Page created by: Michael Pevzner

Dear Friends and Family,

It is with sadness that I inform you of the passing of my father, Mark Pevzner, on June 7, 2019, at the age of 82.

He was a good, gentle man (and a gentleman) with a rich sense of humor, and great depth, even in his more recent state of mind. Though he faced Parkinson’s Disease for a long time, also gradually losing his mental faculties, when I last saw him a couple of weeks ago, he knew my brother and me, and made some dry, spot-on remarks.

Mark was born on March 21. 1937, in what was then Leningrad, in the Soviet Union, sharing a birthday with his uncle Pavel and Johann Sebastian Bach, a love for whom he passed on to me.

He was four when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union, and was evacuated with other children during which time the city was cut off from food and communication by a 900 day siege that killed a million of its residents. He was reunited with his mother and baby brother only four years later, at age eight. His father died at the front during the first days of the war.

Mark went on to attain two degrees, in engineering and Japanese, and was a polyglot who at one time or another spoke five languages.

Facing antisemitism and the constant official lies of the Soviet Union, he became a “refusenik” who left his homeland for good in 1975, emigrating to the United States with his family and his mother.

In New York, he loved the opera and ballet, the museums, the Catskills, and the ability to find religion later in life. He raised two boys, and he lived a happy life.

Mark is survived by his wife of 49 years Genia, his sons Michael (Mariya) and Nicholas (Stephanie), his brother Yakov (Nadia) nephews Boris (Cristina) and Lev (Kate), and two grandchildren, Daniel and Alexandra.

We ask that you please consider a donation to the Michael J Fox Foundation for Parkinson’s Research.