Soviet Jewish Family Asks Thant to Help Relieve ‘immeasurable Suffering’

A Soviet Jewish family of three in Riga has written to United Nations Secretary General U Thant to help relieve the “immeasurable suffering” that has befallen them and their relatives as a result of “unmotivated” refusals by Soviet authorities to let them emigrate to Israel. A copy of the letter was released here. The pleaders–Rakhil. Benno and Josif Shetsen–wrote: “For all these torturing long years the three of us have been applying with requests for emigration permits to the proper Soviet organ, the Ovir. However, in all the past years we invariably received the same unmotivated answer, a refusal.” They said they had concluded that “unfortunately nobody is interested in the fact that every refusal causes immeasurable suffering to the three of us and to our relations in Israel.” As a result of a petition filed by them last year, they wrote, “our only son was expelled from the Riga Polytechnical Institute because of the serious nervous shocks that were the consequences of the refusal. His health has greatly deteriorated…” (In London, the publication “Focus on Soviet Jewry” has put out a special issue containing the full text of the recent appeal to the Seventh International Symposium on the Chemistry of Natural Sciences by 28 Jewish Riga scientists. The appeal urged the conferants to raise their voices in support of Soviet Jewish rights.)