Forfeiting Citizenship As Price of Going to Settle in Siberia: Lithuanian Government’s Terms for Jew

The first group of Jewish artisans recruited in Lithuania for the Jewish settlement region of Bureya, in Siberia, by M. Raschkes, one of the leaders of the Ozet, the Jewish Colonisation Society of Russia, who has been engaged for several months in a recruiting campaign in Lithuania and Latvia, left today for Bureya.

The Lithuanian Government has given them permission to go on condition that they surrender their Lithuanian citizenship.

Mr. Raschkes claimed recently on his return to Moscow, (reported in the J.T.A. Bulletin of June 18th) that 300 Lithuanian Jews had signed on to go out to Bureya. Most of them are experienced builders, he said.

In addition to carpenters, tilers, and plasterers, Mr. Raschkes said, he had been recruiting blacksmiths and draymen, and also men experienced in handling logs on the river for the Bureya lumbering industry. Most of the Lithuanian immigrants are young men between 20 and 30 years of age, he added, and all have expressed willingness to undertake the difficult life of the pioneer in the Siberian colonies.

The arrival in Moscow of a first group of Jewish emigrants from the Argentine for Bureya was also reported in the J.T.A. Bulletin of June 1st. The group, it was stated, consisted of 30 members and 14 more were said to be at Hamburg on their way. All were said to be skilled builders, who had brought their own tools. The editor of the Argentine Communist daily “Red Star”, Mr. Chaim Rosen, accompanied the group, and a second group of 30 members was reported to be on the way.

An appeal to Jews in South America and in all other countries to start a large scale emigration movement into Russia, particularly into Bureya, was made about the same time by the Jewish Communist leader Dimanstein in the “Emes”. Only such Jews should be encouraged to emigrate to Russia, he said, who are known to be favourable to the Soviets.