This is a picture of my mother's sister Mina Belenkaya, nee Shoov and her two sons: Leonid, born in 1922 (on the right) and Semyon, born in 1926 (on the left). The photo was taken in Astrakhan in the 1930s.
I have vivid memories of my mother's sister Mina, born in 1900. Mina lived in Astrakhan. Her husband Isaak Belenkiy was a photographer. Mina had no education and she worked as a cleaning lady, then as a janitor and later as a deactivation assistant. Mina and Isaak had two sons: Leonid and Semyon. They were both recruited to the army in the first days of the war and perished at the very beginning of the war. Mina and Isaak were evacuated to Miass, Cheliabinsk region, during the war. The Moscow plant was evacuated there. Mina died in this town in 1951, Isaak stayed to live in Miass, and died there in the 1960s. They lived in this town with my mother's younger sister Rieva.
Mina Belenkaya and her sons Leonid and Semyon
The Centropa Collection at USHMM
The Centropa archive has been acquired by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC. USHMM will soon offer a Special Collections page for Centropa.
Academics please note: USHMM can provide you with original language word-for-word transcripts and high resolution photographs. All publications should be credited: "From the Centropa Collection at the United States Memorial Museum in Washington, DC".
Please contact collection [at] centropa.org (collection[at]centropa[dot]org).