Yisrael Kristal, a 112-year-old Holocaust survivor, didn’t get to celebrate when he turned 13. He was born on September 15, 1903, in the Polish village of Zarnow. But his 13th birthday fell in 1916, and World War I was unfolding around him. “His father was in the Russian army, his mother had died three years before,” Kristal’s daughter Schulamit Kristal Kuerstoch told the Local Germany. “No one was celebrating in this moment.” And about 30 years later, still having never recognized the milestone, Kristal was deported to Auschwitz as World War II invaded his Polish homeland.
He lost both his wife and their two children to the Holocaust, but he was freed when American soldiers liberated his concentration camp.
Kristal, who also holds the Guinness world record for being the oldest man alive, will celebrate his 113th birthday on Thursday, and his family is using the occasion to celebrate his century-long overdue bar mitzvah. “We’re going to celebrate with many family members …” his daughter told the news outlet. “We will bless him, we will dance with him, we’ll be happy with him … but you can’t feel like you’re 13 when you’re 113.” Kristal emigrated to Israel in 1950 and now has two children, multiple grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
[Via: YWN/Inatagram]
