Soviet Jewish sources said today that three Jewish political prisoners–Lev Yagman, Victor Boguslavsky and Hillel Shur–have been returned from prison to the Potma forced-labor camp in Mordovia. Their relatives were not granted regulation visits, the sources added, nor were the relatives of prisoners Wolf and Yisroel Zalmanson. In the first three cases, no reasons were given for the refusal, the sources said; in the other two cases, the reason was that the Zalmansons were “disturbing the order of the camp.”
Meanwhile, prisoners Lassal Kaminsky, Arkady Shpilberg and Boris Penson have been returned to Potma from the Saransk prison. Shpilberg wrote to Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot (Ghetto Fighters) in Israel, thanking them for “adopting” him. Concurrently, the Mordovian Deputy Interior Minister, surnamed Orlov, said mail was being deliberately withheld from Jewish prisoners in certain circumstances. Sources also reported that the case of the Bernstein baby, scheduled to go to trial yesterday in Kiev has again been postponed for a week. Simon Bernstein, who now lives in Israel, and his wife, who is in Kiev, are seeking authority to have their small daughter accompany her mother to Israel. Mrs. Bernstein’s first husband is trying to block the girl’s aliya.
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
