The execution by the Soviet authorities of Victor Alter and Henryk Erlich, two internationally-known leaders of the Jewish Socialist Party “Bund” of Poland, was reported today by reliable quarters on the basis of information reaching here from Russia. They were tried and convicted in December, 1941 “for spreading propaganda among Soviet troops for the conclusion of a separate peace with Germany,” the report said.
The two leaders of the Jewish labor movement escaped from the Nazis at the end of 1939. They were arrested by the Soviet authorities in the eastern part of pre-war Poland which was then occupied by the Russian Army. In September, 1941 they were released as the result of the pact between the Soviet and the Polish Governments which granted amnesty to all Polish citizens who were in Russia at that time. Several weeks later they were re-arrested in Kuibyshev.
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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.
