Josef Zissels, a former Soviet political dissident, Vice-President of the World Jewish Congress, Chairman of the Vaad (Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine), Chairman of the Euro-Asian Jewish Congress, Freedom Prize, and Order for Courage winner visited the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre (UCRDC) in Toronto, Canada to give a 3 hour interview for its Oral History Archive. He was interviewed by Iroida Wynnyckyj, UCRDC Archivist and Christina Isajiw, the former Head of the Human Rights Commission of the World Congress of Free Ukrainians. Isajiw had worked on behalf of Zissels while he was a political dissident in the 1980s and presented him with a book on dissidents that was used in the West to aid their release entitled, Persecution of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group, in which his photo and bio appear as a member of that group.
Written and translated by Isis Wisdom and edited by Voices of Ukraine
