Leaders of the All-Party Parliamentary Committee for the Release of Soviet Jewry have returned from a visit to Vienna, where they observed the arrival of Soviet emigrants bound for Israel and talked with the olim, officials of the Jewish Agency and the Israeli ambassador.
MP Patrick Cormack, chairman of the committee, said on behalf of Hugh Dykes, Peter Archer, Greville Janner and himself that the visit had “brought home in a new and moving way the stark realities of life in Soviet Russia and of the difficulties facing any citizen who wishes to worship and maintain his own special culture and traditions.”
Cormack said the parliamentary group talked with emigrants who had waited for years for exit visas, who had lost their jobs after applying for visas and who had had their homes ransacked and their possessions confiscated by the authorities. On arriving at the Vienna way station en route to Israel, he reported, they were relieved, happy, and incredulous at their success in leaving Russia. Cormack said the Soviet government would fail to deter “hundreds of thousands of Jews” from leaving.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
