Netto, Lev Aleksandrovich
Born on 1 April 1925 to Estonian parents in Moscow, where he went to school, leaving after the eighth year to enroll in an artillery school. In 1941, he entered a factory Apprentice School (FZO) and worked as a lathe operator in 'Kompressor' and 'Stankolit' factories, where he joined the Komsomol in 1942. In March 1943, he was drafted to the Second Belorussian Front with the Estonian Division and later sent for training to a military reconnaissance school in Moscow. In February 1944, he was parachuted into Nazi-occupied Estonia with an airborne landing group, but was captured and interned in a POW camp in Frankfurt-am-Main, from which he was freed by American troops in April 1945. In May, he was transferred to the Soviet zone and put through a filtration camp, from which he was mobilized by the Red Army. In April 1948, he was arrested whilst stationed with the Soviet Army in Rovno. He was convicted by a Military Tribunal of 'espionage for America, collaboration in the liquidation of a partisan unit in Estonia, and informing on other captured Red Army soldiers in the Frankfurt camp.' On 22 May 1948, he was sentenced to 25 years in labour camps and 5 years without civil rights after that. In 1949, when he was in the Krasnoiarsk transit prison, he joined the underground 'Democratic Party of Russia.' He was sent to serve his sentence in the Noril'sk labour camp and took part in the major rising there in May 1953. He was released on 13 February 1956 and returned to Moscow, where he completed his secondary education through evening classes. In 1957, he married Larisa Vasil'tseva Burtseva in 1957. He was rehabilitated on 27 June 1958. He subsequently studied at the Machine Construction Faculty of the Bauman Institute in Moscow and, after graduating in 1965, worked as Chief of Department at the Main Centre for Computing Technology at the Ministry of Shipbuilding. He became a Party member in 1963 and retired with a pension in 1985. He is still married and has two daughters.

Brother: Netto, Igor Aleksandrovich. Born on 9 January 1930, he was awarded the title Sportsman of the USSR in recognition of his sporting achievements. He won the national football championship five times, and the European Cup once, with Moscow Spartak, the team he captained for ten years. He was also a member of the gold-medal winning Soviet team at the Melbourne Olympics in 1956. He played for the USSR national side from 1952 to 1963 and was awarded the Order of Lenin. He was a member of the Communist Party from 1966. Died in 1999.

Father: Netto, Aleksandr Genrikhovich. Born in 1885. An Estonian, he fought in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905 and in the First World War. He joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Party in 1918, served with the Latvian Rifle Brigade, and fought in the Russian Civil War. Died in 1956.

Mother: Netto, Iuliia Vil'gel'movna, née Tamm. Born in 1894. Estonian. Before her son's birth in 1925, she worked in the Secretariat of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. She lived with her family in Moscow. Died on 19 October 1977.