Two Jewish activists will go on trial shortly in Rostov and Minsk, according to Jewish sources in the Soviet Union, the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry reported today. The SSSJ said it learned that Lazar Lubarsky of Rostov, an engineer who was arrested last July 17, will be tried in a closed courtroom between Jan. 1-15. He has been charged under Art 75/1 of the Soviet penal code with giving secret documents to unauthorized persons.
No trial date has been set for Yesim Davidovich of Minsk, accused under Art. 190 of the penal code of anti-Soviet slander and illegal possession of a pistol. Davidovich, 48, has suffered three heart attacks and has told friends he does not expect to live through his trial, the SSSJ reported.
In connection with the Davidovich case, another activist surnamed Kipnis who was given an exit visa, was pulled off a train at Brest as he was leaving Russia on Nov. 29 and returned to Minsk where he is being held by the KGB (secret police). Kipnis is believed to be the owner of the 1941 pistol said to have been found in Davidovich’s possession, the SSSJ reported.
SHPILBERG’S WIFE DISAPPEARS
The re-arrests of more of the Jews detained in Moscow Dec. 18 as they demonstrated at the Supreme Soviet for amnesty for Jewish political prisoners, was reported by the SSSJ. Irma Bronstein, of Novosibirsk and her daughter, Victoria Poltinikov, were arrested after their release in Moscow and have been sentenced to six months corrective labor. They are the mother and sister respectively of Eleanora Yampolsky, an activist who was permitted to leave the Soviet Union earlier this year. Corrective labor permits the prisoner to live at home while working at a job prescribed by the State. They must remit part of their wages to the State. The two additional arrests brought to a total 23 sentenced in the last week.
Another of the Moscow demonstrators, Margerita Shpilberg, wife of the prisoner Arkady Shpilberg, has disappeared since returning to Riga and may have been imprisoned, the SSSJ said. Meanwhile, hunger strikes were begun in the Moscow homes of Dan Roginsky, Natan Feingold and other activists in support of amnesty for the political prisoners, the SSSJ reported.
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