Soviet Jewish client at Vienna train station about to depart for immigration processing in Rome

Bound for Rome, a Soviet Jewish man and his luggage stand guard on the train platform. Throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s, the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) assisted Jewish émigrés who had left Soviet Russia and were awaiting immigration processing in Vienna, Rome, and Ladispoli, Italy. In 1989 alone, JDC assisted more than 68,000 people seeking visas to the United States and other countries – these documents often took months to obtain. By 1990, the Soviets began allowing immigration processing in Moscow, negating the need for stopovers in Austria and Italy.