Elizabeth Zarubina

Who was Elizabeth Zarubina?

Elizaveta 'Zoya' Yulyevna Zarubina, born Lisa Rozensweig, was a Soviet spy. She was known as Elizabeth Zubilin while serving in the United States, and also known as Lisa Gorskaya.

Born in Rzhaventsy of Jewish background, she studied history and philology at universities in Romania, France, and Austria, and was freely conversant in Romanian, Russian, German, French, English, and Yiddish. She was one of the most successful agent recruiters, establishing her own illegal network of Jewish refugees from Poland, and recruiting one of Leó Szilárd's secretaries, who provided technical data. She was the wife of Soviet Intelligence Resident Vasily Zarubin.

Zarubina was an active participant in the revolutionary movement in Bessarabia after World War I. In 1919 she became a member of the Komsomol of Bessarabia. Elizabeth became part of the Soviet intelligence system in 1924.

In 1923, she joined the ranks of the Austrian Communist Party. From 1924 through 1925 she worked in the embassy and trade delegation of the USSR. From 1925 to 1928 she worked in the Vienna Rezidentura.

In 1929 Elizabeth and Yakov Blumkin were posted as illegals in Turkey, where he sold Hasidic manuscripts from the Central Library in Moscow to support illegal operations in Turkey and the Middle East. Soviet intelligence officer Pavel Sudoplatov, who later organized Leon Trotsky's murder, claims in his autobiography that Blumkin gave part of the sale proceeds to Trotsky, who was then in exile in Turkey. According to his account, Elizabeth denounced Blumkin for this and that was the reason why he was recalled to Moscow and executed. Shortly thereafter, Eizabeth married Vasily Zarubin, and they traveled and spied together for many years, using the cover of a Czechoslovakian and USA business couple for work in Denmark, Germany, France and the United States.