By Kanishka Singh
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Rose Girone, the woman believed to be the oldest known Holocaust survivor, has died, her family and a Jewish organization that secures compensation for Holocaust survivors said on Thursday.
When her husband was arrested and sent to the Buchenwald Nazi concentration camp, Girone was eight months pregnant, the non-profit Claims Conference said in a social media post announcing her death.
The organization said she died on Monday. CNN reported on Thursday that she died at a nursing home in Bellmore, New York.
After her husband’s release, the family fled Breslau, Germany, to Shanghai, the New York-based Claims Conference added.
“She was a strong lady, resilient. She made the best of terrible situations,” her daughter, Holocaust survivor Reha Bennicasa, said in a statement.
“She was very level-headed, very commonsensical. There was nothing I couldn’t bring to her to help me solve — ever — from childhood on,” her daughter added.
About 245,000 Holocaust survivors are still alive and about 14,000 of those live in New York, according to the Claims Conference.
(Reporting by Kanishka Singh in Washington; Editing by Rod Nickel)
