Anti-semitism Growing in “iron Curtain” Countries, A.J.C. Charges

Anti-Semitism is becoming more and more prevalent in the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, the American Jewish Committee charged today in issuing its latest bulletin on “Jews Behind the Iron Curtain,” the seventh of a series in the last three years.

Citing scores of incidents and official actions of the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Eastern Germany, Poland, Hungary and Rumania in the last few months, the American Jewish Committee concluded that a vast purge is now being conducted in many of these countries against their Jewish citizens.

The material obtained, most of it from Soviet or satellite sources, leads to the conclusion that the Communist governments have stared an extensive campaign to sweep Jews out of public office and to reduce them to the status of serfs, the A. J. C. indicates. Some of the incidents cited by the American Jewish Committee bulletin as indicative of the new Soviet policy include:

1. Deportation to Siberia from the western border territories of Russia of many thousands of Jews since the summer of 1947.

2. Mass deportations in Hungary of nearly 100,000 persons from large cities, the majority of whom are Jews. The Hungarian government “confiscated” the properties of these deportees to sell them on the world markets in order to obtain foreign exchange. The deportations are continuing.

3. A complete purge of all Jews in Czechoslovakia from government posts, their expulsion from the Communist Party and their imprisonment under charges of “treason.”

4. The extensive anti-Jewish purge against Jewish officers and men in the Soviet army, including removal of Jews from the Soviet occupation army in Germany and the arrest of many Jewish soldiers and their deportation to Russian slave labor camps.

5. Liquidation of Jewish cooperatives in Poland and issuance of decrees ordering Jews to work in heavy industries designated by the government.

6. Several waves of arrests of Rumanian Jews and their deportations to the salt mines of Akna Slatina, and to a large new concentration camp in Ruda-Banya. The mass deportations of “unreliable” elements, mostly Jews, from large Rumanian cities.

7. Liquidation of all Jewish organizations and their press in Russia and transformation of the few remaining organizations and periodicals in satellite countries into organs of Communist propaganda.

8. Continued refusal of Russia and her satellites to allow free immigration of Jews to Israel.

9. Encouragement by the officials in the Soviet sector of Berlin of the establishment of the People’s Freedom Party with a membership of former Nazis, including a former SS general.

10. Elimination of the names of almost all Jewish writers, artists and scholars from the new edition of the Soviet Encyclopedia.

The A. J. C. revealed also that the Russians are now carrying out in their zone the policy they announced March 10, 1952, which asked for the remilitarization of a “unified” Germany and restoration of full rights to former German officers and Nazis.