SERVING NEBRASKA, IOWA VoL LXI No. 42
Omaha, Neb., Fri., July 1,1M3
Visitor says Soviets lie about Wallenberg Editor's note: Federation public relations aide Ellen Gordman told the Jewish Preaa that a man passing through Omaha had served time with Swedish dip* lomat Raoul Wallenberg in a Soviet prison and could testify that Mr. Wallenberg was alive at the time the Russians were declaring him dead. Summer intern Namoi Mitchell was joined by free lance writer David Bittner in pursuing the story. By persevering, they came up with the story. However, during the hectic pursuit, a camera with the man's photo was misplaced, so his picture is not available.
Trying to break language barrier B y Naomi Mitchell and David Bittner On a tip that a man was in town who had known Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg in a Soviet prison, two J e w i s h Press reporter* Ml out to get the tstory. We found our mystery man, Israeli Abraham Kalinski, at a local motel. He wan engaged in a frantic search for hi* passport, which he found in a few minutes. In our broken Hebrew, we asked him to Gccompany us to Beth Israel Synagogue where we would interview him using Rabbi Isaac Nadoff a» an interpreter. Kaluuki was moat amenable to being interviewed for the local Jewish newspaper, he said, but we had heard wrong if we thought his Hebrew was adequate for such a purpose. He informed us that be was fluent In German, Russian, Polish, Yiddish and Swedish — but not Hebrew. We called Rabbi Nadoff and explained our predicament to him. He suggested we take Kdliruki to the home of Mr. and Mrs. Edward Kahn, native German Jews. But after several attempts to communicate with Kalinski through the Kahns, wo discovered they spoke different dialects of German and could not understand each other. Trying to locate someone who speaks Yiddish, we called Mas Bittner and Cantor Fettman but were unable to locate them. Kalinaki called a friend, Petra Joaquin, but the was not able to leave work to be our interpreter.
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Yiddish unfolds prison story
Mrs. Kahn suggested we call Joe Buchcister at Nebraska Kosher. We called, and Mr. Bucheister and Kalinski had a high old time talking and laughing over the phone. The problem wa« that Mr. Bucheister's English would never qualify him as an interpreter.. Finally we drove Kalinaki bock to the motel. On the way we again tried to converse in Hebrew. He shared with us his observations of the country. He indicated that in Israel it never gets as hot as it was that day in Omaha. Didn't we have air-conditioned cars in this country Kalinski wanted to know? Our car had certainly "seen its bar mitivah," he said. (Actually, the car U only 12 years old.) According to our understanding of Kalinski, American life is hectic. In Israel on Shabbat and on Thursday and Friday afternoons, everyone takes "chofesb" (free time), but Americans are so obsessed with money they never seem to take time off from work, was our interpretation. Kelinski told us that he was divorced from his wife and was looking for another. Did we know of any nice, attractive women aged 40-45, h« asked? She did not have to be Jewish, he commented. In fact, be said, he has a weakness for "shiksehs." Soon we arrived at the motel and dropped off Kalinski, telling him we were sorry and thanking him for his time. Back at the J e w i s h Press office,-we again made an attempt to reach Mr. Bittner.
