leave Soviet Union back in late 1970’s , however it seems like a good one to keep our family in USSR for another 10 years.