The Torgsin, the Soviet Trading Organization, which sells goods to residents in the Soviet countries, citizens and foreigners, for foreign valuta only, announces that it is undertaking all formalities for obtaining foreign passports and visas for Soviet citizens who wish to emigrate permanently from the Soviet Union. A foreign passport will cost for workers 550 roubles, and for non-workers 1,100 roubles in gold or foreign valuta.
This announcement published by the Torgsin in all the Soviet papers has given hope to thousands of Soviet citizens who have long wanted to go abroad to join their children or other relatives, but have been unable to do so because no foreign passports were issued.
The number of potential emigrants is particularly large among the Jewish population, who, more than any other nationality in the Soviet Union, have relatives living in other countries, above all in America.
There is doubt, however, among people with a realistic view of things, whether the concession will amount to much in practice, because only those people who have wealthy relatives abroad able and willing to pay the exceptionally high sums demanded for a passport will be able to take advantage of the opportunity of emigrating. Foreign residents, who want their parents and other members of their families to join them in the countries where they are living will have to pay for passports alone thousands of dollars, and there are no people left in Soviet Russia who possess such sums themselves.
It was reported in 1929 that the Jewish Colonization Association (Ica) was opening emigration offices in Minsk, Mohilev-Podolsk, Charkoff, Odessa, Kiev, Jitomir, Vinitza, and Proskurov for the purpose of advising wives and children and parents of American residents able to obtain permission to enter America, and others wishing to emigrate to the Argentine, Brazil, Australia and other countries.
About a year abefore that, the Ica concluded an agreement with the Soviet Government, under which it was authorized to carry on relief work among Jews, desiring to emigrate from the Soviet Union, and Leo Zack, the Ica’s representative in Russia, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency at that time that the work of the emigration offices of the Ica would be carried on along the same lines as the work of the Ica emigration offices in the prewar years.
It was pointed out in the Yiddish Communist Central Organ, “Emess,” in this connection that the emigration
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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.