By David Bittner Finally we broke the language barrier. I got Kalinski together with my father, a native of Poland whose Yiddish is only Blightly rusty. Not only had we found our lingua franca, but the two men discovered they had been born in shtetls only 30 miles apart and spoke Yiddish with the same accent. As if to dispel any fears that our mystery visitor might not be on the up-and-up, my father discovered that his father and Kalinski had some mutual acquaintances from Kalinski's hometown of Lomza. As we questioned Kalinski, he unfolded a remarkable history. First of all, we learned what he was doing in Omaha. As part of his work as an antiSoviet publicist, Kalinski investigates the cases of persons like Raoul Wallenberg who are missing and presumed to be languishing in Soviet prisons. In Sweden, Kalinski had become friendly with a German woman whose daughter disappeared in Russia during the 1950s. The woman has another daughter who lives in Omaha. On his way to Los Angeles to keep a speaking engagement, Kalinaki stopped for a day here to visit her. Kalinski began the story of his own life by going back to his days in the Polish Army. I expressed surprise to learn that any Jews should have been in the army of a country which was so bitterly anti-Semitic. Kalinski explained that all doctors and university graduates were automatically inducted into the Polish Army at the time of the outbreak of World War II, and that Jews in these categories were for whatever reason treated no differently. Kulinaki in 1039 had just been awarded a university degree. Following its speedy defeat by the (5ermnn.i, said Kalinaki, the Polish Army retreated deep into Russia. Here, behind Hussion linen, Kalinxki find other Jewish soldiers were well out of the reach of the Germans. But the Russians had ways'of dealing with Jews, too, he Raid. Trouble began in Moscow, where.Kalinski became acquainted with an American
attache named Paul Dutco. Through Dutco, Kalinski thought he would try to get word to the West that the Russians were abandoning Jewish partisans in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia to the Germans. He wanted to get word of the situation to U.S. Ambassador to Russia Avercll Harriman, and entrusted Dutco with a letter addressed to the Ambassador. Dutco turned out to be a double agent. He took Kalinski's letter straight to the KGB and Kalinski was arrested and jailed. The year was 1944. Altogether Kalinski spent 15 years, seven months and 17 days in Soviet prisons, much of the time in solitary confinement. (Years later, said Kalinski, the American government gave him $100,000 in compensation for having been informed on by one of its men.) In 1950, Kalinski was transferred to a prison near the Ural Mountains. It was here that he first heard of Wallenberg. In the cell next door to Kalinski was a Jewish writer named David Bernovsky who told Kalinski about the Swedish diplomat's efforts to save Hungarian Jewry. According to Bernovsky, Wallenberg was a "noble but naive idealist" who did not realize that to Stalin the only crime worse than spying for the West was saving Jews, and was still trying to figure out how he had run afoul of the law. Kalinski did not actually lay eyes on Wallenberg until 1953. In that year the KGB head, Beria, was the object of a coup, and the prison near tho Ural Mountains was evacuated and prepared for his underlings. Knlinski, Bcrnovoky and Wallenberg were transferred along with all the other inmatcH to a prison on the border between Russia nnd China. Here, through his cell window, said Kalinski, he could sec Wallenberg "trolling in the prison courtyard during exercise period. In 1054, this prison was flooded when a nearby dam broke, and the inmates were transferred to a prison only 180 miles from Moscow. The men were transported by rail, and Kalinski said he saw Wallenberg get off the train and back on at every rest stop (continued on page 2)
Analyst hits U.iSIC's anti-Israel campaign NEW YORK — A Heritage Foundation United Nations expert charged tho Arab states and their Third World and Ban ternbloc allies with engaging in a "systematic" campaign to discredit and isolate Israel in the United Nations, and said that despite U.S. opposition the situation' is growing worse each*yenr.
The whole story Sam Fried (left) congratulates Louis Blumkin. This photo was taken on April 7,* 1070 and the explanation appears in The Whole Story, this week's editorial o n
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which Israel dominates the U.N. agenda is remarkable. < Virtually all of the U.N.'s official machinery lino been used in the anti-Israel campaign, sho says, and virtually all of the U.N.'fl agencies have participated in the attacks,
"Of tho Security Council's 88 RnaeionB In a report released here at o luncheon last year, 46 were on topics related to Israel. boated by the American Jewish Congress, In the General Assembly, debates on tho Juliana Goran I'ilon also claims there has Middle East consumed nearly one-third of been n parallel, nnd equally successful, cam- the delegates' time and led to 44 resolutions. paign to give U.N. legitimacy to the Pal- The number of times the General Assembly estine Liberation Organization (PLO), an ^convened Emergency Special Sessions on the Middle East was no less than five — admitted terrorist organization. which is equal to all the Emergency Special Dr. Pilon, a refugee from Communist Ro- Sessions held in the U.N.'B first three decmnnia educated in the United States, and ades." a veteran U.N.-wateher,«ays the degree to (continued on page 2)