The oldest survivor of the Holocaust dies at 113

The oldest survivor of the Holocaust dies at 113

Born in 1912, Rose Girona survived the Nazi persecution in Germany and Japanese occupation in China. He later emigrated to the United States. Rose Giroe, a woman considered the oldest surviving the Holocaust, died at 113 in a nursing home in Long Island, in Eastern New York.




The death took place on Monday (24/02), but was announced only last Thursday by his daughter Reha Bennicasa. The information was subsequently issued by the organization, which acts to seek compensation for survivors of the Holocaust.

“She was a strong and resilient woman. She took the best from terrible situations. She was very balanced, very wise. There was nothing that I could take them to help me solve me – never – since childhood,” said Rosa’s daughter, Reha Bennicasa.

“His life was a testimony of survival and strength,” said the Israeli embassy in Berlin.

Escape from Nazi Germany and experience in China

Giroe was born in 1912 in Janow, a city that at the time was part of the Russian empire (and today it is in the territory of Poland) and was baptized as Rosa Raubvogel. When he was still a child, he emigrated with his family to Germany and settled in Hamburg.

Then he married a German Jew named Julius Mannheim and, when he was pregnant for almost nine months, her husband was arrested in 1937, just before the Second World War, and sent to the concentration camp of Buchenwald. Shortly thereafter, he gave birth to Reha, a name that the Nazis forced her to choose from an authorized list of Jewish names. “Hitler had a list of names prepared for Jewish children and this was the only one I liked, so I called it,” he told the USC Shoah Foundation.

Her husband was subsequently released and the couple, now with their newborn daughter, managed to leave Germany. The three initially obtained a visa for China and ended up escaping Shanghai. However, the city soon fell into the hands of Japanese troops, allies of the Nazis, who organized a ghetto to the Jews of the city.

At the end of the war, with the defeat of the Japanese and the Nazis, the family managed to emigrate to the United States, establishing itself in New York. Later, Rose divorced Giulio and married the American Jack Girone, of whom he adopted the surname.

Rose Giroe said that life has put it on the test on many occasions and that she helped her become stronger: “Nothing is so bad that you can’t extract something good,” he said in an interview.

According to the conference in the claims of the organization, there are still about 245,000 survivors of the Holocaust in the world, of which 14,000 live in New York. After Giroe’s death, Mirja Bolle is believed to be the oldest survivor of the Holocaust. The Israelis born in the Netherlands will make 108 on March 20.

JPS/CN (Lusa, DW, OTS)

Source: Terra

You may also like