A 96-year-old man who survived some of the worst horrors of the Second World War has been killed by Russian forces in Ukraine.
According to reports, Boris Romantschenko lived through no less than four Nazi concentration camps in the 1940s, but passed away when a Russian missile hit the building in which he lived, causing it to burn down.
The Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation confirmed his death. They told PEOPLE: “We are horrified by the violent death of Boris Romantschenko in the war in Ukraine.
“A bullet hit the multi-story building in which he lived. His apartment burned down.”
As per CNN, Romantschenko was born in 1926 Bondari in the Sumy Oblast of Ukraine. In the early 1940s, he found himself in a German labor camp, the first of four he would suffer through.
When he tried to escape, he was transferred by the Gestapo (the German secret police) to the Buchenwald concentration camp, while he was later moved on again to Mittelbau-Dora and Bergen-Belsen.
After the end of the war, Romantschenko worked for and aided Holocaust survivors, acting as vice president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee.
In a tweet after Boris’s death, Buchenwald Memorial director Jens-Christian Wagner said: “#Hitler could not defeat our friend Boris. Now another fascist dictator, Vladimir #Putin, has killed him. But Putin is not a new Hitler. We should be careful not to draw false historical analogies.”
In 2013, Romantschenko spoke to school children about his ordeal in the Nazi concentration camps, telling them: “I wish you the best of luck from the bottom of my heart, and I hope that no one ever has to go through what we former prisoners experienced.”
To think that this great man has been killed due to Vladimir Putin’s mindless invasion is nothing short of heartbreaking.
He is survived by his son and granddaughter, who cared for him when he was forced to isolate indoors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Rest in peace, Boris Romantschenko, and all the victims who have lost their lives in the meaningless war currently ruining the lives of millions of Ukrainians.
Please, share this article if you, too, want to send your love and support where it’s needed at this difficult time.
