Helen Kleinbort Krauze


Helen Kleinbort Krauze is a Polish-born Mexican female Jewish journalist who worked for over five decades as an interviewer, features and travel writer and columnist first with Novedades, later with El Heraldo de México and more recently with Sol de Mexico and Protocolo magazine.

Biographical

Helen Krauze arrived in Veracruz, Veracruz, Mexico, when she was a small child with her Jewish-immigrant parents, José Kleinbort and Eugenia Firman, via Santander, Spain to seek refuge from the German invasion of Poland, holocaust, and the war persecution of Jews elsewhere. She attended Maddox Academy, a bilingual Spanish-English school, and later earned a degree in English literature from the University of Cambridge. She lives in Mexico City. She is the mother of one daughter and two sons, including Enrique Krauze, a Mexican historian and writer.

Career

Before she was a journalist, Krauze wrote newsletters in the 1950s.
Helen Krauze began her journalism career in 1959 when she was hired by Daniel Dueñas at the Novedades newspaper to conduct interviews. She became known for her interviews first at Novedades and then later at El Heraldo de México and El Sol de México. She published around 900 interviews during her career, including interviews with Carlos Monsivais, Sarita Montiel, Josephine Baker, Spanish actor Manolo Fabregas, Mexican author Hugo Argüelles, Elena Poniatowska, Emilio Portes Gil, Teddy Stauffer, and Pedro Friedeberg. She was a journalist for Novedades until 1989 when she was hired by El Heraldo de México, and she became known later for her column La Semana con Helen Krauze. She also contributed to Protocolo, Kena, Actual, Claudia and Siempre.
In order to support her family she supplemented her income by doing costume work for a few of Tulio Demicheli's films, such as Novia, esposa y amante, and TV host for La hora de los locutores.

Affiliations

On 4 October 1967 she became part of the group of journalists Veinte Mujeres y un Hombre. This group, founded by Hylda Pino de Sandoval, encouraged women to be educated and work in the journalism profession. She is also a member and vice president of Asociación Mundial de Mujeres Periodistas y Escritoras. She is also member of the Asociación Mexicana de Prensa Turística , founded in 1975 by Agustín Salmón Esparza.

Awards

Over a career that spanned fifty years, Krauze was presented with several prestigious awards for her contributions to Mexican journalism.