Ukraine war: Man, 96, survived four Nazi death camps but was killed by a Russian missile
He survived being interred at not one, but four World War II Nazi death camps.
The 96-year-old Boris Romanchenko — who lived through the horrors of the likes of Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen — was killed by a Russian missile strike on his flat in the war-ravaged Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday.
The news of his death was confirmed by the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial foundation on Monday after his granddaughter Yulia called the institution.
“It is with horror that we report the violent death of Boris Romanchenko in the war in Ukraine,” the memorial for the Buchenwald survivors said in a statement.
"The multi-storey apartment building where Romanchenko lived was shelled and caught on fire,” said the statement.
Yulia Romanschenko told the local outlet Suspilne Novini that the apartment was directly struck by a missile, leaving only the metal mesh of the bed where he slept intact.
"He lived in that apartment in [the neighbourhood of] Slativka for 30 years," she said. "He couldn't walk or hear well, but he didn't want to leave."
A spokesperson for the Anne Frank Museum told Euronews the institution was deeply sorry to hear of Romanchenko's death.
"It’s very tragic that he again had to experience war and that he lost his life in a Russian strike on his home," the statement said.
The museum dedicated to commemorating Frank, a Bergen-Belsen prisoner and one of the most widely-known Holocaust victims, also expressed their condolences to Romanchenko's relatives.
"We wish them — as we wish all the people in Ukraine — much strength during this terrible war and anxious times."
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, has been under heavy fire from Russian artillery throughout the invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin
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