Many Germans living in the USSR are trying to obtain permission to leave for the Federal German Republic (West Germany).
It is believed that about 40,000 Soviet Germans are asking to leave. A collection entitled “Re Patria” [1] has appeared and states that its goal is to elucidate the problems of the emigration movement.
An association has been formed to unite the Germans of Estonia who wish to emigrate.
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DEMONSTRATIONS
On 11 February 1974 a demonstration of Germans who are trying to obtain exit visas took place in Moscow outside the Central Committee building. Ludmila Oldenburger, with her young sons, chained herself to the traffic lights near the building of the CPSU Central Committee on Old Square.
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On 17 February a similar demonstration took place in Tallinn.
In connection with these demonstrations criminal proceedings were instituted against the president of the Association of Estonian Germans, Pyotr Bergman, and members of the association’s presidium: Waldemar Shults, Gerhard Fast and Ludmila Oldenburger. They were charged under articles of the Estonian SSR Criminal Code corresponding to three Articles of the RSFSR Criminal Code: 190-1, 190-3 and 210 (“Involving minors in criminal activity”).
The publishers of the “Re Patria” collection (Vytautas Grigas, Lili Bauer and Friedrich Ruppel) were allowed to leave the USSR in May and June 1974.
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TRIAL
A court in the town of Dzhambul (Kazakhstan) has sentenced Friedrich Shnarr to two years of imprisonment under the article corresponding to Article 190-1 (RSFSR Criminal Code).
Shnarr was brought to his interrogations in handcuffs. His cellmates in the pre-trial detention centre tormented and beat him mercilessly every day for three months. The investigator knew about this but instead of halting these outrages he threatened Shnarr with death.
The address of Shnarr’s family is: Dzhambul Region, Sverdlovsk district, Mikhailovka village, 15 Dzhambulskaya Street
The family consists of his wife Amalia Shnarr and their three children (born in 1962, 1964 and 1972, respectively).
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NOTES
- This varied samizdat collection, over one hundred pages long, resembles the Jewish movement’s Exodus, and was published in several places in the West.
For background, see Ann Sheehy, The Crimean Tatars, Volga Germans and Meskhetians (2nd, expanded 1973 edition), Minority Rights Group, London. See also documents and materials on the Germans in CCE 34.10 and CHR 1974 (Nos. 7, 10, 12).
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