U.S. Jewish Groups Ask Moscow to Release Exiled Jews

The American Jewish Committee declared today that the current revelations in the Communist press about past excesses of Soviet anti-Semitism can be regarded only as “camouflage and propaganda so long as tens of thousands of Jews still are held in Russian prisons and slave labor camps on charges publicly confirmed now as completely and utterly false.”

In a statement released by Irving M. Engel, president of the American Jewish Committee, the AJC declared: “Only by releasing the tens of thousands of Jews they now hold prisoner solely because of their religion, can the Soviet Government hope to prove that they have abandoned anti-Semitism as an official or unofficial government policy. Even though the charges against these prisoners are now confirmed as false, there is nothing to indicate that the Soviet Government officially has taken any steps to correct these unjust imprisonments.

“If it wishes to show the world that its ‘new look’ is genuine, the Russian Government at least must make partial amends for all their anti-Semitic excesses of the past. This can be done by the releasing of all persons unjustly imprisoned, by publicly repudiating its shocking methods of discrimination against, and persecution of, minorities, including Jews, and repairing, insofar as possible, the injuries suffered by innocent victims in the past.”

The Jewish Labor Committee announced today that it is arranging a “public trial” on April 30 in New York “to focus attention on the incontrovertible tragedy that Jewish schools are still closed. Jewish newspapers are still not permitted to be published, Jewish books are not issued, and that the majority of the Jewish writers and poets are still kept in cultural exile–if in fact they are alive.” Adolph Held, national chairman of the JLC, said that names of “witnesses” for the “public trial” will be made available within the coming week.