Rallies in Many Nations to Mark 20th Anniversary of Murder by Stalin of Jewish Intellectuals

The 20th anniversary of the execution of 24 Soviet Jewish intellectuals will be marked Aug. 12 with rallies, marches and appeals by Jewish organizations and leaders around the world.

The Congress of Jewish Culture here wrote to the chairman of the Soviet Writers Union reminding him that “a number of the most eminent and important Yiddish writers in the Soviet Union”–including Peretz Markish, Itzik Fefer, David Bergelson, Shmuel Persov, Der Nister (Phinehas Kahanovitz), Leib Kwitko and David Hoffstein–“were summarily put to death” in Moscow’s Liubianka Prison on Stalin’s orders. “The execution of These poets, novelists and scholars was later acknowledged by the Soviet authorities to have been a violation of Soviet justice,” wrote Dr. Israel Knox and Hyman Bass, chairman and executive director of the Culture Congress. “This admission of a stark and tragic perversion of justice,” they continued, “was made privately to the families of the victims but was never announced publicly.”

In this 20th anniversary year, Dr, Knox and Bass advised, “this gruesome deed” should be memorialized by the Soviet Writers Union “in a worthy and feasible manner,” through the issuance of “a public declaration.” The victims, they noted, “were prominent members of your own association and contributed significantly toward the advancement of Soviet culture,” It is the Culture Congress’ hope, they concluded, “that, inspired by the humanist traditions which always characterized Russian literature, you will perform this act of justice and pay homage to the memory of these men whose death was immeasurably tragic and must weigh heavily upon the conscience of all decent people within and outside the Soviet Union.” A copy of this appeal was sent to Sovietish Heimland, the USSR’s only legal Yiddish periodical.

The Workmen’s Circle, which plans to lay a wreath at the Isaiah Wall opposite the United Nations on Aug. 11, said the “gruesome” and “brutal” massacre was “one of the most monstrous instances of anti-Semitism since Hitler” and added the victims to “the long martyrology of Jewish history.” Harold Ostroff and William Stern, president and executive secretary, observed: “It is a bitter irony that the Russian government continues even today, 20 years later, and more than 19 years since the death of Stalin, to practice these injustices against someone like Esther Markish, who was widowed by Stalin in the 1952 murders.”

‘WHEN WILL RUSSIA REPENT?”

Mrs. Markish and her son, David, “are still being denied exit from the country which has put so much pain in their hearts, so that they can take up a new life in Israel,” Ostroff and Stern wrote, concluding: “When, oh when, will Russia at long last repent for what was done on that 12th day of Aug.?”

In Los Angeles, the Union of American Hebrew Congregations and the Commission on Soviet Jewry of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation-Council of Greater Los Angeles have scheduled an Aug. 12 “Night of the Murdered Poets” march. Participants will convene at Hillel House in Westwood, march through Westwood Village and return to Hillel House, where local rabbis will read from the victims’ works and lead a musical memorial.

In Toronto, there will be a commemoration service in Nathan Phillips Square on Aug. 14, sponsored by the Canadian Jewish Congress. Rachel Korn, a Yiddish poet and short-story writer who knew Markish and Bergelson and now lives in Montreal, will tell of her and their experiences. The CJC has invited all who “abhor violence and love freedom” to join in reminding the world of “this ghastly attempt deliberately to destroy the cultural soul of the Jewish people of Russia” and of the current “punishment and harassment” of those who want to leave the USSR.

In Buenos Aires, a special memorial meeting featured writer Syria Poletti and Bernardo Canal Feijoo, former Commerce Minister Dr. Alfredo Concepcion, pianist Rodolfo Caracciolo, and actress Rosa Rosen, who read Kwitko’s story “The Mother.”

The National Conference on Soviet Jewry has published a booklet, “August 12, 1952: The Night of the Murdered Poets,” containing a description of the event and its causes; poetry by Fefer, Hoffstein, Kwitko, Peretz Markish and David Markish; the text of the “Brother Jews” appeal of Sept., 1970, by 80 Moscow Jews, and an “Elegy for the Soviet Yiddish Writers” by Chaim Grade. Fefer’s “I Am a Jew” is published in English in full for the first time.

In a statement decrying the “cruel and senseless series of executions,” NCSJ chairman Richard Maass asked the Soviet government to “publicly rehabilitate” the victims’ families, allow Esther and David Markish to go to Israel, and cease its “commitment to anti-Jewish policies.”