3 - “LET MY PEOPLE GO”

Summary

Late in April 1953 Moshe Sharett (Israel's Foreign Minister), who was then in Argentina, received the following report from his personal secretary: a week previously a group of fourteen persons had been caught trying illegally to cross the Czechoslovakian border and make aliyah with the help of Mossad agents. While two of the group managed to escape, among the captives was a local employee of the Israeli Legation in Prague and a woman named Biskovska, the daughter-in-law of the Legation's shortwave radio operator, a local Jew. Four days later Biskovska appeared at the Legation and announced that she had been released by the police after promising to work for the Czech secret service. The Israelis decided to permit Biskovska to spend the night in the Legation, which had immediately been placed under open police surveillance. Now, however, she threatened to commit suicide unless offered help and the Israeli Foreign Ministry was requested to grant her temporary asylum in the Legation.

In Israel, the heads of the Foreign Ministry decided that they could not accede to the request. Legally, they pointed out, asylum could not be granted to local citizens against whom criminal prosecution was pending; the Czechs could easily evict the Israelis from the building in which the woman was hiding. In addition, the political and diplomatic repercussions had to be considered. The incident, it was feared, might lead to a break in relations between Israel and Czechoslovakia, especially since several of the Legation's employees were involved.