Jewish sources in the Soviet Union disclosed today that four Jews who participated last Sunday in Holocaust memorial services near Riga were arrested. Two were sentenced to 15-day jail terms and two were expelled from Riga. The arrests took place following a gathering of several hundred Jews at the mass grave of Jews murdered by the Nazis and their Latvian collaborators at Rumbuli.
Two of the participants, Leonid Zolotushko of Kovno, and Lazar Brauer of Wilna were stopped by police at the bus station and ordered to produce their Identity cards. According to the sources, the pair escaped in the crowd but were arrested later on Lenin Street in Riga and taken to police headquarters. The 15-day sentences were imposed for “resisting police,” the sources reported. The sources reported that Gregory Levin of Minsk, and Romuald Roitman of Wilna were also arrested in Riga and ordered to leave the city. Police confiscated two prayer books found on Roitman.
Jewish sources also reported today that Sergie Gurevitz, a Jewish physicist dismissed from his teaching post in Moscow, was threatened with a year’s imprisonment unless he reports for work as a manual laborer in a factory. Gurevitz had been supporting himself by tutoring students in physics when he was ordered to report to the local employment department to be assigned work.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
