Four leading members of France’s intellectual community have addressed a petition to visiting Polish Communist Party Secretary Edward Gierek on behalf of Leopold Trepper, the World War II master spy who has been denied a visa to leave Poland. The petition was in support of Trepper’s request to come to Paris for the libel trial he instituted against Jean Rochet, head of the French espionage organization, who had accused Trepper of collaboration with the Gestapo during the war.
The signers were Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone Signoret and Yves Montand. Mme de Beauvoir today visited four members of the Leopold Trepper Defense Committee who began a hunger strike Monday to coincide with Gierek’s visit to Paris. She encouraged them to continue their fast as long as Gierek is here. Gilles Perrault, head of the committee, and author of a book about Trepper and the “Red Orchestra,” predicted success. “Even if Poland forbids Trepper from coming to Paris, they will sooner or later let him emigrate to Israel,” he said.
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