96-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Who Suffered In Nazi Death Camps Killed By Russian Forces In Ukraine

A Ukrainian Holocaust survivor who had dedicated his life to ensuring the remembrance of the atrocities so that none forget it was reported to have been killed on Monday, March 21, due to the continued Russian bombing of Kharkiv.

Boris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old man who had survived multiple Nazi concentration camps during World War II, was reportedly killed on Friday during the shelling of Kharkiv by Russian forces, with Romanchenko’s niece confirming his death to the Holocaust remembrance foundation he worked with on Monday, according to the Guardian.

“We are shocked to confirm the violent death of Boris Romanchenko, whose niece informed us on Monday morning that he died last Friday after a bomb or rocket hit the multistorey building where he lived in Kharkiv and his apartment was burned out,” a spokesperson for the foundation said.

Romanchenko was captured in 1941 by Nazi forces after they launched Operation Barbarossa against the Soviet Union, finding himself in multiple concentration camps in Dortmund, Buchenwald, and Peenemünde, before being liberated by British and American forces at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp just before they were to be fed poisoned food, CBS News reported.

Romanchenko has dedicated his life to ensuring that the people who died in the Holocaust would not be forgotten. He served as vice president for the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee, and attended the 70th anniversary of Buchenwald’s liberation.

In a Telegram post, Mayor Andriy Sadovy of Lviv, Ukraine mourned the untimely death of Romanchenko, before denouncing Putin for the death that he has caused in Ukraine, according to the New York Post.

“He was killed by a Russian missile in his apartment during a ‘denazification operation,’” he said. “The new fascists continue the work of Hitler.”

In public statements during the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin has claimed that Ukraine was killing off its Russian-speaking population, though no proof of any kind was offered by him before or during his invasion of the country.

Meanwhile, many Ukrainians, including President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, are of Jewish heritage and are able to speak Russian fluently despite Putin's claims.