American Publication Says Khrushchev Has Reputation for Anti-semitism

The question of what is happening to Jews in the Soviet Union is posed in Newsweek, leading American weekly magazine, in its issue which will be on the newsstands at the end of this week. The publication reiterates the charge made yesterday by the New York Times that Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union, has a reputation for anti-Semitism.

“One of the important but generally overlooked factors in the present upheaval in world Communism is Nikita S. Khrushchev’s reputation for anti-Semitism,” Newsweek writes. “Now that de-Stalinization has lifted the lid on criticism. Western Communists–particularly the Americans–are letting off accumulated steam.

“They still are not accusing Khrushchev of anti-Semitism but their knowledge of his record unquestionably accounts for their insistence that he and his associates give some explanation of past persecutions of Soviet Jews and, by inference, some assurance that these persecutions won’t be repeated. So far they have received neither explanations nor assurances,” the article says.

“Stalin’s anti-Semitism is well-known. Not so well known, except in Communist circles, is Khrushchev’s own record,” the article continues. “As boss of the Ukraine during the war, he was almost as hard on the Jews as the invading German armies had been. Some 300 Jews were massacred in Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, at the end of 1944, while he was in charge. During the next six years, a secret Khrushchev decree forbade Jews who had fled the province during the early stages of the war to return to their homes.”