Borys Pinski

This is my cousin Borys Pinski. He is Aunt Mania and Uncle Naum Pinski's son. He was a violinist and an orchestra conductor. But he's dead now. This photo was taken probably in the 1950s in Moscow. He was young then, he could be 30-40 years old. I have got this photo from my family who lived in Moscow, they always sent me photos. My father's family came from Brest. They were more of a working class family. They all worked in the textile industry. In 1920, when there was a revolutionary committee in Bialystok the three of them, two of Father's sisters and the youngest brother left for Russia with the Red Army. My aunts, father's sisters were Genowefa, Fela, Ania and Mania. Mania married Naum Pinski. Ania's husband was Natan Lapidus. Natan also fought the Germans, as a senior lieutenant. He fought like the entire family did. None of them are alive. I met them in 1941, when Belarus was under Soviet occupation. That was when Father went to see his family, whom he hadn't seen for so many years. He was the oldest. And I also went there, to the Soviet Union, right before the war. And that was when I met one aunt, the second one, both are dead now, and my uncle Filip, who was in love with the Soviet Union. They all worked. There were no losses in the family, because of Stalin's regime. And he explained to me that he had a job, that he appreciated how they cared for workers, how they cared for people. When I got there, the first thing he did was show me Lenin, there in that mausoleum, then we went to see the Soviet officer's house, which was a very beautiful building. And he showed me Moscow.