[2] In 1937, Boris Skibine was arrested by the NKVD and executed, as part of the Great Purge.
[3] George began to perform with the Ballets Russes company at the age of five, as an extra in Petrouchka.
He studied with various Russian teachers including Olga Preobrajenska, Julia Sedova, Alexandre Volinine and Lyubov Egorova before making his debut on ballet stage in 1937 in Egorova's Ballets de la Jeunesse.
In 1938, at age 18, he became to dance with the René Blum's Ballet Russe de Monte Carlo.
[4] His enrollment as a student at Camp Ritchie makes him one of around 20,000 Ritchie Boys, a group of military intelligence officers who used their language skills to obtain intel from the Axis powers during the War.