Rose Girone, an 113-year-old Holocaust survivor, faced immense hardships, beginning in 1938 when her husband was sent to Buchenwald while she was eight months pregnant. After escaping to Shanghai, she lived in a ghetto bathroom for seven years. Once in the U.S., she supported her daughter, Reha, through knitting. Despite two pandemics and her suffering, Rose remained positive, often saying, “Aren’t we lucky?” Her longevity secret was simply dark chocolate and good children. Born in Poland in 1912, she later opened successful knitting stores, teaching the craft until age 102. Rose’s legacy underscores the importance of Holocaust remembrance.
In 1938, Rose Girone was eight months pregnant and residing in Breslau, Germany, when her husband was taken to the Buchenwald concentration camp. She managed to secure passage to Shanghai, only to endure living in a bathroom within a Jewish ghetto for seven years. After relocating to the United States, she rented whatever accommodations were available and supported her daughter through her knitting skills.
Amidst numerous challenges, including two pandemics, Ms. Girone approached life with unwavering positivity and practicality. “Aren’t we lucky?” she often remarked.
Ms. Girone was acknowledged as the oldest known survivor of the Holocaust. She passed away at a nursing home on Long Island on Monday, according to her daughter and fellow survivor, Reha Bennicasa. She was 113 years old.
Her recipe for longevity was surprisingly straightforward, as she would say: dark chocolate and good children.
Currently, there are approximately 245,000 Jewish Holocaust survivors alive globally, as reported by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, which provides assistance to survivors.
“This loss highlights the urgency of passing on the lessons of the Holocaust while we still have firsthand witnesses among us,” stated Greg Schneider, the organization’s executive vice president. “The Holocaust is transitioning from memory to history, and its lessons are too vital, especially in today’s climate, to be forgotten.”
“Rose embodied resilience, and now it is our duty to carry on her legacy,” he added.
Born on January 13, 1912, in Janow, Poland, Rose Raubvogel was the daughter of Klara Aschkenase and Jacob Raubvogel. The family later moved to Hamburg, Germany, where they established a costume business.
In 1938, she entered into an arranged marriage with Julius Mannheim. The couple relocated to Breslau (now Wroclaw, Poland) that same year, shortly before Mr. Mannheim and his father were arrested and sent to Buchenwald.
A year later, now with a newborn, Ms. Girone received a document in Chinese from relatives who had escaped to England. It seemed to be a visa for safe passage to Shanghai, but “it could have been anything,” Ms. Bennicasa explained, noting that the family later found out it might have been a forgery.
Mr. Mannheim’s father consented to surrender his shipping business along with a payment to the Nazis in exchange for their release from the concentration camp. Armed with the visa, Ms. Girone, her husband, and their 6-month-old daughter Reha embarked for Japanese-occupied Shanghai, amidst 20,000 other refugees.
Initially, Mr. Mannheim established a small taxi service while Ms. Girone earned money through knitting. However, following Japan’s declaration of war in 1941, Jews were confined to a ghetto. Ms. Girone had to plead with the ghetto’s overseer for housing, and the only option they could secure was an unfinished, rat-infested bathroom in a residence. The family of three lived there for the next seven years.
Eventually, Mr. Mannheim had to abandon his taxi business, resorting to hunting and fishing, while Ms. Girone kept selling her knitted items. She formed friendships with other refugees, including a Viennese Jewish businessman who assisted her in turning her knitting into a viable business, which would support her for decades.
By 1947, Ms. Girone’s mother and grandmother had successfully relocated to the United States and sponsored the family to join them. Ms. Girone secretly saved $80, and that year, the family traveled to San Francisco, where they stayed for about a month before taking a train to New York.
Within a few years, Ms. Girone divorced Mr. Mannheim. Together with Reha, they moved between furnished rooms in Manhattan, living frugally while she worked in knitting shops, as Ms. Bennicasa recounted.
Eventually, Ms. Girone saved enough to open a knitting shop with a partner in Rego Park, Queens, and later opened a second store in Forest Hills, where “we actually had a real apartment, not just a furnished room,” Ms. Bennicasa remembered. Ms. Girone continued to work and teach knitting until the age of 102.
In 1968, Ms. Girone married Jack Girone, who passed away in 1989. Besides Ms. Bennicasa, she is survived by her granddaughter, Gina Bennicasa.
Gina Bennicasa recalled her grandmother’s frequent wisdom, including “Growing old is fun, but being old is not fun.” One saying resonated most: “You have to wake up and have a purpose.”