Jerry Kellen was born Jacob Grinberg on November 27, 1937 in Lodz, Poland. Together with his mother, Sonia, and the rest of their family, Jerry was forced into the Kovno Ghetto after the German occupation of Lithuania in 1941. At the age of 8, Jerry narrowly escaped a “Kinder-Aktion” in the Kovno Ghetto, in which hundreds of children were rounded up and killed at the Ninth Fort. His uncle, Henry Kellen, and aunt, Julia Kellen, were able to get Jerry out of the ghetto and to the safety of the Urbonas farm. Andrius and Marija Urbonas, Christian Lithuanian farmers, hid Henry, Julia, and Jerry, along with five other Jews, in an earthen hole dug beneath their barn. Jerry’s mother, Sonia, and grandmother, Helena, were taken to Stutthof concentration camp, where they died of typhus. Jerry, Julia, and Henry were liberated by the Soviet Army in 1944. They immigrated to the United States and settled in El Paso. Jerry finished school in El Paso, and Henry and Julia adopted him as their son. Jerry died in 1963.
Connecting Stories: Henry Kellen, Julia Kellen