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Hijack for Freedom
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Hijack for Freedom
The Memoirs of Mark Dymshits: Soviet Pilot, Jew, Breacher of the Iron Curtain
Sale price
£19.49
Regular price
£25.99
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15 June 2020, marked the fiftieth anniversary of the failed attempt of a group of fourteen Soviet Jews and two Russian freedom fighters to hijack a small plane from Leningrad Airport in order to escape the Soviet Union. At the head of this attempt was former Soviet air force pilot Major Mark Dymshits. They were sixteen: three Jewish families, including two daughters and one pregnant young woman; four Jewish refuseniks; and two Russian regime fighters. They were not part of any organization and indeed barely knew each other, but they had the same goal: to break through the prison wall of the Soviet regime and go to Israel or any other free country. The international scandal following their trial and brutal sentencing paved the way for hundreds of thousands of Jews to leave the Soviet Union. Later, the calls for freedom would crescendo, eventually bringing down the Berlin Wall. In this memoir, now appearing in print for the first time, Mark Dymshits recalls his life as a Soviet Jewish citizen and air force pilot and relates the events that led him to concoct the audacious plan that ultimately changed the world.
Mark Dymshits was a former military pilot, with experience flying the An-2s, when he volunteered his services in the hijack mission of Operation Wedding in 1970. After the attempt to smuggle Jews out of the Soviet Union failed, Dymshits was tried and sentenced to death for high treason. As a result of international pressure, Dymshits was released after four years in prison.
- ISBN-13
- 9789657023259
- Publisher
- Gefen Publishing House
- Imprint
- Gefen Publishing House (IS)
- Publication date
- 28 April 2021
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 268
- Dimensions
- 230 x 155 mm
- Language
- English
