A group of Soviet Jews who want to return to the USSR from Israel protested today against the Soviet Union’s refusal to give them re-entry visas, a Vienna police spokesman told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. The group staged a sit-in in a Vienna suburb. “Mothers of the world, help us to return to our homeland,” read one poster in front of their houses.
Earlier the Vienna police barred a protest march to the Soviet Embassy and the Soviet memorial in downtown Vienna. “The demonstrators had failed to non authorities in advance,” the spokesman said. There are more than 100 Soviet Jews residing in Vienna slum dwellings wanting to return to the Soviet Union. Some of them have been waiting up to two years for re-entry visas. Only 35 Soviet Jews were so far given re-entry visas. There is no hope in sight for an early return to the USSR for the majority, diplomatic sources said.
CORRECTION
In the Aug. 13 issue of the Daily News Bulletin, Irving Blum was identified as chairman of the Institute for Jewish Life in 1972. The Institute was inadvertently linked with the Associated Jewish Charities and Welfare Fund of Baltimore. It should have stated that Mr. Blum was chairman of the Council of Jewish Federations and Welfare Funds’ Institute for Jewish Life.
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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.
