- Tatyana Sapunova
Tatyana Sapunova (born "c." 1974) is a
Russia nbiophysicist who was seriously injured by an act of anti-Semiticterrorism onMay 27 ,2002 , and who was subsequently awarded theOrder of Courage onJune 21 by President Vladimir Putin.Family background
Tatyana Sapunova's maternal grandfather was a Yiddish-speaking
Jew ish doctor fromBelarus , who was imprisoned in the 1930s, and then sent to fight in the war. He moved around the USSR several times, going fromKiev to theUral Mountains , and then toTomsk inSiberia . His daughter Yelena (born "c." 1947) married a Russianatheist , later saying that she had not felt her Jewishness for much of her life. Their daughter Tatyana was baptised as a Christian, and she grew up not identifying herself as a Jew, either.The bomb
On the morning of
May 27 ,2002 , Sapunova was driving along a road about 32 km (20mile s) southwest ofMoscow , with her 4-year-old daughter and 55-year-old mother Yelena as passengers, when she spotted a sign near the roadside bearing a slogan variously translated as "Death to Yids", or "Death to the Kikes". The sign had in fact been there for at least a day, but no-one had taken it down. Tatyana was greatly offended by it, stopped her car, and got out to take the sign down. However, it wasbooby-trap ped, and when she pulled on the sign, it set off abomb , resulting in severe wounds to her legs, hands, and face. She was left with burns and lost sight in one eye.Her treatment
Sapunova was treated in a hospital in Russia, where she was visited by Rabbi Berel Lazar, one of Russia's two chief
rabbi s, and the man for whom a Russian security source has claimed was the intended victim. Lazar arranged for her to be flown toIsrael for further treatment, for which various Jewish organisations offered to provide money. In Israel, Sapunova received further treatment for burns and eye damage.The Order of Courage
On
June 21 ,2002 , President Vladimir Putin awarded Sapunova theOrder of Courage . Sapunova was quoted byItar-Tass as saying, "The news was entirely surprising."External links
* " [http://www.fsumonitor.com/stories/060202Russ3.shtml Bomb Attack Shows That Russia Hasn't Rooted Out Anti-Semitism] " - an article by Sabrina Tavernise, dated June 1, 2002 (principal reference)
* " [http://www.cdi.org/russia/215-15.cfm Getting Radical About Extremism] " - a "Moscow Times " article by Robert Coalson, dated July 19, 2002 (second reference)
* " [http://www.jewishsf.com/bk020607/i18.shtml Russian law enforcement urged to curb anti-Semitic extremists] " - a "Jewish Telegraphic Agency" article by Lev Gorodetsky, undated (another reference)
* " [http://www.ncsj.org/AuxPages/060602release.shtml NCSJ Rejects Police Explanation] " - aNCSJ press release dated June 6, 2002 (yet another reference)
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