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Crowd in Moscow Stadium Hears Poets Assail Soviet Anti-semitism

February 5, 1963
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About 9, 000 persons yesterday crowded a Moscow stadium where poets read their works which, under the guise of attacking Stalinism, castigated anti-Semitism in the Soviet Union.

One of the poets, the famous Alexander Beilin, read a poem entitled “Pappa’s Friends, ” in which he noted that the Stalin regime carried out attacks “against various groups. ” His verse referred to “hypocrites” who were Stalinists and now “weep over their victims.”

Two women poets, Rina Kazakova and Yuna Maritz, spoke of anti-Semitism openly. Miss Kazakova read a poem hitting at the Nazi holocaust, declaring that “Jews and Christians mixed their blood, ” and asserting that her grandfather was a Jew. Miss Maritz read a poem eulogizing Anne Frank, The crowd in the stadium, filled to capacity, greeted Miss Maritz’s poem with “stunned, dramatic silence of approbation,” according to the Moscow dispatch received here.

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