The Voice of America today broadcast to the Soviet population a denunciation of the Soviet Government’s show trials of persons accused of “economic crimes,” charging that these trials angled against Jews and are thus infecting the Russians with anti-Semitism.
The broadcast, made in the Russian language, carried a statement on the issue made in New York yesterday by Adolph Held, national chairman of the Jewish Labor Committee. “The fact that about 60 per cent of those convicted of crimes against property in the USSR are Jews,” Mr. Held stated, “is played up by the Soviet press. This seems to be another manifestation of Soviet anti-Semitism.” He pointed out that over half of the Soviet citizens recently sentenced to death for “economic crimes” were Jews.
(Moscow dispatches yesterday reported the sentencing of two more Jews to death, and the imposition of prison terms of from seven to 15 years on four other Jews. The death sentence was imposed by a court in the Ukraine on Y. M. Poisner and S. B. Kuris).
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
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.
