Bronislava Poskrebysheva

Bronislava Solomonovna Metallikova - Poskrebysheva ( _ru. Бронислава Соломоновна Металликова-Поскрёбышева] , 1910 - 1941) was born in Proskurov (USSR). She was the wife of Alexander Poskrebyshev, Stalin's personal assistant for many years.

Bronislava, a doctor-endocrinologist at the Research Institute of Endocrinology (Department of Health of Russian Federation), was of Jewish Lithuanian descent and previously married to a lawyer. She had two children, Galya by her first husband and Natalya by Poskrebyshev.

In 1933 she and her brother, Professor Michael Metallikov, attended a scientific conference in Paris where they met Leon Trotsky, to whom they were connected through marriage. The meeting with Leon Trotsky in Paris was a reason for the arrest on July 8, 1937 and subsequent execution by shooting on March 31, 1939 of Michael Metallikov who was rehabilitated on March 7, 1956. His sister, Bronislava Poskrebysheva, at this time was pregnant with her second daughter Natalya, who was born on January 7, 1938, was not arrested due to the help of her husband and Stalin.

In 1939, under pressure from her relatives, she visited Beria alone to plead for the life of her arrested brother and she was arrested herself. She had previously rejected his advances. Her husband, Poskrebyshev, Alexander Nickolaevich, was unable to help for a second time in such a case. She was imprisoned, sentenced to death on September 22, 1941, then shot on October 13, 1941. She is buried in a mass grave near Moscow and was rehabilitated on October 10, 1957. She is commememorated at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow.

Her husband saved her daughters, and continued to work as Stalin's secretary until he was dismissed shortly before Stalin's death in 1953.