48 Facts About Anatoly Gurevich

Anatoly Markovich Gurevich was a Soviet intelligence officer.

Anatoly Gurevich had a number of aliases that he used to disguise his identity, including Vincente Sierra, Victor Sukolov, Arthus Barcza and Simon Urwith.

Anatoly Gurevich used a number of code names for radio communications, including Kent, Fritz, Manolo, Dupuis and Lebrun.

Anatoly Gurevich ran one of the seven groups of networks, located in Belgium that were controlled by Leopold Trepper in France.

Anatoly Gurevich was the second leading Soviet agent in Europe during the war years.

Anatoly Gurevich was appointed as an adjunct translator on submarine C-4 of the Second Spanish Republic, Spanish Republican Navy.

On 15 April 1938, Anatoly Gurevich was ordered by the Soviet Main Intelligence Directorate to travel to France to commence his work as an agent.

In Paris, Anatoly Gurevich changed his passport from a Mexican tourist into a Uruguayan passport.

Anatoly Gurevich was ordered to re-establish Shulze-Boysen as an intelligence source and arrange a courier service.

Anatoly Gurevich was not to meet him at his home, however.

In July 1939, Anatoly Gurevich, posing as the wealthy Vincente Sierra, arrived in Brussels while travelling on a Uruguayan passport that had been issued in New York City on 17 April 1936.

Anatoly Gurevich took part in ballroom dancing and riding lessons and as he travelled between luxury hotels, mail bearing the stamps of Uruguay awaited his arrival.

Anatoly Gurevich's colleagues in Brussels had no idea where the code name has come from, in fact it was the name of fictional British agent character in a book that Gurevich had read when he was a boy called Diary of a spy by N G Smirnov.

Anatoly Gurevich eventually ended up working as an assistant to Trepper and performed the normal bureaucratic operations of an espionage network as a cypher clerk, deciphering instructions from Soviet intelligence, preparing reports from information forwarded from a contact in the Soviet Trade Representation of Belgium.

In October 1939, Anatoly Gurevich visited Daan Goulooze, the director of the Communist Party of the Netherlands, as a contact to the CPN to build his network and to request assistance.

Anatoly Gurevich asked that a temporary wireless telegraphy link be established for his use and this was provided by Goulooze and used until January 1940.

In July 1940, Anatoly Gurevich again visited Goulooze to request the reserve code that he had received from Soviet intelligence the year before.

Between March and April 1940, Anatoly Gurevich made a three-week business trip to Switzerland to meet Alexander Rado, a Rote Drei agent to deliver $3000 to finance the Swiss network.

In May 1940, Anatoly Gurevich met Margarete "Greta" Barcza, the daughter of a Czech millionaire.

Anatoly Gurevich lived in the same building and one floor above Barcza.

At the time, Anatoly Gurevich was still posing as Uruguayan Vincent Sierra and over several weeks they formed a relationship and eventually became lovers, becoming inseparable which eventually impacted Anatoly Gurevich's espionage work.

Anatoly Gurevich, operating from a safehouse located at 101 Rue des Atrebates in Brussels, used Makarov as his wireless radio operator, Zofia Poznanska as his cipher clerk, Rita Arnould as a courier and housekeeper, and Isidor Springer, who worked as a courier between Anatoly Gurevich and Trepper and as a recruiter.

Anatoly Gurevich reorganised the network and from that point only referred to Trepper on points of policy.

Anatoly Gurevich was ordered to visit Hans Coppi that was the groups' radio operator but was unable to repair the radio.

On 9 November 1942, Anatoly Gurevich was arrested with Margaret in his apartment at 75 Rue Abbe de l'Epee in Marseilles by the French police.

Anatoly Gurevich was handed over to German Police and then on the order of the person who was head of the Gestapo in France, Karl Bomelburg, was fetched by a truck from Marseilles and taken to a house in Rue des Saussaies in Paris.

Anatoly Gurevich was moved to Fort Breendonk in Belgium then taken to be interrogated by the Reich Security Main Office in Prince Albertstrasse, Berlin.

Anatoly Gurevich told the Germans that he had not been active as a professional agent for some time and had tried to create a new life for himself and Margaret Barcza in Marseilles.

Anatoly Gurevich stated that he knew before his arrest that he was being surveilled at his Marseilles address and the reason that he had not fled was that no longer considered himself part of the Rote Kapelle.

However, Anatoly Gurevich was continually brought into the office of the Gestapo for further interrogation, where over several days he managed to convince them that he was genuine.

Anatoly Gurevich laid out a plan to the Gestapo to get back in touch with the Russian intelligence service and enable playbacks to commence which the Gestapo accepted.

On 4 January 1943, Anatoly Gurevich was returned to Fresnes Prison in France where he began the playback operation.

The book that Anatoly Gurevich used to cipher his messages was believed to be French novel containing stories about Corsica called Merimee, possibly a book by the French novelist Prosper Merimee who wrote a number of novellas set in Corsica.

Surprisingly, on 14 March 1943, during the funkspiel, Anatoly Gurevich received a message from Soviet intelligence that instructed him to activate a former Latvian general Voldemars Ozols who was a Red Army intelligence agent.

Ozols hadn't been active since July 1941 and wasn't informed that Anatoly Gurevich was working for the Germans.

Anatoly Gurevich ordered Ozols to reassemble his network with the remnants of his old network and recruit new members where needed.

Anatoly Gurevich continued to act as a proxy to Ozols and the Mithridate network until the summer of 1944.

Around the same time Anatoly Gurevich moved from Neuilly-sur-Seine into Pannwitz's villa, located close to the Arc de Triomphe in Paris.

Anatoly Gurevich continued his playbacks under the leadership of Pannwitz and a station was established somewhere in Alsace to continue the playback operation.

Anatoly Gurevich was sent to Berlin to receive orders on whether to continue the playbacks with Pannwitz and this was the last time that Barcza saw him.

Anatoly Gurevich took along a package of documents that constituted the archives that the Gestapo had compiled on the Red Orchestra.

Anatoly Gurevich was questioned for a long time by Viktor Abakumov, who ransacked the records of the interrogations that Gurevich had reported.

Anatoly Gurevich worked in general work in the PGS camp, and then in the planning and production department of this camp, the camp at mine No 18 and as a senior economist at PPCh at the 8th mine in Vorkutlag, later in Rechlag as an economist in the camp unit at mine No 40, in camp unit No 3.

Anatoly Gurevich was transferred to lagotdelenie No 5 from there, where he worked at the research permafrost station of the Institute of Permafrost Science of the USSR Academy of Sciences since November 1953.

The accusation by Red Army Intelligence was that Anatoly Gurevich had abandoned his mission in Marseille after becoming thoroughly influenced by western living, which had led to his supposed defection.

Anatoly Gurevich lost trace of Barcza and their young son, Michael.

On 29 November 1990, Anatoly Gurevich learned that Barcza had survived the camp and died in 1985, and that his son was alive and living in Spain.

In February 1991, Anatoly Gurevich met his son and grandson in Leningrad.