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A Holocaust survivor who spent time in four Nazi concentration camps during the Second World War has been killed by a Russian rocket attack in Ukraine, according to the Daily Mail.
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Boris Romantschenko, a 96-year-old who survived Buchenwald, Mittelbau-Dora, Bergen-Belsen and Peenemünde concentration camps, was killed on Friday when a Russian rocket slammed into his apartment block in Kharkiv.
The news was reported by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation and confirmed by Romantschenko’s son and granddaughter, the Daily Maihe said.
The foundation, which operates the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora camp memorials and supports education around the Holocaust and Nazi Germany said: “We are deeply saddened by the death of Romantschenko.
“We mourn the loss of a close friend. We wish his son and granddaughter of him, who brought us the sad news, a lot of strength in these difficult times. ”
Although he was not Jewish, he was taken by German soldiers when he was 16 years old and deported to the German city of Dortmund in 1942 to work as a forced laborer, as part of Nazi intimidation tactics against the Ukrainian population at the time.
A failed escape attempt in 1943 saw him arrested and sent to Buchenwald concentration camp. He also spent time in the subcamp of Mittelbau-Dora, as well as Bergen Belsen and Peenemünde where prisoners were forced to build V2 rockets for the Nazi war effort, according to the DailyMail.