Mikhail I. Romm, the well-known Soviet Jewish film director who spoke out publicly against Soviet anti-Semitism, died Monday in Moscow at the age of 70. At a meeting of film and theater personnel at the end of 1962, Romm compared repression of Judaism with repression of artistic expression. He charged that the official word “cosmopolite” was a euphemism for “dirty Jew.”
Last year Romm joined other artists and other professionals in urging the release from a mental asylum of Zhores A. Medvedev, the Soviet biologist and writer. Romm’s films included “Lenin in October” (1937); “Lenin in 1918” (1939); “Nine Days of One Year” (1962), about the morality of nuclear weapons; “Ordinary Fascism” (1966), about the rise of Hitler, and “Triumph Over Violence” (1968), about the fate of the Third Reich. The director was awarded five Stalin Prizes during the Stalin era.
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.
