Rivkind (Riwkind) Grigory Isakovich (23 May 1924, Daugavpils) – musician.
Grigory Rivkind was born into the family of Isak Rafailovich Rivkind (1895, Dvinsk – 1941, killed by the fascists in the Daugavpils ghetto) and Bunya Bentsionovna Rivkind (née Galle) (1900, Dvinsk – 1941, killed by the fascists in the Daugavpils ghetto).
He graduated from secondary school in in 1941 and volunteered for service in the Red Army during the Second World War. He served in the 1st Reserve Rifle Regiment in the Gorokhovets training camps (1941–1942, Gorky Region).
Military service:
Commander of a sapper squad in the 47th Separate Sapper Battalion of the 43rd Latvian Guards Rifle Division on the North-Western Front (1942–1943)
Commander of a topographic platoon section of the 19th Artillery Regiment of the 26th Rifle Division on the North-Western Front (1943–1944)
Interpreter in the counterintelligence department of SMERSH of the Daugavpils garrison (1944–1946)
Clerk in mobile artillery workshops of the 145th reserve regiment (1946, Kaliningrad)
Grigory Rivkind was awarded the Order of the Red Star and the medal Medal For Victory over Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941–1945.
After demobilisation he worked as a musician in restaurants in Riga (1947–1966) and later in the Riga Bureau of Variety Orchestras (1966–1974).
His first marriage was to Valentina Feodosevna Kruglenko (1927, Dnipro). Their son Robert Grigoryevich Rivkind was born in Riga in 1952. The marriage was dissolved in 1954. His second wife was Tatyana Iosifovna Tets (1924, Riga); there were no children.
In 1967 and 1968 Grigory Rivkind applied for permission to travel for three months to Brazil to visit his brother Yudel Isakovich Rivkind (1927, Dvinsk). Yudel was imprisoned in the Daugavpils ghetto in 1941, deported by the Nazi to Germany, and survived several concentration camps, the last being Buchenwald concentration camp. He later escaped during an air raid, reached Italy, and eventually emigrated to Brazil.
According to documents, Rivkind’s first wife objected to his foreign travel, citing unpaid alimony. The authorities also considered his departure abroad inappropriate.
In 1974 he received permission to emigrate to Israel, where since 1972 his son from the first marriage Robert Grigoryevich Rivkind had been living.
Family:
Isak Rafailovich Rivkind (1895–1941) - father
Bunya Bentsionovna Rivkind (née Galle) (1900–1941) - mother
Riva Isakovna Rivkind (1922, Dvinsk – 1941, killed in the Daugavpils ghetto) - sister
Rafail Isakovich Rivkind (1925, Dvinsk – 1941, killed in the Daugavpils ghetto) - brother
Yudel Isakovich Rivkind (1927, Dvinsk) - brother
Valentina Iosifovna Kruglenko (1927) - first wife
Robert Grigoryevich Rivkind (1952) - son from first marrige
Tatyana Iosifovna Tets (1924) - second wife