The president of a synagogue in Sverdlovsk, a Soviet regional capital in the Urals, and several Jewish friends of the president, were murdered and robbed of funds they had accumulated for the construction of a new synagogue in that city, according to reliable information reaching London today.
The murders were investigated by highest government officials from Moscow, the report stated, the killers were caught and convicted, and were given prison terms of six years each. No names or numbers–either of the victims or of the murderers–were given in the report. The killers had been caught and brought to trial by officials of the KGB, the Soviet political security police.
The murderers had told the court their act was motivated solely by a desire to obtain the money accumulated for the projected new synagogue, and not by anti-Semitism. Among the victims was one non-Jew, a physician, who happened to be in the home of the synagogue official the night the murders were committed. The city of Sverdlovsk has a total population of 853,000, including 16,000 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.
