Origins
Naftaly Frenkel's origins are uncertain. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called him a "Turkish Jew born in Constantinople". Another described him as a "Hungarian manufacturer". Yet another claimed that Frenkel came from Odessa. Yet more said he was from Austria, or Palestine, or that he had worked in the Ford motor plant in the USA. His prisoner registration card states clearly that he was born in Haifa, then part of the Ottoman Empire. From Haifa he made his way (perhaps via Odessa, perhaps via Austria-Hungary) to the Soviet Union where he described himself as a 'merchant'.
Finnish communist Arvo Tuominen claimed in his memoirs that Frenkel was related to a prominent Finland-Swedish family named Frenckell and that he spoke Swedish.
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