Soviet Jewry to Be Issue when Kosygin Arrives in Denmark

Foreign Minister K.B. Andersen of Denmark promised today to raise the question of Soviet Jews with Premier Alexei Kosygin when he visits Denmark beginning this Thursday. Andersen made the pledge at a meeting with three representatives of Danish Jewish youth organizations. They asked him to intervene with Kosygin specifically on behalf of Silva Zalmanson Kuznetsov, one of the Leningrad hijack trial defendants who is serving a 10-year sentence in the Potma labor camp and is said to be gravely ill.

The Foreign Minister told the youths that the matter of Soviet Jews was discussed by the Danish Cabinet and that the Cabinet authorized him to bring it up with Kosygin. The delegation that visited Andersen today consisted of Finn Altschuler of the Jewish Youth Association. Flemming Nivaro of the Jewish Students Club and Michael Melchior of Bnai Akiva, the son of Denmark’s Chief Rabbi Bent Melchior. They brought a petition addressed to the Danish Cabinet which described the cultural and religious deprivations suffered by Jews in the USSR. It contained 26,000 signatures. There are only 6,000 Jews in Denmark out of a population of nearly five million.

Thousands of stickers bearing the slogan “Kosygin–Let My People Go” began to appear on cars in the capital today in preparation for Kosygin’s visit. Representatives of Jewish organizations announced plans for a torchlight march from the main synagogue to the city hall square Thursday night and smaller demonstrations for Soviet Jews at the airport when Kosygin lands. Jewish sources here said the campaign directed at Kosygin would have the same impact as that which greeted Soviet Communist Party Secretary Leonid Brezhnev on his visit to France last month.