} A-bomb

South Pender.

A FINE WINTER CATCH. A Chinese boy happily
carrying home a sturgeon caught for the Klahar People’s
Commune in the Irtish River, Sinkiang Province.

By ARRON VERGELIS

orced under tsa’ ism to live
F in ghettoes in southern
and western Russia, restricted
in their rights as citizens, in
their travels, in the right to
a secular education, in the
right to occupy themselves in

many vocations and in agri-
culture,
tion the Jewish working peo-
ple led a miserable, poverty-
stricken life.

It is Soviet power alone
that has liberated the Jewish
people from the hard legacy
of the past, making fruitful
work accessible to them.

There is no branch of work

IROSHIMA A-bomb pilot
Major Claude Eatherly,
who escaped a second time
from a military mental hos-
pital in Texas before Christ-
mas, thought he was going to

_ be released.

Major Eatherly has been
‘framed’ by the U.S. mili-
tary because of his insistence
on making public his re-
morse at having taken part
in’ the Hiroshima -raid on
August 6, 1945.

In “Burning Conscience”

’ Weidenfeld. and Nicolson),

published last week in Bri-

‘tain, his last letter to Aus-
: tralian philosopher and paci-
~ fist” Gunther Anders,

before
his second escape, is. quoted.
In it he wrote: “I finally

“have a doctor that is trying] -

to help me. I think that I will

_ be able to leave hospital in a

few months...”
e

_ But previously, before his
first escape in 1960, Eatherly
Wrote to Mr. Anders:

“Last week I talked with
my doctor and he told me I
was in the unfortunate posi-
tion of being so well known
and famous that I must stop

WORTH
_ READING

Barkerville, By
Ramsey, $1.50. This is the
history of Barkerville, . the
gold capital of British Colum-
bia. The book is well illus-
trated — showing life in
Barkerville before and after
the fire.

A Gulf Island Patchwork,
$2.50. The Gulf Island Branch
of the B.C. Historical Associ-
ation have made a collection
of stories connected with the
Gulf Islands of: Galiano, Sa-
turna, Mayne, North and
It describes
the Pioneer settlers who blaz-
Ra the trails on these Islands.

' Available at People’s Co-

Bruce

pilot accuses
US. weditary chiefs

my writings against nuclear
weapons and using my influ-
countries

ence in foreign
through U.S. magazines.

“J asked him if they in-
tended to keep me here, and

he said Yes.”

In his next letter to An-
he
“J tried every way I
could to convince the doctors
and the people that I only
had a sincere desire to do
. to bring about

ders, written in hiding,

wrote:

what I can .
peace and i coaeiiian

“JT suppose you know that
such talk and writings are
not popular in this country
and they consider me a detri-
ment Js their aims and pur-

poses.”
@

After his recapture,
gave the impression accord-
ing to Mr. Anders, of being
put in a section of the hos-
pital reserved for “the un-
equivocally insane, even vio-
lent patients.”

Mr. Anders comments in
a letter to Eatherly: “It is
hard not to suspect those who
pigeon-holed you away in this
special ward are harbouring
the hope to drive you mad

. in order to be able to
brag afterwards: “You see, we
were right all along’.”

In a preface to ‘Burning
Conscience,” Earl (Bertrand)
Russell writes: “‘The case of

Claude Eatherly is not only
one of appalling and prolong-
ed injustice to an individual
but is also symbolic of the
our

suicidal madness of

time.

“No unbiased person, after

reading Eatherly’s letters

can honestly doubt his san-

iL Reeeee
“He has

of mass murder.”

he

or knowledge in the Soviet
Union where Jewish people
are not actively represented.

Many Jewish names figure
among the noted Soviet learn-
ed men, writers, composers,
artists, and outstanding work-
ers. atomic scientist Wechsler;
helicopter designer Mil, com-
poser Pokrass; violinist David
Oistrakh; General Dragunsky,
who has. been . decorated
twice; Bolshoi Theatre dancer
Plisetskaya; the-painter Alta-
man; Frank and Goldberg, di-
rectors of two very large
state farms; Ehrenburg the
writer.

This list of names taken at
random could be continued
ad infinitum.

Hundreds of Jews could be
named upon whom the high-
est governmental awards
have been conferred. Among
Lenin Prize winners you will
always find Jewish names.

Need it be empasized how
absurd all the talk about dis-

in: the USSR appears in the
light of these facts?
Our people are

achieved

decades.
e

before the revolu-

crimination against the Jews

justly |-
proud of what they have
in the last few —

Soviet Jews are no longer
a nation of petty handcrafts-
men and “jack-of-all-trades.”

They are a people enjoying
full rights, a people which in-
cludes physicists and metal-

‘a .,|

Aaron Vergelis is the
editor of the new Yiddish
magazine, Soviet Homeland.
One of the Soviet Union's
leading Jewish poets, Verge-
lis recently wrote the follow-
ing article (slightly abridged
here) for Soviet Weekly and
the life of the Jewish people
in the Soviet Union.

lurgists, engineers and artists,
geologists, sea captains, and
workers.

