Lisa Paul Talks ‘Swimming in the Daylight’

In 1983 Lisa Paul, a Russian studies major, accepted a job in Moscow as a nanny for an American executive with Caterpillar. She looked forward to an exciting, yearlong paid vacation, a chance to walk Red Square and sharpen her language skills. The Appleton native never imagined she would become prominent in the dangerous movement for human rights in the Soviet Union, a regime professing to love humanity while tormenting many of its people.

Paul recounts her journey from college student to hunger striker in Swimming in the Daylight: An American Student, A Soviet-Jewish Dissident, and the Gift of Hope. In what seemed like a random encounter, Paul hired Inna Meiman as her language tutor. Inna and her husband, Naum, were refuseniks, Russian Jews denied permission to emigrate. They were also involved in the Helsinki Watch, a human rights group trying to hold the Kremlin accountable for the Helsinki Accords, an international agreement whose signers pledged to respect human rights.

To punish Inna for activism, the regime denied her request to travel abroad for cancer treatment. When Paul returned to the United States, she launched a hunger strike that called attention to Inna’s plight. Before long her strike gained support from Roman Catholic and Jewish groups and caught the eye of USA Today and broadcast news.

“The message of my book is this,” says Paul, now a practicing attorney in Milwaukee. “Here was a woman fearing for her well-being and she lived with hope. She did not curse her life. She was not afraid. She found the daylight in her life. It’s not a Pollyanna story. There is despair. But in the midst of all that, Inna found hope.”

Lisa Paul discusses her book at 6:30 p.m. Feb. 23 at the Shorewood Public Library and 1 p.m. Feb. 27 at the Jewish Museum Milwaukee.