OLDEST HOLOCAUST SURVIVOR
She was born Rose Raubvogel in the Polish village of Janow in 1912. Today it is in the Ukraine.
At the age of six, her family moved to Vienna briefly, and then to Hamburg in Germany to open a theatrical costume shop. Rose’s earliest memory was sliding down the bannisters of their large, many-storied house.
During her time in the city, an aunt taught Rose how to knit.
When she was older, Rose had an arranged marriage with Julius Mannheim. The couple moved to Breslau, which was in Germany at the time. Nowadays it is in Poland, renamed Wroclaw.
In November 1938, Kristallnacht took place, and the purge of the Jews began. Rose witnessed the destruction of large parts of the town, the synagogue being burnt down, and Jewish books thrown into a fire.
Shortly afterwards, the Gestapo came to their house to arrest Julius. They were going to take Rose too but changed their minds when they saw she was nine months pregnant.
As Julius was dragged away, not realising the full implications, Rose asked him to give her his car keys. He was taken to the nearby Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
The following day, the Gestapo came back and arrested Julius’ father.
A few days later, Rose gave birth to a daughter, named Reha.
Rose immediately started trying to get a visa to get herself and her daughter out of Germany. With the help of her cousin, Richard Tand, who lived in London, they managed to obtain visas to enter China. They made their way to Genoa in Italy and caught a ship from there. They took very few possessions with them.
To her surprise, Julius joined them in Genoa, having been released from the concentration camp – on the proviso that he left Germany.
There were approximately twenty thousand Jewish refugees from Europe living in China at this point – most of them in or around Shanghai, the largest open port in the world.
China had been initially invaded by Japan in 1931, but by 1937 it had developed into full-scale war. Effectively, Rose swapped one war zone for another.
The boat trip took a month, and Rose remembered all the Jewish passengers being separated from the non-Jews. They were not allowed to eat together.
In Shanghai, Rose made a living by knitting and selling sweaters. A former Viennese businessman saw her making clothes for Reha and suggested they go into partnership. He taught her marketing and other business skills. Soon, she was employing Chinese women to work for her.
Julius initially set up a business buying and selling second-hand goods but when they had enough money, they bought a car and he started a taxi service.
Rose remembered a lack of choice in their diet – “We lived off oodles of noodles.”
In 1941, the Japanese rounded up all of the Jews and forced them to live in a ghetto in Hongkou (the poorest part of Shanhai). It was one square mile. Rose and her family were forced to live in a tiny bathroom under a staircase, crawling with roaches, bedbugs and rats. The overcrowding got worse when Julius’ father joined them. However, he fell ill soon after arriving and died shortly afterwards.
They were also bombed by the Japanese. Rose said, “It was really horrible. I was panic stricken.” She remembered daughter Reha playing outside in the street with hot metal falling around her.
The ghetto was ruled by a ruthless Japanese officer who titled himself, ‘The King of the Jews’. The cruelty they all experienced was extreme. Food queues were long. Military vehicles patrolled the area constantly. One of Rose’s friends was executed on the spot for not getting out of the way of a soldier quickly enough.
People in the ghetto were refused permission to have radios. Consequently, they had no idea how the war was progressing anywhere in the world. Rumours abounded. So, they were all astounded when the war finished in 1945, and the ghetto was dismantled.
Rose’s brother had been educated in France and was there when the Nazis invaded. He managed to stay in hiding until the Allies landed in 1944, and immediately joined the American army. Consequently, at the end of the war, he was granted US citizenship.
He went to live in the USA, taking his mother and grandmother with him.
He also persuaded Rose and her family to join him in the USA, and was instrumental in getting them visas. However, Rose refused to leave until she had completed all her knitting commissions.
Rose and her husband and daughter left China in 1947 and sailed to San Francisco. They were not allowed to take anything worth more than $10 or any valuables with them – although Rose secreted $80 upon her person, sewed into the sweater she was wearing.
Arriving in San Francisco, they caught a train to New York where there was a tearful family reunion. Rose had not seen her brother for seventeen years.
Initially, the family were housed in a hotel as part of a refugee resettlement programme.
Soon afterwards, Julius and Rose divorced because he refused to get a job. Rose moved to Florida with daughter Reha, but it was a brief stay as she missed New York.
They moved to the borough of Queen’s in New York. She set up her own knitting shop called ‘Rose’s Knitting Studio’ in Rego Park. She copied patterns from fashion magazines. Her mother acted as the sales assistant. It was so successful that Rose’s business expanded into a second shop in Forest Hills. Her daughter, Reha, said of Rose, “She had a great head on her shoulders.”
Rose also taught knitting throughout New York City.
In 1968, Rose met Jack Girone on the very day her first grandchild was born. They were married soon afterwards. It was a very happy relationship.
Rose sold her business in 1980, when she was 68 years old, to a friend called Dina Mor.
She had met Dina when the latter was knitting a sweater for her husband, Erez. Getting stuck, she came to Rose for advice. “Rip out the back and go for a coffee. It will hurt less.”
They became close friends, with Rose teaching Dina everything about knitting.
Rose’s daughter, Reha, said, “Mother saw that Dina had a knack for knitting, so that when Dina voiced that she would love to open her own store, she was happy to help.”
After selling up, Rose immediately volunteered to work in a non-profit knitting shop and enjoyed it so much she got another job in a different knitwear shop.
Jack died in 1990.
When Rose was one hundred, there was a painting made of her knitting, surrounded by her friends and family. Daughter Reha Bennicasa said, “Looking at it gives my mother pleasure and makes her feel good.”
She lived independently until she was 103 – then moved in with her daughter.
Rose finally retired at the age of 105.
In 2020, she caught Covid and was very ill – but she recovered.
Rose was often asked about her wartime experiences, but was never bitter, always positive. “Aren’t we lucky?” was her catchphrase. “Nothing is so very bad that something good shouldn’t come out of it. No matter what it is.”
She was asked what her plans were before Adolf Hitler changed her life. “He came in 1933 and then it was over for everybody.”
She moved into a care home when she was 110. That was the year Rose officially became a ‘Supercentenarian’.
Rose was asked the secret of old age. “Good children and dark chocolate,” was the response. She said, “Live every day with a purpose.”
Rose died in a care home aged 113 years and 42 days – the oldest person to have experienced of the Holocaust. She was also believed to be the oldest person still alive in the USA.
Her daughter, Reha (now aged 84), said, “She was just a terrific lady. Nothing was too hard. She wasn’t fearful. She was an adventurous person. She did well.”
She added, “Rose could not imagine life without knitting.”
At her death, ‘The Conference on Jewish Material Claims verses Germany’, an organisation based in New York, said, “Rose was an example of fortitude, but now we are obligated to carry on in her memory. The lessons of the Holocaust must not die with those who endured the suffering.”
RIP Rose In Poland
