Appeals Made for Release of Boris Azernikov, Mikhail Korenblit

The release of two Jewish dentists who are ill in a Soviet prison while serving hard labor terms is being sought by the American Dental Association in conjunction with its counterpart organizations abroad. The president of the ADA, Dr. Louis A. Saporito, has petitioned top Soviet and U.S. officials and international organizations for the re-lease of the two men, Boris Azernikov and Mikhail Korenblit, who were sentenced in 1971 to three-and-a-half years and seven years respectively on charges of anti-Soviet activity. Both men had sought to emigrate to Israel.

Dr. Azernikov’s family was permitted to emigrate last year and Dr. Korenblit’s wife, Polina, led a silent vigil before the Soviet Embassy on behalf of the two dentists on Feb. 22. Mrs. Korenblit was joined at the vigil by 22 prominent dentists of varying religious and racial backgrounds, representing organized dental groups who are appealing for amnesty for the prisoners.

In a letter to Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, Dr. Saporito noted; “An act of amnesty for doctors Azernikov and Korenblit would be humanely appropriate as a part of the commemoration of the birth of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics….It is both a professional and a humanitarian obligation that causes us to make our voice heard on behalf of our imprisoned colleagues.”

Copies of the letter went to President Nixon, Anatoly Dobrynin, the Soviet Ambassador in Washington, the Interior and Health Ministers in the Soviet Union, the president of the Soviet Red Cross, and the International Committee on Red Cross, UN Secretary General Kurt Waldheim and the director general of the World Health Organization.