Anti-Semitism “varies in strength from country to country behind the Iron Curtain but it is present everywhere” and “there is reason to believe it is directed from Moscow” the Daily Telegraph asserted today in a report from Prague.
No one living in Czechoslovakia can be unaware of the limitations to which Jews are subject, even if discrimination against them is far less violent than when Stalin was alive, the report, entitled “Jews Under Communism,” declares.
The report says it could not be entirely “fortuitous” than there is not a single Jew on the central committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party and there are very few Jews to be found in Government posts or in positions of any importance in the numerous state enterprises.”
One of the places where anti-Jewish prejudice appears most frequently, according to the report, is in the courts. Jews found guilty of currency speculation or other “economic offenses” invariably receive much stiffer sentences than do non-Jews in Czechoslovakia.
COMMUNIST PARTY OFFICIALS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA BIASED AGAINST JEWS
The report said “one of the reasons for this appears to be the fact that the president of the Prague district court is a well-known anti-Semite. He is Dr. Huebner.” The report added that although party and police officials allowed their prejudices to affect their official behavior toward Jews, “the ordinary people of Czechoslovakia, with the exception of a few die-hard anti-Semites in Slovakia, are largely indifferent to Jews and their problems.”
The report added that while there were no current indications that the Czech regime planned to put restrictions on attendance at synagogues, a recent circular issued by the Government Office for Religious Affairs commented that “officials of the synagogues use the services mainly as an opportunity to get together and discuss their problems. “
The situation in Hungary is similar, the report asserted, but in Rumania “open anti-Semitism and Zionism are written into the legal code as a criminal offense. Sentences of ten years and more in prison for illegal frontier crossings are daily occurrences. Most of the offenders are people who want to get to Israel.” The report added that there were still plenty of officers among the Rumanian police who were members of the anti-Semitic Antonescu Iron Guard and their attitude toward Jews is the same as it was before the war.
In Poland, according to the survey, there is considerable anti-Semitic feeling but Polish authorities are on the whole reasonable about permitting emigration to Israel or to re-join relatives abroad. In Bulgaria, there are only a few hundred Sephardic Jews left. There are about 15 Jewish families living in Tirana, the capital of Albania.
FORMER NAZI COLLABORATOR DIRECTS ANTI-JEWISH DRIVE IN RUSSIA
The report asserted that recent measures taken against the Jewish religion in the Soviet Union were believed to be partly the work of Alexander Poltimenko, a Ukrainian official who, though he collaborated with the Germans during World War II, is now a senior official in the Soviet Government department dealing with religious affairs. “Most Jews in the Soviet Union would like to have their synagogues back so they can meet together again,” the report said.
One of the worst features of life for Jews in Russia, particularly in the Ukraine, is “a deliberate attempt” to frame them, the report asserted. “It is a common occurrence for Jews to receive circulars in Yiddish or Hebrew, which few of them understand, purporting to come direct from Israel or from the Israel Embassy in Moscow,” the report stated. The circulars, according to the report, “appeal to the recipients to take a greater interest in Israel and Jewish affairs. They are written in a strongly anti-Soviet tone but in language that makes it instantly apparent that they were concocted in Moscow.”
The report added that Soviet Jews were “now aware of these fakes and hand them in to police as soon as they arrive but at the beginning several Jews were committed to prison for not reporting they had received such material and dozens were interrogated on suspicion of ‘contact with a foreign power. ‘ It is not easy to be a Jew under Communism.” the report concludes.
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.
