Rose Girone, oldest living Holocaust survivor, dies at 113

Rose Girone, oldest Holocaust survivor, dies at 113, leaving behind a legacy of resilience and advocacy for remembrance.

Rose Girone, believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor and a strong advocate for sharing survivors' stories, has died. She was 113.

Her death was confirmed Thursday by the Claims Conference, a New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.

“Rose was an example of fortitude but now we are obligated to carry on in her memory,” Greg Schneider, Claims Conference executive vice president, said in a statement. “The lessons of the Holocaust must not die with those who endured the suffering.” Girone was born on January 13, 1912, in Janow, Poland. Her family moved to Hamburg, Germany, when she was 6, she said in a filmed interview in 1996 with the USC Shoah Foundation.

When asked by the interviewer if she had any particular career plans before Hitler, she said: “Hitler came in 1933 and then it was over for everybody.” Girone was one of about 245,000 survivors still living across more than 90 countries, according to a study released by the Claims Conference last year. Their numbers are quickly dwindling, as most are very old and often of frail health, with a median age of 86.

Six million European Jews and people from other minorities were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust.

“This passing reminds us of the urgency of sharing the lessons of the Holocaust while we still have first-hand witnesses with us,” Schneider said. “The Holocaust is slipping from memory to history, and its lessons are too important, especially in today's world, to be forgotten.” Girone married Julius Mannheim in 1937 through an arranged marriage.

She was 9 months pregnant living in Breslau, which is now Wroclaw, Poland, when Nazis arrived to take Mannheim to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Their family had two cars and so she asked her husband to leave his keys.