British Will See Film Purporting to Show the Courtroom Confession of Slansky

A film purporting to show the courtroom confession of Rudolf Slansky, secretary general of the Communist Party and former Vice Premier of Czechoslovakia, who was executed in the anti-Semitic purges of 1952, has come into the hands of the British Broadcasting Corp, and will be shown tomorrow, it was reported here. Mr. Slansky, a Jew, was accused at the time of “Trotskyite, Titoist and Zionist” crimes. The film was reportedly made on the orders of the then President of Czechoslovakia, Klement Gottwald, who wanted to see how convincing the confessions appeared in court. It was on the film’s evidence that the general public was admitted to later trials. The film, which runs for about 15 minutes, reportedly shows Mr. Slansky being questioned by the public prosecutor.

Mr. Gottwald was said to have ordered the film destroyed. But a laboratory assistant made a copy before destroying the master negative and kept it hidden until last year when he showed it to the new liberal party leaders, the report said. He was instructed to edit and add a commentary so the film could be shown on Czech television last September. But the Russians invaded Prague in the meantime and the technician fled first to Bulgaria and then to Yugoslavia. He was tracked down by a West German six months later who purchased the film and sold the British and certain foreign rights to the BBC for several hundred pounds.

A promise that Czechoslovakia will not return to “the 1950s”, a reference to the Stalinist purges that occurred under the regime of Antonin Novotny, was made yesterday by Gustav Husak, the Slovak who is the new First Secretary of the Communist Party. He succeeds Alexander Dubcek, the liberal who tried to democratize his nation, who resigned yesterday. Mr. Husak’s accession was announced by President Ludvik Svoboda against a background of a nationwide crackdown against alleged “criminal and anti-social elements” some of whom may have been Jews.