Soviet Jewish Martyrs Remembered

Some 200 persons, including Jewish labor leaders, stood at the Isaiah Wall across the street from the United Nations today, in a memorial tribute to 24 Soviet Jewish writers and community leaders who were killed by orders from Stalin 22 years ago. The memorial ceremony, sponsored by the Workmen’s Circle, also protested the present plight of Soviet Jewry and appealed to the UN to help rescue those Jews who are imprisoned and harassed in the USSR.

“When the question of Jewish rights is raised old the halls of the UN, voices become mute,” Harold Ostroff, Workmen’s Circle president, declared. “Whether it is on the subject of E1 Fatah, terrorists who shoot with Soviet weapons, or on Soviet Jews who are beaten with Soviet truncheons, the whispers are invariably aimed at sweeping justice under the proverbial rug.”

Bronx Borough President Robert Abrams and Stanley Lowell, chairman of the National Conference on Soviet Jewry, urged a continuation of efforts on behalf of Soviet Jews. Other speakers addressed the group in Yiddish. Margrita Polanskia, a newly-arrived Soviet artist, read two poems by Soviet Yiddish poets.

100 IN WASHINGTON MEETING

A similar memorial meeting was held this afternoon opposite the Soviet Embassy in Washington. About 100 persons who comprise the regular daily vigil for Soviet Jews participated in reciting the kaddish for Stalin’s victims. The participants included Arena Stage actors Halo Wines and Richard Bauer, members of the Concerned Artists for Soviet Jewry, and Herman Taube, a journalist with the New York Jewish daily. Forward. The memorial was arranged by the Jewish Community Council of Greater Washington which also appealed for support for Dr. Viktor Polsky, a Soviet Jewish activist who goes on trial in Moscow Thursday for alleged reckless driving.