The Jewish Chronicle
On this day: The Doctors’ Plot
January 13 1953: Jewish doctors accused of anti-Soviet plot
January 13, 2011 12:02
By, Jennifer Lipman
1 min read
January 13 1953: Jewish doctors accused of anti-Soviet plot
January 13, 2011 12:02By, Jennifer Lipman
In the terrible and tragic history of the Jewish experience in the post-war communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe, one incident in particular stands out. It began with an editorial published in the Pravda newspaper.
The article accused a group of nine high-profile doctors, two-thirds of whom were Jewish, of conspiring to assassinate the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin by poisoning him.
The newspaper, part of the Soviet propaganda machine, made the libellous accusation under the headline: “Vicious Spies and Killers under the Mask of Academic Physicians" and claimed the group had “confessed” to the crime.
Pravda also alleged that the group had the backing of the “Jewish, bourgeois, nationalist organisation” the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The doctors were accused of having killed off two senior members of the Politburo by misdiagnosing their illnesses.
