Levinson Irina Markovna (1910-1967)

Levinson (Lewinsohn) (née Ettinger) Irina Markovna (1910–1967) was born on 10 May 1910 in Riga to bookseller and assistant attorney Mark Vulf Ettinger (see his entry) and Ester Etel Ettinger (née Isakova). In 1915 the family was evacuated to Petrograd, returning to Riga in 1918.

She studied at the private L. Tailova Girls’ Secondary School, graduating in 1927. In 1932 she completed the School of Book Production and Librarianship of the Leipzig Börsenverein in Germany. From 1927 until October 1940 she worked as a librarian in her mother’s library, E. Ettinger, in Riga. In 1930 she undertook library-work training in France.

In 1932 she began studying law at the University of Latvia, graduating in 1939. From 1933 she worked at the legal consultation office of the People’s House and, from 1934, also in her mother’s bookshop. She was active in the Jewish Lawyers’ Society.

During the Soviet occupation, from 28 August 1940 she served as an assistant attorney in Riga. From February 1941 she was an attorney at Riga’s 6th Legal Consultation Office. In June 1941 she was evacuated, together with the institution of the People’s Commissariat of Justice of the Latvian SSR, to Yaroslavl Oblast. She worked as a kolkhoz labourer in the Voroshilov Kolkhoz in Chervonnaya District and moved to Cheboksary in October. From February 1942 she worked at Military Factory No. 654 in Cheboksary.

From February 1944 she studied in the postgraduate programme of the Department of Legal Theory at Kazan State University. From August 1945 she was a postgraduate student at the Law Faculty of Leningrad State University (LSU) and a lecturer at the Legal School of the People’s Commissariat of Justice. From March 1946 she served as an assistant at the Department of State Law of LSU and from 1949 until April 1951 as a senior lecturer. Later she taught at the E. Darziņš Special Secondary Music School. She joined the Communist Party of the USSR. She died on 17 August 1967.

In 1937 she married accountant Gesel’ Levinson (born 22 August 1907), who was killed in action in the Red Army in August 1941; their infant (born and died in December 1940).

In 1948 she married for the second time, to attorney Alexander Pevzner (see his entry); they had a daughter.