Beyla and Gershon Feigon, olim from the U.S., have just learned that their son, Larry, has been released from imprisonment in Saigon where he was arrested when Communist forces took over the South Vietnamese capital early this year. He is expected to join them and his sister, Zvia, in Jerusalem shortly.
The Feigons, who came here from New York, received word from the U.S. Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand last Tuesday that their son was alive and well despite his ordeal. But only after they spoke to him by telephone did his father go to the Western Wall to offer a prayer of thanks.
Larry Feigon, 33, was one of 42 Americans who were unable to escape from Saigon when victorious Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces entered that city. A family that managed to reach Bangkok informed the Feigons last August that their son was a captive.
The Communist authorities accused him of working for the CIA, although Feigon, an economist, insisted he was a teacher working in Bangkok who happened to be in Saigon by chance when it fell. His imprisonment reportedly included 51 days in solitary confinement and a starvation died. He was finally transferred to a Red Cross station, unconscious and emaciated but was not permitted to leave South Vietnam until a week ago. Larry Feigon, who worked for the Latin American department of the Chase Manhattan Bank in New York, came to Israel shortly after the Six-Day War where he worked as a volunteer in a kibbutz.
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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.
