Boris Romantschenko.Photo: Buchenwald_Dora/Twitter
Boris Romantschenko, aHolocaust survivorwho lived through four Nazi concentration camps, was killed Friday when Russians shelled his apartment building in the city of Kharkiv, the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation announced Monday. He was 96.
Romantschenko survived Nazi death camps — including Buchenwald, Dora and Bergen Belsen — and served as a vice president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee for Holocaust survivors for many years, working “intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes,” the group says.
The foundation shared a photo from April 12, 2015, when he read the Oath of Buchenwald in Russian and said, “Building a new world of peace and freedom is our ideal.”
Boris Romantschenko reading the oath of Buchenwald.Michael Reichel/TSK
Romantschenko was born on Jan. 20, 1926 in a Ukrainian village called Bondari. In 1942, he was forced into a German labor camp. After an escape attempt, he was caught and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in January 1943.
Romantschenko was later moved to Peenemünde, where he had to help build theV-2 rocket, and then to the Mittelbau-Dora and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.
Russia has relentlessly attacked Kharkiv with an array of weaponry, including artillery, rockets, and guided missiles, destroying the historic city and leaving over 500 dead there,The New York Timesreported.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly said a goal of his invasion of Ukraine is the “denazification” of the country, which critics say istwisting history for his own gain.
source: people.com
