Prominent personalities associated with the Dnipro include well-known public figures, representatives of business, science and art. However, there are those whose names, unfortunately, are little known in their hometown.
Soviet lawyer and human rights activist, American memoirist and radio host on human rights issues. She is known for her participation in the trials of Soviet dissidents in the 1960s and early 1970s. Member of the Moscow Helsinki Group since 1989. It's all about Dina Kaminskaya.
Dina Kaminskaya was born on January 13, 1919 in Katerynoslav. Her parents, Isaak Kaminsky and Olga Kaminskaya, came from poor provincial Jewish families. Despite his financial situation, her father and older sister became lawyers, this fact had a great impact on Kaminskaya's choice of profession. In 1937 she entered the Moscow Law Institute. After her graduation in 1941 she began practicing law. She was a member of the Moscow City Bar Association. Kaminskaya played the role of a kind of pioneer of the Institute of Soviet Advocacy, because the law legitimizing the status of a lawyer in the justice of the USSR, appeared during her student life (USSR SNK resolution of 16.08.1939), i.e. two years before her professional career.
Kaminskaya defended Volodymyr Bukovsky (case of demonstrations on January 22, 1967), Yuri Galanskov ("Trial of Four'', 1967), Mustafa Dzhemilev and Ilya Gabay (1969-1970) and many others. Her speeches were transcribed and reprinted on home typewriters, as were dozens of other banned books. Thus, her speeches "Justice or Massacre?", "Trial of Four", "Noon" and "Tashkent Trial" were published in samizdat. Since 1971, Kaminska has been barred from participating in political trials.
In 1977, under threat of arrest, she was forced to emigrate to the United States with her husband, Konstantin Simis, a well-known Soviet jurist. Already in exile, Kaminskaya wrote the book "Lawyer's Notes" and was the host of human rights programs on the radio stations "Freedom" and "Voice of America".
Dina Kaminskaya died on July 7, 2006 in Falls Church, Virginia, USA.