WIESEL EXPECTS A MEETING WITH GORBACHEV
NOBEL PRIZE WINNER ENCOURAGED BY 5-DAY JOURNEY TO SOVIET UNION

Author: By Richard Higgins, Globe Staff

Date: Tuesday, October 28, 1986
Page: 3
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN

Wiesel also said that despite the chill in US-Soviet relations, he was ''deeply moved" and encouraged by his five-day visit to the Soviet Union on behalf of Soviet Jews and non-Jewish dissidents.

The 58-year-old author and chronicler of the Holocaust flew from Moscow to New York early yesterday, then flew to Boston to teach a class at Boston University and to lecture last night.

Wiesel, a critic of Moscow's reluctance to allow more Soviet Jews to emigrate, had asked to meet with Gorbachev to plead their case. Jewish emigration has dropped from 51,000 in 1979 to about 1,000 a year.

He said a "special emissary" brought a personal note from Gorbachev apologizing for not meeting him last week and saying that the Soviet leader looked forward to seeing Wiesel "as soon as possible."

Wiesel, a survivor of Auschwitz and Buchenwald, said he considered Gorbachev's reply "positive" in light of the diplomatic fighting between Washington and Moscow. "I think he responded because it involved human rights and human feelings," Wiesel said.

Wiesel said it was easy for him to empathize with Soviet Jews prevented
from joining their families in the United States and other countries.

"I know what separation means," he said. "I know what it means to be heartbroken."

As chairman of the US Holocaust Memorial Council, Wiesel went to the Soviet Union officially to seek Soviet participation in a conference on non-Jewish victims of Nazism, which he is organizing for early next year. Wiesel said the discussions were fruitful but marked by "disagreements," particularly over Soviet recognition of Jewish suffering during World War II.

However, Wiesel also spent much of the time meeting with Soviet Jews and other dissidents, including 20 Soviets who are married or engaged to Americans but have been denied permission to emigrate.

The meetings took place in private homes, including that of the US ambassador, Arthur Hartman, and at a celebration of the feast of Simchat Torah at Moscow's main synagogue. Wiesel said about 20,000 Jews had gathered at the synagogue and on the streets outside for the feast.

Wiesel said he was not discouraged by the lack of replies from Soviet authorities to his appeals. "My whole idea was to issue appeal after appeal," he said. "In any case, one has to try."

He said being in Moscow at a low point in US-Soviet relations was both ''despairing but somehow hopeful. I think a lot of people in the Soviet Union are more hopeful just by knowing that somebody cares for them."

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