Ilya Selvinsky, noted Soviet Jewish poet and a member of the ill-fated Arctic expedition commanded by Professor Schmidt, paid a glowing ## to Boris Mogilewitch, Jewish supply officer of the expedition, who was killed when the icebreaker Tchelushkin was crushed in the Arctic ice-fields. “He was a hero,” Selvinsky declared, “and he died at his post performing to the last the duty which had been placed on him.”
When it was realized that the Tchelushkin was sinking, the entire party consisting of 103 people was safely landed on an ice-floe, but Mogilewitch insisted on remaining behind to see that supplies for the party were safely landed. He was the last one to leave the ship and was killed when a plank fell on him.
The expedition is now stranded on an ice-floe in the most inaccessible part of the Arctic Ocean, although Soviet airmen have succeeded in removing to safety the eight women, wives of the members of the expedition and two babies, one of them born on the Tchelushkin.
ANXIETY FELT
Great anxiety is felt for the safety of the men on the ice-floe and if they survive and are rescued it will be due mainly to Mogilewitch’s work by which all the expedition supplies, food, sleeping bags, tents and a wireless set through which the group maintains contact with the outside world, were safely landed.
Mogilewitch, who was only twenty-six years old, was already known as a daring Polar explorer and bear hunter. His associates ## him as a man of exceptional courage.
The Soviet government has appointed a special committee of five ##head the rescue work. Two of ## five, Joseph Unschlicht, chief ## civil fleet and Joffe, assistant the Department of North ## are Jews.
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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.
