The following captures information about the Pistrak family (as Aunt Pola married into).
Email from Elena Myasnikova, translating her mother's letter, Feb. 23, 2010:
Dear Yanka (my mother called you Yanka or Nina). I am absolutely amazed that you knew my cousin Pavel Pistrak so well! I never saw him but I heard he was very handsome. How unpredictable life is! If you two had married I would have been twice the aunt of your children!
I think you might want to know more about Pistrak family. It was a big very religious family from a small Jewish town in the Ukraine. Then the family moved to Lodz which seemed like Paris to the children. The children, five sons and a daughter, managed to make it in “the big world”, they became very well educated and social people. The elder son Sergei, Pavel’s father, studied in Europe and stayed there after the war of 1914. He lived in Paris.
The second son Moses lived in Russia. He became a very famous Soviet teacher, author of the first Soviet textbook in pedagogy. In 1937 he was arrested and executed.[1] I have always been friendly with two of his daughters when they were still alive, and now I am in touch with his granddaughter.
The third son also died in Gulag. And the fourth son happened to be in Europe when the war began, and after the war he left for America. He worked at “Voice of America” radio for many years. One of his two daughters was actually the mayor of Richmond![2]
My father escaped the tragic fate of his two brothers but the life of our family, where two brothers were executed and two more lived abroad, was always full of fear.
And, finally, their only sister and my beloved aunt Rachel became a brilliant scientist, the only woman doctor and professor of geology. We were very close till her death, and now we are friends with her daughter Svetlana.
Unfortunately we don’t have good relations with the family of my brother Michael (Misha). We have been best friends during our childhood and until his marriage, and then our friendship cooled down. And although his son and one of his two grandchildren live in Moscow we have very little contact.
You suggest that I ask questions. Well, I am curious about your everyday life: who is taking care of you? Who is helping you? How do you spend your time?
From birthday greetings to Mom from Inna (May 22, 2010):
"In the meanwhile I have learnt something new about Pavel Pistrak from my cousin Svetlana, the daughter of my dad's sister. Our grandmother (Pavel's, Svetlana's and mine) lived at her daughter's and raised Svetlana. Sergei Pistrak, Pavel's father, used to send his mother letters and pictures of his family at any occasion. Later Sergei and his wife who lived in France died in a German concentration camp, and Pavel stayed with his aunt in Paris. He was an aviation engineer, and since October 1943 served in Russia at Normandy-Neman.[3] In June 1945 he with the escadrille triumphantly came to Paris flying along Champs Elysees accompanied by Marseillaise and the Soviet hymn.
He was decorated with a very high Soviet World War II award which he received in Moscow. While in Moscow he found and visited his family on the mother's side. After his muscovite aunt died her children gave all the family documents to Svetlana' mother, my aunt. Now Svetlana showed me these pictures and I scanned some for you. There are many pictures of Pavel as a child, but I will send you his grown up pictures and the picture of his grave in Paris. As you know he died in a car accident in 1951, when he was 35. He never married. In honor of the 30th anniversary of the victory, in 1975, he was decorated by the Red Star Award.
As you see I learnt new things about my own cousin - thanks to you! Big kiss to you and you children and grandchildren.
Notes:
The one Wikipedia article on him [https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moisey_Pistrak] (Portuguese!) says "Little is known of his personal life, only his legacy of work." There are several articles that mention him or cite his work: For example:
https://rolexforum.ru/en/pokazatelnaya-shkola-moisei-pistrak-i-mosk... An article in Russian History journal (https://www.jstor.org/stable/3664036) states: "Moisei Mikhailovich Pistrak (1888-1940) had previously (at least according to common reports) worked somewhere in the south as a commercial agent for a firm (kommivoiazher). He became a leader of the Lepeshinskii School-Commune, where he became convinced that the only effective preparation for the world of work was on-the-job training. He leveraged a minor post in the Narkompros apparat into a position of great influence in GUS, from which he presumed to dictate to others, as Raikoy later remembered." There also seems to be some differences about when he died, some saying 1940 (the Wikipedia article mentioning both 1940 and 1937!).
Actually, Mayor of Portland, Oregon. Vera Katz.
See http://normandy-neman.iv-schools.ru/pages/6703-5410-1268.