He survived the Nazi concentration camp Buchenwald during World War II. He survived the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp during the same war. And the Bergen-Belsen camp.
Last week, Boris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed when shelling hit his ordinary apartment in the war-torn Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
“It is with horror that we report the violent death of Boris Romanchenko during the war in Ukraine,” the Buchenwald memorial said Monday in a statement.
The multi-storey apartment building where Romanchenko lived was destroyed and caught fire, the statement said.
Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, came under Russian shelling during the invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin called a “special military operation” needed for disarmament and “denuclearization.” ” Neighbor country.
“Please think about what he’s been through,” Chairman Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late Monday.
“But was killed by a Russian attack, which attacked an ordinary multi-story Kharkiv building. With this fight every day, it becomes more and more clear what decontamination means to them. .”
Romanchenko was born on January 20, 1926, in Bondari, near the city of Sumy, according to a statement from the Buchenwald memorial.
He was deported to Dortmund in 1942, where he was forced to work in mining. After an unsuccessful escape attempt, he was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp in 1943, where more than 53,000 people were killed during the Second World War.
He was then sent to Peenemünde on the Baltic Sea island of Wasom, where he worked as a forced laborer in the V2 rocket program, the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp and the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, claims said.
“Boris Romanchenko’s horrific death shows just how threatening the war in Ukraine is for concentration camp survivors,” the memorial said in the statement.
“We mourn the loss of a dear friend.”
According to the memorial, Romanchenko served for many years as vice-president of the International Committee of Buchenwald-Dora, dedicating himself to documenting Nazi atrocities.
Both the foreign and defense ministries of Ukraine condemned the death.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry said on its Twitter account: “Putin was able to ‘fulfill’ what even Hitler could not do.”
(Additional reporting by Ron Popeski and Oleksandr Kozhukhar; Writing by Lidia Kelly; Editing by Michael Perry)
Contact
Do you have both Ukrainian and Russian family members? How are you handling the crisis? Email dotcom@bellmedia.ca.
-
Please include your name, location and contact information if you would like to speak to a journalist with CTV News.
-
Your comments may be used in a CTVNews.ca story.
