SOVIET ALLEGATIONS.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20275, 18 August 1937, Page 12

SOVIET ALLEGATIONS.

ENGLISH VARIETY ARTISTS. DECLARED TO BE SPIES. (Times Air Mail Service.) LONDON, July 20. Quite unaware of the peril of her parents, who are in the hands of the * dreaded Ogpu, the smaller daughter of Mrs Eva Lowenburg, ihe London variety artist, xvas playing in her grandparents’ home at Claptoivycstcrday. Anxious friends and relatives, alarmed by a hint that the mother Is to he charged ns a spy, were at the Foreign Office urging British action to obtain her release. Airs Lowenburg and her sister. Miss Ivy Linden (knoxvn as the Linde sisters). who had been appearing in a vaudeville act in Russia, xvere arrested in April by Cheka ''Secret'! police xvho entered the bedroom at. their hotel at Leningrad at, 1.30 a.hi. and took them to prison. Mrs Lowenburg’s former husband, a German named Reinhard Loxvenburg, xvho xvas staying at another hotel, xvas arrested at tlie same time. Miss Linden xvas later released and lias spent pionths trying to gel her sister freed, but in vain. Miss Linden told the Daily Sketch yesterday:— “I undestand my sister Is to he charged as a spy. This Is ridiculous because P xvas xvith her the. whole time, and till Ihe Secret Service men came to our rooms she had no idea of what It xvas all about. “ I believe tier husband had been suspected of being a spy and she has been implicated because she xvas once married to him. “Every at I “nipt made by mvself or nnv of tho Embassies to got in touch with my sister has met with a blank refusal from the Soviet authorities. “ Ever since T have been in England T have, been trying to obtain a British passport fnr her. but the Foreign Office top rno that is impossible.”