The Soviet Union has signed a new agreement with Poland which will repatriate about 500, 000 persons and specifically includes “persons of Jewish nationality who possessed Polish citizenship,” according to a Warsaw report in the New York Times today.
Polish Jews had feared that the Russians would use the technicality of Jews using Poland only as a transit point on the way to Israel, and would thus exclude Jews from repatriation. There are many thousands of Jews, the Times said living in Poland’s former eastern territories, annexed by the Russians. These Jews possess documents identifying them only as “Jewish nationals of Polish citizenship.”
The Times reported last week that Poland had stopped allowing Jewish repatriates from the USSR to leave immediately for Israel. Today’s Times report said there was speculation that “to gain the point” of including Jews in the new agreement the Polish authorities had “stopped the transit through Poland to Israel of Jews coming from the Soviet Union.”
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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.
