96 yr old Holocaust survivor killed in Russian strike on Kharkiv in Ukraine
Mar 22, 2022
Kyiv [Ukraine], March 22 : As the Russia-Ukraine war inches closer to completing one month, in a recent development, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, Borys Romanchenko, was killed Friday by a Russian strike on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Buchenwald concentration camp memorial institute confirmed Romanchenko's death. According to the memorial, Romanchenko survived the camps at Buchenwald, Peenemunde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen during World War II.
The memorial said that it was "stunned" by news of his death adding, Romanchenko worked "intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee."
Yulia Romanchenko, Borys' granddaughter, told CNN that she "learned about the shelling of Saltivka residential district on March 18 from social networks. I asked locals if they knew anything about my grandfather's house. They sent me a video of a burning house. I found out about this after the curfew and therefore I could not go there immediately."
However, while she tried to reach the area, she found her grandfather's house "completely burned down -- there were no windows, no balcony, nothing in his apartment," reported CNN.
On February 24, Russia began a special military operation in Ukraine after the Donetsk and Luhansk people's republics requested help in defending themselves. What followed the military operation was a slew of sanctions imposed by the western countries targeting the Russian economy.