Early Life
Grigulevich was born in Trakai, Lithuania, to a family of Crimean Karaites. His parents emigrated to Argentina when he was young. His father did well for himself and later sent Iosif to Europe to study. However, some Russian sources claim that only his father moved to Argentina and he and his mother remained in Poland, where he joined the Polish Communist party and became acquainted with Edward Gierek, not travelling to Argentina until 1934. In any case, in 1933 he studied briefly at the Sorbonne. He was recruited by the NKVD and showed a gift for languages, soon picking up English, Spanish, French and Russian.
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