Józef Światło, Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death

Józef Światło

Polish defector

Date of Birth: 01-Jan-1915

Place of Birth: Zbarazh, Ternopil Oblast, Ukraine

Date of Death: 02-Aug-1994

Profession: civil servant

Nationality: Poland

Zodiac Sign: Capricorn

Józef Swiatlo, born Izaak Fleischfarb (1 January 1915 – 2 September 1994), was a high-ranking official in the Ministry of Public Security of Poland (UB) who served as deputy director of the 10th Department run by Anatol Fejgin.
Known for supervising the torture of political prisoners, he was nicknamed "the Butcher" by the detainees.After the 1953 death of Joseph Stalin and arrest of Lavrentiy Beria, Swiatlo traveled to East Germany on official business.
While on the Berlin subway with Fejgin, passing through West Berlin, on 5 December 1953, he "slipped away" and defected to the West.Afterwards he worked for the American Central Intelligence Agency and Radio Free Europe.
Swiatlo's written and broadcast denunciations shook the Polish United Workers' Party.
This ultimately contributed to post-Stalinist reforms of the Polish security apparatus and to Poland's political liberalisation in the socialist Polish October revolution.