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Yisrael Kristal

Discussion in 'WWII Era Obituaries (non-military service)' started by GRW, Aug 11, 2017.

  1. GRW

    GRW Pillboxologist WW2|ORG Editor

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    "The world's oldest man, an Israeli Holocaust survivor, has died, aged 113.
    Yisrael Kristal, who made it into the Guinness World Records book as the world's oldest man last year, died today a month before his 114th birthday.
    He survived Auschwitz-Birkenau, the infamous Nazi concentration camp where more than one million people were killed, but tragically lost his first wife and two children in the war.
    By the time the camp was liberated, he weighed just 81 lbs (37kgs).
    Kristal, originally from Zarnow in what is now Poland, was born on September 15, 1903 - three months before the Wright brothers' first successful powered airplane flight.
    After World War One he worked in the family confectionery business, and met his wife, becoming a father to two children.
    But his life was turned upside down when the Jewish quarter of the city became a ghetto under Nazi occupation during World War II and Kristal was sent to the infamous Nazi death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau.
    According to the BBC, his two children died in the Lodz ghetto, but he and his wife Chaja Feige Frucht were moved to the camp, where she was killed.
    After surviving the war, he moved to Israel where he opened a sweet shop and began his life again, meeting his second wife and having children."
    World's oldest man dead in Israel at 113 | Daily Mail Online
     

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