Avraham Marek Klingberg Israeli epidemiologist, microbiologist and infectious disease specialist Date of Birth: 07.10.1918 Country: Israel

Biography of Avraham Marcus Klingberg

Avraham Marcus Klingberg was an Israeli scientist, epidemiologist, microbiologist, and infectious disease specialist who was convicted of espionage for the Soviet Union. He was also a recipient of the Order of the Red Banner of Labour. Klingberg was born into a religious Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland. He studied medicine in the Soviet Union, where he began working as an epidemiologist. In 1940, he moved to Minsk and voluntarily joined the Red Army on June 22, 1941. He served in the Great Patriotic War and achieved the rank of Captain in the Medical Service, but was wounded in action.

After the war, Klingberg interned in Moscow at courses on infectious diseases. Upon the war's end, he returned to Poland and learned that his entire family had perished in Treblinka. In 1948, Klingberg and his wife, Vanda, immigrated to Israel. The Klingberg family settled in Jaffa, where Marcus met Professor David Ernst Bergman, who was establishing a secret institute in Ness Ziona to develop protection against biological weapons.

In 1983, Klingberg, with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in the Israel Defense Forces, served as the Deputy Director of the Institute for Biological Research. He was arrested by the Shin Bet counterintelligence agency on charges of passing secret information to the USSR. His work for Soviet intelligence spanned over 20 years. In a closed trial in 1983, Klingberg was sentenced to life imprisonment, which was later commuted to 20 years for treason and espionage. However, the fact of his arrest remained a closely guarded secret until 1991. The Klingberg family maintained silence throughout.

After his release from prison in 1998 due to health reasons, Klingberg was placed under house arrest. He traveled to Europe after completing his sentence in 2003. Currently, Klingberg resides in a 35-square-meter one-room apartment on the Left Bank of the Seine in Paris. His daughter visits him once a day, and he sees his grandchildren once a week. Klingberg receives a pension from Israel as a Lieutenant Colonel in the IDF, which amounts to over 2,000 euros. However, he complains that the money is not enough to cover rent, food, medical insurance, medication, and hospital treatment.

In 2006, Klingberg wrote a memoir. During the Cold War era, the USSR collaborated with Arab states. Israeli authorities believed that as a result of Klingberg's espionage activities, information about vaccines fell into the hands of Arab intelligence agencies, depriving the country of effective defense against biological weapons. The damage caused by Klingberg is estimated to be in the millions of dollars. Journalist Yossi Melman called Klingberg's arrest "the most devastating spy scandal in the history of Israel." Klingberg's wife, Vanda, passed away in 1990. He has a daughter, Sylvia Klingberg Brossat, who is a sociologist, and a grandson, Jan Brossat, who is a politician and a member of the Communist Party of France.