After having survived the Nazi pogroms and escaped to New York via China, Rose Girone passed away on Monday. Aged 108, Mirjam Bolle is now believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor.
Rose Girone, the woman believed to be the oldest survivor of the Holocaust, has passed away, the New York-based Claims Conference announced on Thursday.
Girone, who was born in Poland in 1912, died on Monday, the nonprofit organization that secures compensation for the survivors of the Holocaust said in a post on social media.
US broadcaster CNN reported that she died at a nursing home in Bellmore in New York.
“She was a strong lady, resilient. She made the best of terrible situations. She was very level-headed, very commonsensical. There was nothing I couldn’t bring to her to help me solve — ever — from childhood on,” Girone’s daughter Reha Bennicasa said of her.
“Her life was a testimony of survival and strength,” the Israeli embassy in Berlin said.
Flight after Nazi pogroms
Girone was born in the town of Janov in modern-day Poland, but which was part of Germany at the time.
According to the Claims Conference, she moved to German Breslau — modern-day Wroclaw in Poland — with her husband, Julius Mannheim, in 1938 as the Nazis were carrying out the Kristallnacht pogrom against Jews across Germany.
She witnessed the Nazis burn down the synagogue and burn Jewish books.
Her husband was arrested by the Nazis and sent initially to the Buchenwald concentration camp when Girone was eight months pregnant. He was subsequently released and the couple fled to Shanghai on a Chinese visa, before settling in New York in 1947.
She got divorced in 1948, and later married Jack Girone, while she also became known as a knitting immigrant after opening knitting shops in the United States. Rose Girone also spoke publicly about her experiences during the Nazi era.
Of the around 220,000 Holocaust survivors who are still alive, some 14,000 reside in New York, according to the Claims Conference.
Following Girone’s death, Mirjam Bolle is now believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor. The Dutch-born Israeli will turn 108 on March 20.
