USA TODAY International Edition
Holocaust survivor, 96, killed by shelling in Ukraine
A 96- year- old Holocaust survivor was killed last week in a Russian bombing in his home city of Kharkiv, Ukraine.
The victim, Borys Romanchenko, survived the Nazi concentration camps at Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora and Bergen- Belsen during World War II. The Buchenwald and Mittelbau- Dora Memorials Foundation confirmed Romanchenko’s death Monday.
The foundation said Romanchenko’s granddaughter reported that the multi- story building he was living in was hit by Russian shells, adding it was “deeply disturbed” by the news of his death.
Romachenko was deported to the German city of Dortmund in 1942 and was assigned to forced labor, the Washington Post reported. He was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1943 after trying to escape, and he was held in other concentration camps until 1945.
The foundation said Romanchenko “worked intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes,” and he was vice president of the Buchenwald- Dora International Committee.
In 2015, he was at the Buchenwald camp memorial site to commemorate the anniversary of the camp’s liberation in 1945 by the U. S. Army. At the ceremony, he read the Buchenwald oath “Creating a new world where peace and freedom reign,” the foundation said.
The Blue Card, a nonprofit organization in the U. S. dedicated to providing financial assistance to Holocaust survivors, estimated that about 10,000 Holocaust survivors live in Ukraine.
It is unclear how many people have been killed as a result of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, but the United Nations said 925 civilians had been killed as of Sunday, most of which were caused “by the use of explosive weapons with a wide impact area, including shelling from heavy artillery and multiple- launch rocket systems, and missile and air strikes.”
Ukrainian officials condemned the attacks that killed Romanchenko, alluding to the comments Russia President Vladimir Putin made at the beginning at the war when he said the purpose of the invasion was the “denazification” of Ukraine.
“He lived his quiet life in Kharkiv until recently. Last Friday a Russian bomb hit his house and killed him. Unspeakable crime. Survived Hitler, murdered by Putin,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Dmytro Kuleba said.