Andre Blumel, former president of the French Zionist Federation, and one of the leaders of France-USSR, an organization devoted to friendship between the two countries, has requested that Soviet authorities erect a monument to Jewish martyrs at Babi Yar. Babi Yar is a ravine on the outskirts of Kiev where more than 100,000 Jews were killed in a mass-murder outrage during the Nazi occupation of the city.
M. Blumel, just returned from a visit to the Soviet Union, announced that request today. He said he had first raised the issue in Moscow with Chairman Pelzin, of the USSR Committee on Religious Affairs. Mr. Pelzin told him, M. Blumel said, that the matter did not fall within his department’s jurisdiction, and advised that the French Jewish leader contact the Ukrainian authorities instead. Consequently, M. Blumel said today, he has written with regard to this issue to the authorities of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, at Kiev, and expects a reply.
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