Holocaust survivor dies in Russian attack on Kharkiv

By: Ryan Oswald, Staff Reporter, The Pawprint

Boris Romantschenko, a Nazi Holocaust survivor aged 96, has died on Friday after Russian force shelling on his apartment in eastern Kharkiv.

Russian forces have been shelling Kharkiv for just over three weeks. At least 500 citizens have been announced dead. 

An organization Romantschenko was a vice president of, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, said it was “deeply disturbed” by Romantschenko’s death. Members say he worked hard on the memory of Nazi crimes.

The statement also gave well wishes to Romantschenko’s family during these times.

Romantschenko was just a teen when he was deported to Germany to undergo intense labor in 1942, even though he wasn’t Jewish. 

After a failed escape attempt in 1943, he was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp, where over 50,000 people were murdered before it’s liberation in 1945. 

Romantschenko returned to Buchenwald in 2012 to celebrate 67 years since the liberation of the camp. Here, he recited a pledge made by survivors to “create a new world where peace and freedom reign.”