Michael Brojde told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that his mother, Mrs. Elisabeth Trepper, would “probably” arrive here March 25. Mrs. Trepper is the wife of Leopold Trepper, the Jewish partisan who led the underground “Red Orchestra” in World War II. The couple, who are aged and ailing, have heretofore been rebuffed in their attempts to leave Poland permanently for Israel.
Brojde said his mother had “probably” already filed her demand for a tourist exit visa, which would allow her to reach Copenhagen via Paris by March 25. “Liuba Trepper-Domb’s Paris schedule is to include a press conference,” the 31-year-old lecturer at Copenhagen University told the JTA, using the diminutive of his mother’s first name. “Then she will return to Poland to be at the side of my 68-year-old father.”
Brojde said the former head of Soviet intelligence in Europe during the Nazi era was now in “quite bad” health. The son said another Trepper son, Eduard, who is in Israel, would stage a hunger strike on behalf of his father’s right to emigrate near United Nations headquarters in New York “in the near future.” Brojde reported that he had received a letter of encouragement and solidarity from the League Against Anti-Semitism and Racism (LICA), which also invited him to Paris in the event he wanted to hold a hunger strike there.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Trepper’s whereabouts were a mystery. It was learned that a French broadcasting correspondent informed his Paris office that Mrs. Trepper had left Warsaw Saturday night for Western Europe, presumably Paris, but it was impossible to locate her. One theory is that she promised the Polish government not to generate publicity if it allowed her out.
April 30 has been designated as National Solidarity Day for Soviet Jewry.
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.
