Fifteen German Jews who survived the Nazi regime and years of imprisonment in the Soviet Union have been freed among the German prisoners of war and war criminals whom the Russians have released in recent months. All were released because they claimed German citizenship rather than because of the hardships they suffered. Some have been in continuous custody for 20 years.
Several of the released Jews report that many Jews from Eastern and Central European countries remain in Soviet custody.
The fifteen were arrested and imprisoned by Soviet authorities for a variety of reasons. One was arrested while travelling through the Soviet Union en route to Iran; another was arrested for “sabotage” shortly after the Red Army released him from a Nazi concentration camp; a third was arrested in East Berlin in 1946 on charges of “espionage”. One of the Jews is a former head of the Communist Party in Hesse who was an acquaintance of Noel Field; he was arrested and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Vorkuta labor camp
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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.
