Monday 21 January 2019

YANKEV TSELEMENSKI (JACOB CELEMENSKI)


YANKEV TSELEMENSKI (JACOB CELEMENSKI) (March 14, 1904-January 18, 1986)
            He was born in Warsaw.  He attended religious elementary school.  In 1917 he moved with his family to Gombin (Gąbin).  In 1924 he returned to Warsaw and became a tailor.  He was active in the tailors’ trade union, in the Bundist youth organization “Tsukunft” (Future), and in the Bundist municipal committee.  In 1939 he was sent to Cracow to assume the position of secretary of the united council of Cracow trade unions.  In 1941 he worked as a courier for the Bundist underground.  In 1944 he was deported to Auschwitz and later to the Mauthausen concentration camp in Germany.  In 1948 he came to the United States and again took up tailoring.  He served as secretary of the association of concentration camp survivors.  He published a volume of memoirs entitled Mitn farshnitenem folk (“With my people in its nightmare of destruction”), prepared for the published by Avrom Shulman and Y. Sh. Herts (New York: Unzer tsayt, 1963), 350 pp., with a preface and pictures.

Sources: A. Leyeles, in Tog-morgn-zhurnal (New York) (July 7, 1963); Kh. Sh. Kazdan, in Unzer veg (New York) (October 1963); Y. Grosman, in Unzer tsayt (New York) (October 1963); L. Zhitnitski, in Di prese (Buenos Aires) (May 2, 1964); Y. El-ski, in Unzer shtime (Paris) (May 12, 1964); A. El., in Unzer gedank (Buenos Aires) (June 1964); Y. Goldshteyn, in Keneder older (Montreal) (June 31, 1964).
Yankev Kahan


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