Oldest Holocaust Survivor, Rose Girone, dies at 113
Mar 01, 2025
New York [US], March 1 : Rose Girone, believed to be the oldest Holocaust Survivor, has died at the age of 113, the New York Times reported, citing her daughter and fellow survivor, Reha Bennicasa.
Rose, who breathed her last at a nursing home in North Bellmore, New York, was born as Raubvogel on January 13, 1912, in Janow, Poland, to Klara Aschkenase and Jacob Raubvogel. The family later settled in Hamburg, Germany, and started a costume business.
She married Julius Mannheim in 1938 in an arranged marriage. The couple moved to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) that year, not long before Mr. Mannheim and his father were arrested and sent to Buchenwald (concentration camp) in Germany.
Girone fled Nazi Germany in 1939 with her husband and baby only to be forced into a Jewish ghetto in Shanghai. According to the report, "she would often say, "Aren't we lucky?"
Rose Girone was eight months pregnant and living in Breslau, Germany, in 1938 when her husband was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, according to the NYT. She secured passage to Shanghai, only to be forced to live in a bathroom in a Jewish ghetto for seven years. Once settled in the United States, she rented whatever she could find while supporting her daughter with knitting.
Despite the hardships, including two pandemics, Girone embraced life with urgent positivity and common sense. "Aren't we lucky?" she would often say.
Her secret to longevity was simple, she would say: dark chocolate and good children
There are about 245,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors alive around the world, according to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which supports survivors, according to the New York Times.
"This passing reminds us of the urgency of sharing the lessons of the Holocaust while we still have first-hand witnesses with us," said Greg Schneider, the organization's executive vice president. "The Holocaust is slipping from memory to history, and its lessons are too important, especially in today's world, to be forgotten."
"Rose was an example of fortitude," he said, "but now we are obligated to carry on in her memory."
