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Posted on 03/11/2016 12:41:48 PM PST by Citizen Zed
Israel Kristal, a 112-year-old Israeli man who survived the Holocaust, was named the oldest man in the world by Guinness World Records on Friday.
His life has been a difficult journey that played out over some of Europe's darkest days.
Kristal was a child in Poland when World War I rattled the nation, and a young man when Germany invaded his home country, ordering his family into a ghetto.
He was sent to the Nazi's infamous Auschwitz concentration camp, but somehow managed to survive. He was the only member of his family to live through the Holocaust.
Kristal claims the title of world's oldest man at the age of 112 years and 178 days, and was awarded his certificate at his home in Haifa, Israel on Friday.
“I don’t know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why," “I don’t know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why," Kristal said of his longevity, according to a post from Guinness World Records. "There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men then me who are no longer alive."
According to Guinness World Records, Kristal was born near the town of Zarnow, Poland, on September 15, 1903. In the 1920's, he married and moved to Łódź in Poland to work in the family business making candy.
But the Nazi invasion of Poland and the occupation of Łódź in 1939 upended his life. Kristal was moved into the Łódź ghetto with his wife and two children in 1939.
Four years later, Kristal and his wife were sent to the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. Kristal lost his wife, Chaja Feige Frucht, and their two children in the Holocaust.
Kristal just barely survived, performing labour in Auschwitz and other concentration camps, before being rescued by Allied troops in May 1945 weighing just 80 pounds.
He was the only person in his large family to survive the Holocaust.
Kristal eventually remarried and emigrated in 1950 to Israeli city of Haifa in Israel with his second wife and their son.
He continued his candy making business as his family grew.
He was officially recognized by the organization in a ceremony at his home in Haifa, Israel, on Friday, surrounded by his family.
"All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost,” Kristal said.
May the lessons of the Holocaust never be forgotten and Islam and Socialism be destroyed for eternity!
G-d Bless him.
Incredible!
Talk about beating the odds...
It’s a miracle that any of them already in the death camps survived.
Ha! I like how he adds "better looking." Sense of humor as well as grit!
Yes indeed.
And at his age to have such a sharp wit...pretty remarkable! :-)
Thanks for posting. Moving story.
It just goes to prove what a caloric deficient diet can do to longevity.
Screw the Nazis, says God.
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May you live to be 120 is a Jewish blessing and a person who reaches Moses’ age, the ideal human lifespan, is truly blessed.
Congrats old Man,
like to shake Your Hand !
I wonder what his opinion of Obama is? I’d seriously love to know.
Visiting Auschwitz was the most chilling experience of my life. Auschwitz was the ground zero for Hitler’s Final solution. Most who were trained in from all over Europe were immediately sent to the Auschwitz gas chambers- these were the fortunate ones. The unlucky were sent to Birkenau camp for hard labor. Most lasted two days in Birkenau. I can’t imagine being housed in Auschwitz with the experiments, SS and the Gestapo.
OH this is awesome!! WOW.... a hero!!
Living proof that whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger...
Amen.
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