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Radek’s Mother in Warsaw to Push Mercy Plea to Stalin

January 29, 1937
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Klara Sobelsohn, 72-year-old Galician mother of Karl Radek, arrived here today to press her battle to save the life of the noted Soviet editor who is on trial in Moscow as an alleged Trotskyist plotter.

The Soviet Embassy, which yesterday had refused to transmit her pleas for mercy to Josef Stalin, rejected her request for an interview. Mrs. Sobelsohn thereupon sent a 300-word wire directly to Stalin, Soviet dictator, which read in part:

“Verging on the grave, an aged mother begs of the most powerful man in the world to spare the life of a son who since the age of 18 has been devoted to the cause of labor.”

Mrs. Sobelsohn previously had wired and written from her home in Tarnow, Galicia.

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