Four Jews Sentenced in Kishinev for Refusing to Testify in Trial of 9

Four young Jews–three of them women–were tried and sentenced in Kishinev yesterday for refusing to testify against their friends in the Kishiney trial of nine Jews last month, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency learned today from informed Jewish sources here. The sources said that Eta Bondar, Alechsander Zhenin and Olga Treigerman were sentenced to six months of “educational forced labor.” The fourth defendant, Riva Vacksman, was given a $66 fine. According to the sources, the sentences were imposed under Art, 190, Para. 7 of the Mordovian Republic Criminal Code. The sources described “educational forced labor” as a penalty which requires the prisoners to work at hard physical labor at a place decided by the court with 20 percent of their wages forfeited to the government. It is not a labor camp sentence. According to the sources the presiding judge, Mamlika, made anti-Semitic remarks during the trial. At one point he reportedly excoriated the defendants for complaining about Soviet emigration policies and said that in 1937 anyone who applied for an exit visa would have faced a firing squad.