Leopold Trepper (1904 –1982) was a Polish Communist, agent
of the Red Army Intelligence, with the code name of Otto and had been working
with them since 1930.
He was the technical director of intelligence in western
Europe and was responsible for recruiting agents and creating espionage
networks. He was also a resistance fighter and journalist of Jewish descent.
Trepper was an experienced intelligence officer, an
extremely resourceful and capable man who was completely at home in the west, a
man who could not be drawn in conversation, who lived a concealed life and
whose special talent was a keen judgement of people that enabled him to
penetrate significant groups with ease.
By the start of World War II, Trepper controlled a large
espionage network in Belgium and seven espionage networks in France.
The Soviets took Trepper to Russia but instead of rewarding
him, they interned him in the Lubyanka prison. He vigorously defended his
position and avoided execution for unknown reasons but remained in prison until
1955. Before that, he was personally interrogated by SMERSH chief Viktor
Abakumov. After his release, he returned to Poland to his wife and three sons.
He became a head of the Sociocultural Association of Jews in Poland.
After the Six-Day War and the subsequent antisemitic
campaign in Poland, Trepper wanted to emigrate to Israel. While the Polish
communist government promoted and encouraged the emigration of thousands of
Jews at that time, in the case of Trepper, who wrote a letter protesting the
treatment of the Jews, permission was refused until international pressure
forced the authorities to allow him and a number of other Jews in a similar
situation to leave. He settled in Jerusalem in 1974.
