George Fles

Infobox Person
name = George Fles

---

image_size = 250px
caption =
birth_name =
birth_date = 1908
birth_place = Amsterdam, Netherlands
death_date = 1939
death_place = Smolensk, Russia
death_cause =
resting_place =
resting_place_coordinates =
residence =
nationality = Dutch
other_names =
known_for =
education =
alma_mater =
employer =
occupation = translator
home_town =
title =
salary =
networth =
height =
weight =
term =
predecessor =
successor =
party =
boards =
religion =
spouse = Pearl Rimel
partner =
children = Michael John Fles
parents = Louis Fles and Celine van Straaten
relations =


website =
footnotes =

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, but later he was sent to Tblisi, Georgia. Here again he 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. 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 her son emigrated to the United States, where they settled in California.

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 0750932236
* Thijs Berman: " [http://lccn.loc.gov/94152928 Op zoek naar George Fles, het einde van een Hollandse revolutionair in de Sovjetunie] " (Dutch: Searching for George Fles, the end of a Dutch revolutionary in the Soviet Union). Amsterdam: Van Gennep, 1993. ISBN 906012992X
* Giorgio van Straten: "My name, a living memory". South Royalton, Vermont: Steerforth Italia, 2003. ISBN 1586420712