No one in Minsk, not even the Jewish leaders, expects that the fourteen leaders of the Minsk Jewish community, including a number of rabbis, who were arrested last week by the Russian secret police on charges of counter-revolutionary activity, will be executed as it has been extensively reported and rumored in the foreign press, the correspondent of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned after a long distance telephone call to Minsk from Moscow in which he spoke to a prominent Jewish leader there.
As a matter of fact the government’s attitude towards those under arrest has become, if anything, milder, and their relatives are permitted to see them by special appointment. The Jewish population in Minsk is less attentive to the arrests and to what may come of them than the Jews abroad.
The reports from Warsaw that leaders of the Minsk Jewish community will be shot should be treated with a grain of salf because they are greatly exaggerated. The Jewish leader with whom the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s correspondent spoke was not controlled and he could tell the truth if the situation were really serious. He also said that Chief Rabbi Gluskin and Rabbi Kopelovitch may be released this week.
Moscow officialdom is laughing at the report that “twenty-five rabbis in Minsk have been executed.” A high official told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency’s correspondent today that this story was prevaricated in Warsaw just as the Riga report a week ago that 500 naval officers had been shot was prevaricated. He declared that both were absolutely false.
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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.
