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
Alexander Poskrebyshev. In 1933 she and her brother, Professor
Michael Metallikov, attended a scientific conference in Paris. There they met
Leon Trotsky, to whom they were connected through marriage. This meeting with Trotsky was a reason for the arrest of Metallikov on July 8, 1937, and for his execution on March 31, 1939. (He was posthumously
rehabilitated on March 7, 1956.) Bronislava, who at this time was pregnant with Natalya, was not arrested due to the intercession of her husband. In 1939, under pressure from her relatives, she visited
Lavrentiy Beria alone to plead for the life of her arrested brother. This time, she was accused by Beria of being connected with
Trotskyists, and was arrested. On this occasion, her husband was unable or perhaps unwilling to help. She was imprisoned, sentenced to death on September 22, 1941, shot on October 13, and buried in a mass grave near Moscow. She was posthumously rehabilitated on October 10, 1957. She is commememorated at Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow. Poskrebyshev was both "Father and Mother" to Galya and Natasha after his wife was arrested. Despite his wife's fate, Poskrebyshev survived Stalin, and died in 1965. ==References==