World’s Oldest Known Holocaust Survivor Rose Girone Dies at Age 113 in New York

Shiryn Ghermezian

Rose Girone. Photo: Screenshot

Rose Girone, the world’s oldest known Holocaust survivor, died at the age of 113 years old on Monday in New York.

Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) announced the news on social media. The New Yorker celebrated her 113th birthday on Jan. 13. She reportedly died of old age, according to her daughter.

“Girone was always particularly outspoken about her experiences before and during the war,” Israel’s GPO said. “Today, and every day, we honor her memory and the memory of millions of other victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Never again.”

Girone was born in Poland in 1912, and then moved to Hamburg, Germany. In 1939, Girone’s husband was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp. However, Girone, who was eight months pregnant at the time, managed to obtain visas to China for herself and her husband, and they escaped to Shanghai. She began knitting for a living during her time in Shanghai and when she eventually moved to New York, she opened her own knitting shop in Forrest Hills in Queens that was called Rose’s Knitting Studio. Girone sold knitting supplies and also taught knitting classes. She successfully ran the shop for 40 years, until selling it in 1980.

Girone lived in the Belair Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in North Bellmore since she was 109, according to the Long Island Herald. She was the oldest person living in New York, the fifth oldest in the US, and the 28th oldest in the world, the local publication noted.

Girone provided a testimony about her experience during World War II to The USC Shoah Foundation in 1996 and the Holocaust Memorial and Tolerance Center of Nassau County in 2022.