During Zeisel's Russian imprisonment another hero of the Stalinist era, her friend and colleague, the famed chief sculptor of the Lomonosov Porcelain Factory, Natalia Dan'ko (pronounced donCOE) was creating a series of bas-relief medallions of friends and colleagues from the intellectual and artistic circles of Moscow and St. Petersburg who had been caught in the cycle of betrayal, trials, and murders, and whom she wanted to commemorate, expecting that they would not survive this nightmare time. All of the medallions were hidden, for to be caught with them would mean that their creator would in turn be condemned. Natalya Dan'ko died of starvation in 1942 during the siege of Leningrad, at about the time that Eva Zeisel was commissioned by the Museum of Modern Art and Castleton China to create Museum dinnerware.

In the early 1990's, during the glasnost period, the charges against Stricker were legally overturned and she was declared "rehabilitated." Later in that decade, during the time of the rebuilding at the Lomonosov Factory in St. Petersburg, the medallion of Eva Stricker was taken from hiding, and plans were made to present it to the person who, they had recently discovered, had re-emerged as the world-famous Eva Zeisel. In April 2000, a delegation of 11 designers and artists from Lomonosov traveled to New York and presented Eva with the medallion which Natalya had made for her. After 60 years, Eva held in her hands the tribute from her friend.