Details of the KGB interrogation of Moscow Jews who are organizing a symposium on the state of Jewish culture in the Soviet Union, were published here today. The newspaper Maariv also published what it said was the contents of criminal file No. 41035 opened by the KGB against the organizers who are charged with “spreading material which slanders the Soviet Union and Soviet society.”
The material covers the questioning which began last Friday and is continuing in Moscow today and tomorrow. According to Maariv it was smuggled to Western sources by Pavel Abramowitz, one of the organizers of the symposium scheduled to be held Dec. 21-23. The charges and interrogations are aimed at banning the symposium on grounds that it is influenced by anti-Soviet elements abroad, the nature of the questions indicated.
Abramowitz, a 36-year-old electronics engineer who has been seeking an exit visa since 1970, took detailed notes during 4 1/2 hours of interrogation and managed to retain them. The notes taken by others were confiscated by the Soviet authorities, Maariv said. According to the report, the questioning started Friday when Joseph Beilin, his wife Dina and her mother, Michael Tzlenoff, Felix Kandel, Arkadi Meir and Yuli Kosharovski were ordered to appear at KGB headquarters.
QUESTIONED FOR EIGHT HOURS
On the same day, Vladimir Prestin, Vladimir Lazarus and Abramowitz were summoned to the Attorney General’s office. Prestin and Lazarus were questioned for over eight hours by senior officials, surnamed Pantyochin and Borowik. Abramowitz was interrogated by an official surnamed Laritchev. The latter presented him with 60 questions relating to the symposium and its organizers.
Abramowitz’s first reply was that the symposium and its organizers were in no way connected to the charges of spreading slanderous material against the USSR. He replied to most of the subsequent questions by referring to his initial reply, Maariv reported.
He was asked several leading questions, such as “How did you receive instructions that directed the work of the committee (of organizers) from foreign elements? Did you receive instructions through representatives of the Western imperialist news agencies working in Russia? Have you or your colleagues received recommendations or instructions from abroad? Have you been asked to relay anti-Soviet material to foreign representatives?”
Abramowitz also was asked about Jewish publications in the USSR. He replied that these publications contained no anti-Soviet material. According to the information relayed by Abramowitz, three other organizers–Eliyahu Assas, Joseph Begon and Larissa Vilenskaya–were ordered to appear for questioning today and Prof. Benjamin Fein, chairman of the organizing committee, and a person surnamed Wolbowski were ordered to appear tomorrow. (See related story P. 3.)
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