Edward Trepper, the 35-year-old son of one of the master spies of World War II, began a hunger strike at the Walling Wall today to dramatize his efforts to get Polish authorities to allow his ailing parents to come to Israel. He told newsmen that he would fast “as long as my strength holds out.” His father, Leopold Trepper, headed the Soviet espionage network known as the “Red Orchestra” in Western Europe during the war in one of the most successful wartime intelligence gathering operations on record. Now 68, the elder Trepper and his wife, Luba, live in Warsaw and are reportedly in failing health.
Trepper, whose work on behalf of Soviet intelligence was rewarded by Stalin with a ten year term without trial at the notorious Lubianka prison after World War II, was cleared in 1955. According to his son, he was permitted to visit Israel in 1964 but had to leave his wife behind as a hostage for his return. The Treppers have been trying to leave Poland since the 1967 Six-Day War.
His son, who has been in Israel for seven months, said here that his parents told him there was no substance to the official claim by Polish officials that Leopold Trepper’s knowledge of the workings of Soviet espionage during World War II came within the province of sensitive security information and made it undesirable that he leave Poland. Edward said he believes the Warsaw authorities are refusing his parents the right to emigrate because they fear their prestige will suffer if a man of Trepper’s Communist background choses to leave Poland for Israel.
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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.
