Rose Girone
Polish-born American supercentenarian and Holocaust survivor (1912–2025)
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Rose Girone (13 January 1912 – 24 February 2025) was an Austro-Hungarian-born American supercentenarian.[1] She was believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor at the time of her death.[2][3]
Early life
Girone was born Rose Raubvogel on 13 January 1912, in Janów, Austrian Poland (now Ivano-Frankove, Ukraine after post-war border changes). The family moved to Hamburg where they operated a theatrical costume shop. While in Hamburg, she learned to knit from an aunt.[4]
In 1938, she married Julius Mannheim before moving to Breslau. Her daughter Rena was born in December of that year.[5] Shortly after relocation, the Nazis launched Kristallnacht, and Mannheim was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp.[6] In 1939, with the help of a cousin, Girone acquired a visa to flee to Shanghai, China, and Mannheim was released under the condition that they would leave the country. She sold knitted wear and Mannheim worked as a taxi driver.[4][7]
Life in the United States
In 1947, the family was granted a visa for the United States, travelling first to San Francisco before settling in Queens, New York.[4][7] There, she reunited with her mother, brother, and grandmother. The family moved into a hotel as part of a refugee resettlement program. Girone began working as a knitting instructor.[4]
Following her divorce from Mannheim, Rose married Jack Girone in 1968, and the two moved to Whitestone, Queens and opening a knitting shop in Rego Park, with a second following in Forest Hills.[4][8] Girone sold her knitting business in 1980, at age 68, but continued to volunteer at a nonprofit knitting shop in Great Neck and later worked at a knitting shop in Port Washington. She retired in 2017, at age 105.[4]
Girone died at a nursing home in Bellmore, New York, on 24 February 2025, at the age of 113 years and 42 days. She was survived by her daughter.[9][10]