The American Jewish Committee today expressed “deep concern” that Soviet Russia may intensify its anti-Semitic campaign “now that there is a consolidation of power by the Red leaders, including Premier Georgi Malenkov, who organized the major anti-Jewish drive in the last months of the Stalin regime.”
Irving M. Engel, president of the AJC, said that the “rehabilitation of Semyon D. Ignatiev and his return to a party position of power,” raises the possibility that “anti-Semitism may continue as the official policy of the Soviet Government.” Mr. Ignatiev is now first secretary of the Communist Party of the Bashir Autonomous Republic in the USSR.
Recalling that Mr. Ignatiev was the Minister of State Security in Moscow when the false accusations against the Jewish doctors in Moscow were contrived, Mr. Engel said: “The rehabilitation of Semyon D. Ignatiev and his return to a position of power is cause for deep concern that anti-Semitism may continue as the official policy of the Soviet Government. The fact that the Malenkov government openly rewards the perpetrators of the worse excesses of the Stalin regime is an ominous portent.”
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