Equals among equals, Jews
enjoy all the rights guaran-
teed by the Soviet constitu-
tion, and are building their
future in the family of the
Soviet peoples.

I do not consider myself
competent to discuss quest-
ions of religion. But I can
say that the Soviet constitu-
tion ensures all citizens free-
dom of conscience, which al-
so means freedom of worship
including, of course, the Jew-
ish religion.

I can also cite an authority
in this field — Rabbi David
W. Hollander of New York,
who recently vanilegs our of-
fice.

It was his second trip to the
USSR, and this is what he
said: ‘Neither on my first
trip nor now have I noticed
any persecution of the Jew-
ish religion or people practis-

= 9 x» © b ©
Cover page of the new Yid-

dish-language magazine,
Soviet Homeland.

iJews in Soviet Union
enjoy equal rights

ing religious rites.

“Tt have no claims against
the Soviet authorities on that
score.”

On the question of Jewish
cultural life I should like
to point out that there are
many Jewish professional ac-
tors, singers and elocutionists
in the Soviet Union, as well
as several variety companies.

Last year alone Jewish
concerts were attended by
over 300,000 people.

Jewish amateur art is also
making progress. The Vilinius
Drama Company, with a
troupe of over 50 amateur ac-
tors, presents difficult plays
like Sholem Aleichem’s Two
Hundred Thousand, Kulbak’s
Boitra and the folk show .
Freilekhs.

The Riga choir, which pre-
sents Jewish, Russian and
Lettish songs, has a hundred
members; ‘gramophone reéc-
ords in Yiddish and Jewish -
music are issued; a volume of
Jewish folk songs collected
by eminent folk-lorist Bere-
govsky has just gone to press.

e

Yiddish literature in the
Soviet Union—like its people
—has taken the broad road of
development, casting aside
the barrier which separated
it from the world at large.

Soviet Homeland is a bi-
monthly literary and art ma-
gazine, published by the Sov-
iet Writers’ Union. We have
a big group of contributors
ranging from the eternally
young 80-year-old writer Ven-
drov to young writers who
are just starting their careers
— over a hundred writers,
poets, playwrights, men of
letters and critics.

Numerous works by auth-
oritative Jewish writers are
published in the Soviet Union
not only in Yiddish, but also
in Russian, Ukrainian and
Byelorussian translations —
eloquent testimony to the fact
that these forces are capable
of advancing our literature

still further.

—Space
oT Wists
clubs, neon signs, bowling al-
leys and motels glitter where
13 years ago there were only

Night

been punished
solely because he repented
of his comparatively innocent
participation in a wanton act

rattle snakes, rare birds and
scrubs.

The coming of rockets has
transformed the Cape into
one of the biggest boom areas
the U.S. has known. Space-
ville, U.S.A.

| “Nearly 20,000 people have
moved into Brevard County,
the local government area be-
side the Cape, since 1949.

In the next five or ten
years it is estimated that
35,000 more people will
flock in tripling the wealth

ITALY BUYS SOVIET OIL
With purchase of 4,702, 500
metric tons, Italy was the lar-

gest. West European buyer of

Soviet oil exports in 1960. Its

gperative Bookstore, 307 W.
“ender St., Vancouver, B.C.

purchases were 31 percent of
the West. Europe. total.

of the real ‘estate men who
have already made a fortune.

Meanwhile, along the once
dark trail by the ocean which
leads to the Cape, tawdy night
clubs jump to ‘the rythms of
= The Twist. ;

Spaceville, U

CAPE CANAVERAL,USA
brought

A recently-built all-glass
bank, resembling a half open-
ed concertina offers deposit-
ors 4% on their savings, sym-
bolizing Spaceville, U.S.A:

Bikini clad wives of missile
technicians bask in the sun on
one untouched strip of the
golden beach, watching mis-
sile ‘shoots’ from the base.

But this honkey-tonk atmos-
phere stops abruptly at a
police post at the entrance
to the missile base.

Towering red and white
gentries project developing
Polaris, Titan, Atlas and Min-
utemen missiles above the
sand and scrub.

More than 10,000 men toil
year round on the 17,000 acre
complex constructing rockets.
Lorries and trailers. weave
patterns across the network
of roads transporting techni-
cians and missile parts to the
launching pads.

#] The carnival spirit at the

S.A.

Cape is in marked contrast to
the tight security which sur-
rounded its birth in 1949.
Then only a hurriedly con-
structed power transmission
line gave testimony to its ex-
istence.

German scientists led by
Dr. Wernher Von Braun and
Dr. Kurt Debus were in the
Vanguard of the early arriv-
als.

The first missile fired from
the base was a German V2
rocket with a second stage
Corporal rocket which roar-
ed from its pad on July 24
1950.

Now, 12 years later, as the
twisters twist, bikini-clad
wives watch from the beach
and the bank pays 4% inter-
est, preparations are under
way to orbit a man around
the world, almost a year after.
a similar feat was accomplish-
ed by the Soviet Union. ;

It is indeed a fast moving
world we live in.

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