Wife of Jewish Activist Beaten by Kgb, Arrested, Unheard from

Mrs. Elena Polsky, the wife of Soviet Jewish activist Dr. Victor Polsky, was arrested Saturday morning in front of the Moscow Synagogue, according to the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry. Mrs. Polsky, a 40-year-old communications engineer, was reportedly warned to return home and not leave her house again. When she ignored the warning later in the day, she was met by KGB agents, beaten, and taken away, according to the SSSJ.

Mrs. Polsky has not been heard from since. Her daughter, who was with her at the time, was unharmed, the SSSJ said. Dr. Polsky is now under arrest and facing trial in Moscow for allegedly running down a woman with his automobile.

The National Conference on Soviet Jewry reported meanwhile that Western correspondents trying to visit the homes of arrested Jewish activists in Moscow were barred from entering by KGB agents. Many of those currently under arrest were sponsors of an international scientific seminar that was supposed to have started today in the Moscow apartment of Prof. Alexander Voronel. But Prof. Voronel and most of the other Soviet-Jewish sponsors are in custody and the seminar is not taking place, the NCSJ reported.

It also reported that Jewish activists in Minsk, where President Nixon is visiting today, have been threatened with arrest on the fifth day of their hunger strike intended to call Nixon’s attention to their plight. One of them, Res. Col. Naum Alshansky, was quoted as saying, “We are threatened with arrest and treated this way because of Nixon’s visit.”

CONCERNED SCIENTISTS MET SISCO

The mass arrests of Jewish activists in the USSR just prior to and during the Nixon summit visit has aroused shock and outrage among supporters of Soviet Jewry. Only last week, a delegation of American scientists representing the international board of sponsors and advisors of the aborted seminar at the Voronel apartment and the executive board of the Committee of Concerned Scientists expressed their grave concern over recent events in the Soviet Union at a meeting with Acting Secretary of State Joseph J. Sisco at the State Department in Washington.

The delegation stressed that “Soviet actions against leading scientists wishing to emigrate and other outspoken scientists, violates basic human and scientific principles, Jeopardizes detente and endangers the implementation of bi-national cooperative scientific agreements,” according to Dr. Earl Callen of American University. In response to a question from Sisco, Dr. Jack Cohen of the National Institute of Health, said that while the level of persecution had increased because of President Nixon’s visit to Moscow it was a matter of “degree” since the “Soviet policy of harassment is an on-going one for these scientists; they have been subjected to varying forms and degrees of harassment for up to three years… since they applied for emigration visas.”