Two American Roman Catholic nuns issued an urgent appeal today for massive interventions in the coming two-week period on behalf of Vladimir and Maria Slepak, Ida Nudel and other Soviet Jews and Christian dissidents facing trials in the Soviet Union.
"We must have action now before their fate is sealed," the Sisters stated at a news conference at the headquarters of the American Jewish Committee. Their appeal was part of an effort of the National Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry in support of the more than 30 long-time Jewish activists whom the Sisters met while in the Soviet Union recently.
Sister Ann Gillen, executive director of the Task Force, stated: "We are outraged by the Soviet Union’s attack upon its Jews through false accusations, unjust and cruel arrests and rigged and closed trials." The Task Force was organized in 1972 by the National Catholic Conference for Inter-Racial Justice and the American Jewish Committee. The Task Force’s executive chairman is Rabbi A. James Rudin, of the AJCommittee.
Sister Gloria Coleman, of the Cardinal’s Commission on Human Relations and the Philadelphia Interreligious Task Force on Soviet Jewry, reported: "Soviet Jews fear they have been forgotten–that people in the West have been deceived by the Soviet’s manipulation of emigration rates. There is a slight increase in the number of persons receiving visas–and the West is beguiled into thinking that conditions are better for Soviet Jews. They are not."
Both Sisters underscored the urgent need for an immediate response by Western public opinion. They stated: "Ida Nudel and Vladimir Slepak have only about two weeks left for appeals to be made in their behalf. If we fail, then they begin the long four and five-year exile sentences in the farthest part of Siberia. Iosif Begun and Anatoly Shcharansky face their trials at any time now. Unless there is a massive outcry, they will all be railroaded by the Soviet secret police state."
The American nuns described tragic circumstances in a number of Jewish families, arising from broken promises by the Soviet government that they would be allowed to emigrate. They also described their own ordeal at the hands of the Soviet customs officials, which included a body search by a police matron who forced Sister Gloria into a room and locked the door when she demanded witnesses. On their return to the United States, the nuns lodged protests at the State Department in Washington.
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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.
