Overview
- Interview Summary
- Abraham Chelminsky, born in 1926 in Villa Cecilia (Ciudad Madero), Mexico, discusses his Jewish family; his Polish father and Ukrainian mother; moving with his family to Mexico City when he was 12 years old; attending high school and a Yiddish school; his grandfather, who had a dream about Poland being on fire the week before the German invasion; Mexico’s neutrality until May 13, 1942 when the “SS Potrero del Llano” was sunk by a German submarine and Mexico declared the war to Germany; graduating in 1945; studying civil engineering; meeting his wife, Tzila Rafalin, in 1954; his wife’s work sharing the Mexican culture in Israel; going to Israel for their honeymoon; moving with his wife to Israel in 1970; their three daughters and one son; their eight grandchildren; his desire for his children to grow up with Judaism in their lives; and his thoughts on Islam.
- Interviewee
- Abraham Chelminsky
- Interviewer
- Alexander Chelminsky
- Date
-
interview:
2006
- Geography
-
creation:
Mexico
- Credit Line
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection, Gift of Alexander Chelminsky
Physical Details
- Language
- Spanish
- Extent
-
1 digital file : MPEG-4.
Rights & Restrictions
- Conditions on Access
- There are no known restrictions on access to this material.
- Conditions on Use
- No restrictions on use
Keywords & Subjects
- Topical Term
- Engineers--Mexico. Jewish families--Mexico--Mexico City. Jews--Mexico--Mexico City. Jews, Polish--Mexico. Jews, Ukrainian--Mexico. World War, 1939-1945--Children. World War, 1939-1945--Mexico. World War, 1939-1945--Personal narratives, Mexican. Men--Personal narratives.
- Geographic Name
- Ciudad Madero (Mexico) Israel--Emigration and immigration. Mexico City (Mexico) Tampico (Tamaulipas, Mexico)
- Personal Name
- Chelminsky, Abraham.
Administrative Notes
- Legal Status
- Permanent Collection
- Provenance
- Alexander Chelminsky donated the oral history interview with Abraham Chelminsky to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum on November 15, 2016. The interview was conducted in 2006 in Mexico.
- Funding Note
- The cataloging of this oral history interview has been supported by a grant from the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
- Special Collection
-
The Jeff and Toby Herr Oral History Archive
- Record last modified:
- 2023-11-16 09:40:19
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn555288
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- This record is digitized but cannot be downloaded online.
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Also in Oral history interviews of the Chelminsky Family collection
Oral history interviews of the Chelminsky Family collection
Date: 2005-2006
Oral history interview with Anita Kushnier Chelminsky
Oral History
Anita Chelminsky, born on January 20, 1932 in Mexico City, Mexico, discusses her parents; her father, who was from Poland, and her mother, who was from Kamenkja near Kiev, Ukraine; her brother Abraham Chelminsky; and living with her family in Tampico, Mexico before they returned to Mexico City.
Oral history interview with Enrique Chelminsky
Oral History
Enrique Chelminsky, born in Klodawa, Poland, discusses his father’s immigration to Mexico when Enrique was two years old; going with his mother and sister to Mexico three years after his father; living in Minatitlan; hearing about Kristallnacht; learning about the extent of the Holocaust in 1945; his mother losing three brothers during the war; attending a Yiddish high school; studying medicine; traveling with his wife to Israel for their honeymoon in 1955; visiting Klodawa and not finding any memorials; visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau on that trip as well; and his life in Mexicali, Mexico.
Oral history interview with Rebecca Pollack Chelminsky
Oral History
Rebecca Chelminky, born in 1914 in Minsk, Belarus, discusses her childhood; attending a school where they spoke Russian; her father, who emigrated from Belarus to Mexico a year before her, as she did not have the necessary papers to travel; going with her mother and to Paris, France via Riga, Latvia; her memories of Paris and the contrast with Minsk; going with her family by boat in 1930 from Saint-Nazaire to Mexico to join the rest of her family; attending a Yiddish school in Mexico; the fates of her family members who remained in Minsk; and her life in Mexico.
