Thread by @rdanielkelemen

My father Peter Tibor Kelemen died a year ago today. I miss him dearly. I'd like to share a thread about his amazing life, which spanned 3 continents and saw him survive the Holocaust, escape communism, become an engineer, pilot, polyglot, husband, father, grandfather & more 1/n

His obituary gives a quick version of his incredible life story which saw him live and work in places including Hungary, Romania, Austria, Chile, Germany, the US, and more: legacy.com/obituaries/mar… In this thread, I can say more and share some pictures 2/n

The only son of Mihaly and Sari Kelemen, Peter was born on May 5 1937 in Budapest, to an educated, middle class Hungarian Jewish family. A clever boy, he learned to read at age four & took an early interest in all things mechanical. But his childhood was soon interrupted. 3/n

Hungary's authoritarian government started passing anti-Jewish laws just the year after Peter was born, and it kept getting worse until 1944, when the Arrow Cross (Nazis) took control. That is when Peter’s "adventures" as a refugee and survivor started. 4/n

His parents got false papers for him & sent him with an aunt to Romania– where they thought he would be safer. He spent 8 months there, with little to eat & always needing to hide his Jewish identity. He saw firefights between the Russians and Germans as the Red Army arrived 5/n

When the war ended, he returned to Hungary & reunited with his parents (who had survived with Wallenberg's help). Only 4 years later, however, his father learned he would soon be persecuted by the Communist government, so he decided he had to get his family out of Hungary. 6/n

So, in 1949, at 12 years old, Peter became a refugee for the 2nd time - this time fleeing Communists instead of Fascists. Hidden under hay in a horse drawn wagon, his family snuck across the border into Czechoslovakia & eventually Austria where they entered a refugee camp 7/n

His father started a textile business in Vienna and Peter went to middle school. To manage this, he had to quickly learn German. While in school there, he was beat up regularly on the playground and taunted as a “dirty Jew” by the Austrian children. 8/n

Soon, politics again sent Peter’s family on the move. His father was following developments in the Korean War and worried –like many then– that it would lead to a World War III that might again engulf Europe, so he decided it was time to get the family out of Europe 9/n

Peter’s mother Sari had relatives in Chile, so they decided to move there. So off they went in March 1951. Peter was 14 years old, and when they arrived in Chile enrolled at the Jewish high school there, once again continuing his education in a new language (Spanish) 10/n

Peter loved Chile. He was free of the persecution and intense anti-Semitism he had faced in Europe, and he enjoyed the great outdoors Chile had to offer. He studied engineering at university, rode his motor cycle around the Andes & took up his lifelong hobby- flying gliders. 11/n

In 1964, he went to Minnesota for a year on a Ford Foundation scholarship, where he met and married my mother Sandy, an American. They then returned to Chile, where they had my brother and I, and he started working as a mechanical engineer. 12/n

In 1973, the economy in Chile was collapsing, and my parents decided they should move to America, but before they could leave the military coup happened. After a couple of months they did manage to leave, and they settled in Minnesota where my dad found work as an engineer. 13/n

He attended night school at the university of Minnesota to earn an MBA, and soon became an American citizen. So, let’s pause here for a second to think of all he had been through and achieved before his 40th birthday: 14/n

He lived under a fascist dictatorship, a communist dictatorship, and – briefly - a military government. He was a refugee or migrant four times, doing his education in four languages. He got married, had two sons & started a career as a mechanical engineer in a new country. 15/n

In 1978, Peter was hired by IBM and became part of the wave of brainpower fueling the birth of Silicon Valley. He was very excited to work in the computer industry. I think he enjoyed building the kind of new technologies he had read about in sci fi books since he was a boy. 16/n

He spent most of the next 30 years working in Silicon Valley, along with 2 years in Germany & shorter stints Japan and Mexico. He worked for a few firms, including HP. As a manufacturing engineer, he oversaw the manufacturing of things from hard disks to laser printers. 17/n

He pursued a lifelong passion for gliding, and enjoyed years of camaraderie with friends at the airport. 18/n

He had an amazing intellectual curiosity. All his life, he read voraciously on an incredible array of topics, spending weeks focused on one topic, say, Chinese history, before moving on to Astrobiology, or biblical archeology. No surprise that both his sons became teachers 19/n

Above all, Peter was a generous soul and a loving family man. He was absolutely dedicated to his wife Paula, his sons @mike_kelemen & I, his daughters-in-law, grandchildren, and other close family members. He was greatly loved, and he is sorely missed. 20/n

He was a very loving father, and he taught me so much: to be a Mensch, to love learning, to work hard, to laugh a lot and enjoy life. I also owe my career to him (reading this thread, you'll understand why I study European politics). I miss him every day - especially today. 21/21