Pelovitz (I)
These are significant excerpts from Samuel Pelovitz‘s grand jury testimony on December 10, 1948:
Q. How did you happen to come to New York and get a job there as a house manager in the theater?
A. That wasn’t an immediate transition. I didn’t come to get this job. I thought I would like to break out of the printing business and get something else, and that was my reason for leaving. I had been interested in the theater, and thought I might do something in that line.
Q. Now, Mr. Pelovitz, you stayed on at that job at the playhouse for about a year, according to your statement, up to December 19th, 1937?
A. Not all that time. It was about seven or eight months altogether.
Q. In the statement, you said that during that period, from the fall of 1936 until about December of 1937, you lived in a number of rooming houses, furnished apartments, because your wife came to New York City only occasionally for visits, is that right?
A. Yes, sir.
Q. And, about the summer of 1937, you were in Baltimore for approximately one month, at which time you lived with your family at the home of your mother-in-law, a Mrs. Leah Pushkin, who then resided in the 3400 block of Park Heights Avenue. Is that a correct statement?
A. That’s correct.
Q. Did you just go back there for a month’s vacation?
A. That’s correct, according to my recollection. I went back there during the summer months because there wasn’t very much to do here [in New York]. I think it was only a period of about a month. I have no exact dates.
Q. When you went back to Baltimore finally, when did you say that was?
A. It was, I think, in December of 1938, but I am not positive of the month. It may have been November.
Q. It was late in 1938?
A. It was late in 1938.
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Q. Do you go in much for photography?
A. Not at all. I know nothing about it.
Q. Nothing at all about it?
A. Nothing at all.
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Q. Did you ever have any other nicknames?
A. No, sir.
Q. Anybody ever call you Felix?
A. No, sir; not to my knowledge or recollection.
Q. Never known as Felix?
A. No, sir; not to my knowledge.
Q. To any of your friends?
A. To any of my friends? No, sir.
Q. Never at all?
A. To my recollection I can’t recall any situation in which anyone would ever have called me by the name of Felix.
Q. Is there any doubt about it in your mind that you were not called Felix?
A. No, there isn’t.
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Q. Let me ask you this. You have seen pictures of this Whittaker Chambers, haven’t you?
A. Yes. sir.
Q. Have you ever seen Whittaker Chambers personally?
A. A couple of hours ago.
Q. Outside this door?
A. Outside this door.
Q. Will you tell the grand jury, have you seen Whittaker Chambers prior to today?
A. To my recollection I have never seen him before.