A Century of Resilience

Rose Girone, who was thought to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor, passed away at the age of 113. She was a strong advocate for sharing survivors’ stories, and her life was marked by courage and determination. Her journey began in Janow, Poland, where she was born in 1912. She moved to Hamburg, Germany, with her family when she was just six years old. Her life took a dramatic turn when Adolf Hitler came to power in 1933, shattering any career plans she might have had. She was one of about 245, 000 survivors still living across more than 90 countries, according to a study. Their numbers are quickly dwindling, as most are very old and often of frail health, with a median age of 86. She married Julius Mannheim in 1937 through an arranged marriage. When the Nazis arrived to take Mannheim to the Buchenwald concentration camp, Girone was nine months pregnant. She remembers one Nazi saying, “Take that woman also. ” The other Nazi responded, “She’s pregnant, leave her alone. ” The next morning her father-in-law was also taken, and she was left alone with their housekeeper. After her daughter Reha was born in 1938, Girone was able to secure Chinese visas from relatives in London and secure her husband’s release. In Genoa, Italy, when Reha was only six months old, they boarded a ship to Japan-occupied Shanghai with little more than clothing and some linens. Her husband first made money through buying and selling secondhand goods. He saved up to buy a car and started a taxi business, while Girone knitted and sold sweaters. But in 1941, Jewish refugees were rounded up into a ghetto. The family of three were forced to cram into a bathroom in a house while roaches and bedbugs crawled through their belongings.

Her father-in-law came just before the second world war started, but fell ill and died. They had to wait in line for food and lived under the rule of a ruthless Japanese man who called himself “King of the Jews”. “They did really horrible things to people, ” Girone said of the Japanese military trucks that patrolled the streets. “One of our friends got killed because he wouldn’t move fast enough. ” Information about the war in Europe only circulated in the form of rumors as British radios were not allowed. When the war was over, they began receiving mail from Girone’s mother, grandmother and other relatives in the US. With their help, they boarded a ship to San Francisco in 1947 with only $80, which Girone hid inside buttons. They arrived in New York City in 1947. She later started a knitting store with the help of her mother. “Her theories were always, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff, ’ and ‘anything you can fix with money is not a problem, ’” her daughter said. “She just had a great head on her shoulders. ” Also in New York, Girone was reunited with her brother, who went to France for school and ended up getting his US citizenship by joining the army. When she went to the airport to pick him up in New York, it was her first time seeing him in 17 years. Girone later divorced Mannheim. In 1968, she met Jack Girone, the same day her granddaughter was born. By the next year they were married. He died in 1990. When asked in 1996 for the message she would like to leave for her daughter and granddaughter, she said: “Nothing is so very bad that something good shouldn’t come out of it. No matter what it is. ” Her life story is a testament to the power of resilience and the human spirit. It reminds us of the importance of remembering the past and learning from it. The lessons of the Holocaust must not die with those who endured the suffering. The Holocaust is slipping from memory to history, and its lessons are too important, especially in today’s world, to be forgotten. The urgency of sharing the lessons of the Holocaust while we still have first-hand witnesses with us is clear. It is our responsibility to carry on in her memory.

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