Seven prominent physicians, four of them deans of medical schools in the Philadelphia area, have charged that the trial of Dr. Mikhail Stern in Vinnitsa was aimed solely at intimidating Jews who wish to emigrate from the Soviet Union. They made the accusation in a cable to the chief prosecutor in the Ukrainian city urging that the charges of “economic crimes” against Dr. Stern be dropped because they “make a mockery of Soviet Justice.”
The cable was signed by Drs. Joseph Dipalma, dean of the Hannemann Medical College; Paul Friedman, past president of the Philadelphia County Medical Society; Roger W. Sevy. dean of Temple University Medical School; Robert J. Slater, president and acting dean of the Medical College of Pennsylvania: Edward Stemmler, dean of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School; John Templeton, president of the Philadelphia County Medical Society; and Herbert Waxman. deputy chairman of the Temple University department of medicine.
Dr. Stern, 56, a former member of the Communist Party and former head of the clinical section of the Vinnitsa Endocrinological Hospital. is accused of accepting bribes and extorting money from patients. Charges that he had poisoned patients in order to treat them have been dropped. Stern was arrested last May after his sons. Viktor and August, applied for exit visas to go to Israel.
As his trial entered its second week, Jewish sources in the Soviet Union reported that the prosecutor has demanded a sentence of nine years at a strict regime labor camp for Dr. Stern. The sentence was demanded despite the fact that virtually all of the prosecution witnesses have retracted testimony damaging to Dr. Stern.
500 DOCTORS URGE STERN’S FREEDOM
In a related development, the Greater New York Conference on Soviet Jewry reported that 500 doctors in the metropolitan area have called on Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger to immediately intervene on behalf of Dr. Stern. In petitions sent to Kissinger by Rep. Lester L. Wolff (D.NY). the doctors denounced the Soviet’s persecution of Dr. Stern as a “moral outrage and a travesty of Justice.” The petitions were collected by the New York Medical Committee on Soviet Jewry, an affiliate of the GNYCSJ. Dr. Lowell E. Bellin, the city’s health commissioner. is honorary chairman of the committee. Dr. Samuel Korman is chairman.
In a statement. Dr. Bellin and Dr. Korman said: “The cause of humanity and Justice demands that Dr. Stern be released and the charges against him dropped. This is our appeal to Dr. Kissinger and we are hopeful that he will take appropriate action to help us achieve this goal.” In addition, the two doctors stated: “There must be an enormous public outcry among his (Dr. Stern’s) colleagues in the medical profession here and around the world, to pressure the Soviets to give Dr. Stern his freedom.”
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.
