George Fles

George Fles
Born	1908 Amsterdam, Netherlands
Died	1939 Smolensk, Russia
Nationality	Dutch
Occupation	translator
Spouse	Pearl Rimel
Children	Michael John Fles
Parent(s)	Louis Fles and Celine van Straaten

George Fles (1908–1939) was a Dutch translator with a strong communist conviction. He fell victim to Stalin's repressions.

George was born in 1908 in Amsterdam, as the youngest son of Louis Fles and Celine van Straaten. He spent time in France and in the United Kingdom, where he married Pearl Rimel. With his newly wed wife he moved to the Soviet Union.

In Moscow he worked as a translator. Later he was sent to Tblisi, Georgia, where he also worked as a translator. He was informally warned that he should leave, advice that he did not follow. He did send his pregnant wife back to England.

George was arrested and put on trial for espionage and Trotskyism. He was convicted of Trotskyism. As he was asthmatic his health deteriorated quickly in Russian prison. His father and his brother Barthold Fles tried to have him released, but to no avail. He died on May 31, 1939 in a prison near Smolensk.

After George's death, Pearl Rimel and their son Michael John Fles emigrated to the United States, and settled in Los Angeles. The Soviet Union later "rehabilitated" George Fles.

Additional reading

• David Aaronovitch: "Stalin's British victims (book review)." New Statesman 16 August 2004.
• Francis Beckett: Stalin's British Victims. Phoenix Mill: Sutton, 2004. ISBN 0-7509-3223-6
• Thijs Berman: Op zoek naar George Fles, het einde van een Hollandse revolutionair in de Sovjetunie (Dutch for Searching for George Fles, the end of a Dutch revolutionary in the Soviet Union). Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1993. ISBN 90-6012-992-X
• Giorgio van Straten: My name, a living memory. South Royalton, Vermont: Steerforth Italia, 2003. ISBN 1-58642-071-2