Anatoly Gurevich

Anatoly Markovich Gurevich (; 7 November 1913 – 2 January 2009) was a Soviet intelligence officer. He was an officer in the GRU operating as "разведчик-нелегал" (razvedchik-nelegal, illegal resident spy) in Soviet intelligence parlance. Gurevich was a central figure in the anti-Nazi Red Orchestra in France and Belgium during World War II.

Gurevich had a number of aliases that he used to disguise his identity, including Vincente Sierra, Victor Sukolov, Arthus Barcza and Simon Urwith. He also used a number of code names for radio communications, including Kent, Fritz, Manolo, Dupuis and Lebrun. Gurevich ran one of the seven groups of networks, located in Belgium that were controlled by Leopold Trepper in France. He was the second leading Soviet agent in Europe during the war years. Upon his return to the Soviet Union in 1945, Gurevich was sentenced for treason and spent 15 years in detention and was rehabilitated in 1990.

Life Gurevich was born into a Jewish family in Kharkov. Both his father and his mother were pharmacists. From 1929 to 1933, he was a member of the paramilitary sports organisation called OSOAVIAKHIM. After that, he was a part of the air defence and later took a communication operator course.

In 1933, he enrolled at the Leningrad Institute of Railway Transport where he displayed proficiency for learning languages and translation. He learnt German, French, and English there. On 1 September 1935, he was appointed to a course for training people at the Intourist travel agency. When the Spanish Civil War began, Gurevich volunteered to help. Along with a large group he travelled to Spain and arrived at Cartagena on 30 December 1937. He was appointed as an adjunct translator on submarine C-4 of the Second Spanish Republic, Spanish Republican Navy. The passport gave the holders date and place of birth as 3 July 1911 in Montevideo and his permanent address was Calle Colon 9, Montevideo. Although he was industrious, he was generally disliked for a number of reasons, which included being arrogant, and was considered a bit of a bluffer who was known for his socialising and profligate spending which included owning 40 luxury suits in his large apartment in Avenue AJ Sleggers. but in the months leading up to the war, Trepper's plans changed with Sukolov having to be introduced into the Belgian network gradually. He 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. Gurevich asked that a temporary wireless telegraphy link be established for his use and this was provided by Goulooze and used until January 1940. During this period, Gurevich was passing intelligence from Schulze-Boysen through his WT station in Brussels.

Greta Barcza In May 1940, Gurevich met Margarete (or Marguerite) "Greta" Barcza, the daughter of a Czech millionaire. During the invasion of Belgium when Brussels was being heavily bombed, Barcza met Gurevich while cowering in the cellars at 106 Avenue Émile de Beco in Brussels.

In July 1940, when Trepper had to move to France to flee the German advance and start a new French network, he turned the Belgian network over to Gurevich. Gurevich, operating from a safehouse located at 101 Rue des Atrébates in Brussels, used Makarov as his wireless radio operator, Zofia Poznańska as his cipher clerk, Rita Arnould as a courier and housekeeper, and Isidor Springer, who worked as a courier between Gurevich and Trepper and as a recruiter. Gurevich reorganised the network and from that point only referred to Trepper on points of policy.

In June 1941, Trepper sent Anton Danilov to assist Makarov with radio transmissions. In September or October 1941, Trepper ordered Abraham Rajchmann, a Polish career criminal and forger, to join Gurevich On 18 October 1941, among other assignments, Gurevich was ordered to contact the Harnack/Schulze-Boysen group to restore the connection between the Main Intelligence Directorate and the group. He was ordered to visit Hans Coppi that was the groups' radio operator but was unable to repair the radio. On 13 December 1941, the Gestapo arrested Gurevich's WT operator Anton Danilov in an apartment at 101 rue des Attrebates, Etterbeek in Brussels and Trepper happened to be in Brussels at the time, found out and warned Gurevich of the arrest. Gurevich's first concern was to arrange for Barcza to leave Belgium for France to ensure she was safe. Gurevich arranged travel documents with Rajchmann. At the same time, Gurevich was increasingly finding himself in arguments with Trepper. By that point, he was no longer part of the Soviet espionage network, was defeatist in his outlook and started to offer reasons why he was no longer using his transmitter.

Arrest On 9 November 1942, Gurevich was arrested with Margaret in his apartment at 75 Rue Abbé de l'Épée in Marseille Although Gurevich decided to cooperate on the funkspiel, he refused to name any agents he had recruited. To initiate the funkspiel, it is believed Gurevich sent a letter to the Red Army intelligence via the Soviet consulate in Sofia but it is not known how a reply was sent by the Soviets. Once he made contact with Red Army intelligence, the strict discipline under which he was held was relaxed and he was allowed visits by his wife Margaret. The book that Gurevich used to cipher his messages was believed to be French novel containing stories about Corsica called Mérimée, Surprisingly, on 14 March 1943, during the funkspiel, Gurevich received a message from Soviet intelligence that instructed him to activate a former Latvian general Voldemārs Ozols who was a Red Army intelligence agent. Ozols was a principal-agent in Gurevich's network and together were successful in penetrating French Resistance. The Soviets believed that Ozols would be able to furnish information about German troop movements, Amongst the agents that Legendre recruited were Maurice Viollette and the Mayor of Dreux. After Barcza gave birth to Gurevich's son in November 1944, Gurevich and Barcza were forced to separate by Pannwitz. Gurevich was sent to Berlin to receive orders on whether to continue the playbacks later in Rechlag as an economist in the camp unit (lagotdelenie) at mine No. 40 (until August 1951), in camp unit (lagotdelenie) No. 3 (SHU-2: mines No. 12, 14 and 16).

Exonerated

By 1991, Gurevich was fully exonerated and released. It was established that Gurevich had been imprisoned because he had married his mistress, Margarete (or Marguerite) Barcza, without the permission of Russian intelligence.

Gurevich lost trace of Barcza and their young son, Michael. The NKVD told him they had died in a concentration camp during a bombing raid. In fact, for a number of years after the war ended, Barcza had searched for Gurevich. On 29 November 1990, 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, Gurevich met his son and grandson in Leningrad.