More than 33,000 Soviet children whose “mother tongue” is German are being taught German in the Soviet Republic of Kazakstan, according to information received here today through an article in a German-language weekly, Neues Leben, published in Moscow by Pravda, the official organ of the USSR Communist Party.
Observers here hoted immediately that, although official Soviet census figures have indicated that at least 486,000 Soviet citizens claim Yiddish as their “mother tongue,” there is not a single Yiddish school in the entire USSR.
According to Neues Leben, the number of pupils taught German in Kazakstan has increased from 16,000 in the academic year 1957-58 to 33,000 in 1964-65. Additionally, the newspaper reported, special teacher training courses for instruction in German are being conducted at two universities in Kazakstan, one in the capital of Alma Ata, the other at Kokchetav. The newspaper added that the Kazakstan Ministry of Education has instructed all local districts to take steps immediately to improve the methods and curricula for the teaching of German. There are about 1,000,000 German-speaking persons in Kazakstan.
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.
