The American Feberation of Labor yesterday appealed to the Senate to ratify the United Nations Convention against Genocide and charged that the Soviet Union and East Europan nations wore practicing “cultural pogroms” against their Jewish populations, The AFL also called for prompt international action to check genocide and the develppments in the U.S.S.R. The statement, issued by the AFL executive council, said:
“Behind the Iron Curtain–and particularly in Soviet Russia–governmental authorities have developed a fiendish plan based on oultural ground” and have launched a terrific campaign to wipe out entire grous of their population.
“The new drive to make impossible the continued existence of Jews in Russia and in its satellite areas is going on under the flag of a savage war aginst socalled cosmopolitanism.
“Their crime is that they have, or might develop, a culture different from the ultra-nationalist and imperialistic brand supported by the ruling party, by the totalitarianism dictatorship in Russia.
“A vicious campaign is afoot to chase out all Jews from employment in ocoupations entailing contact with the mass of people in the U.S.S.R. or with the people of other countries.
“All citizens of Jewish origin have been eliminated from the Soviet occupation adminstrations in Austria and Germany. Jews are no longer permitted to be members of Soviet delegations and foreign missions or to undergo training for diplomatic service.
“The dour to employment in the Soviet Ministry of Foreign Trade has been slamed hard in the face of Russia’s Jews–on cuitural grounds. The same process of elimination of Jews continues ruthlessly in the ranks of the ruling Communist party and its government apparatus.
“We must keep in mind that in countries where one party has a monopoly of all political power and where the government dictatorship is the sole employer, such ‘cultural’ pograms against intellectuals and their followers mean virtually the sentencing of these individual hman beings to death–by enforcing conditions which make life impossible, by ostracizing them and depriving them of all means of livelihood.”
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