Kyiv, March 22: Borys Romanchenko, a 96-year-old who survived four holocaust concentrations camps, was killed by a Russian strike in Ukraine’s Kharkiv city. Romanchenko’s death on March 18 was confirmed by the Buchenwald concentration camp memorial institute in a series of tweets, CNN reported. He has survived concentrations camps at Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen during World War II, the memorial said. The news of Romanchenko’s death has “stunned” everyone, it said adding that he worked “intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee.” CNN quoted Yulia Romanchenko, Borys’ granddaughter, as saying that she “learned about the shelling of Saltivka residential district on March 18 from social networks. I asked locals if they knew anything about my grandfather’s house. They sent me a video of a burning house. I found out about this after the curfew and therefore I could not go there immediately.” Referring to Russia’s claim that its invasion of Ukraine is designed to save the country from Nazi elements, Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said, “This is what they call the ‘operation of denazification”. Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Romanchenko’s death an “unspeakable crime” on Twitter. “Survived Hitler, murdered by Putin,” he wrote. According to the Ukrainian officials, Kharkiv has been subject to heavy missile and rocket attacks since the Russian invasion began but is not yet completely surrounded. (UNI)
Comments are closed.