World’s oldest man dies at 113

Kristal was only member of his family to survive WWII, Auschwitz

JERUSALEM - Israel Kristal, the world’s oldest man who lived through both World Wars and survived the Auschwitz concentration camp has passed away just a month short of his 114th birthday, his family said Saturday.

Oren Kristal, a grandson, said he died Friday. “He managed to accomplish a lot. Every year he lived was like a few years for somebody else,” Oren told The Associated Press.

Last year Guinness World Records awarded Kristal a certificate as the world’s oldest man at his home in Haifa, Israel.

Kristal was born to an Orthodox Jewish family near the town of Zarnow in Poland in 1903. Kristal was orphaned shortly after World War I and moved to Lodz to work in the family confectionary business in 1920.

During the Nazi occupation of Poland Kristal was confined to the ghetto there and later sent to Auschwitz and other concentration camps. His first wife and two children were killed in the Holocaust. Six million Jews were systematically murdered by German Nazis and their collaborators during World War II.

Kristal survived World War II weighing only 80 pounds — the only survivor of his large family.

He later married another Holocaust survivor and moved with her to Israel in 1950 where he built a new family and a successful confectionary business.

He is survived by two children and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren, media reported.