After the death of Yasutaro Koide in January, the oldest-known male in the world, Yisrael Kristal officially is the oldest man in the world according to the Guinness World Records. Kristal was born in 1903 in Poland. At the prime age of 112 years old, Kristal has lived and seen many things throughout his life — two world wars, the revolution of Poland, the Holocaust.
What is probably the most interesting thing of Kristal is not his age but his past. Not only is he the oldest male alive, but he also is the oldest-known Holocaust survivor.
When Poland was invaded by Nazi Germany is 1939, Kristal and his family were transported to the ghetto, the setting of where the Nazis separated the victims, Jews, Poles, disabled individuals and more, from the rest. He watched the deaths of his children in the Lodz ghetto.
Shortly after, Kristal and his wife were transported to Auschwitz, a concentration camp which held the killings of an estimated 1.1 million people. Kristal survived, but his wife did not. When he was rescued in 1945, he was not even 82 pounds.
He was the only survivor of his family.
Five years after his rescuing, Kristal, his second wife and son migrated to Israel where he ran his family's business, a confectionary business until he retired.
When asked if he could give hints to live a long life, he claimed "he did not know the 'secret for long life'" and "everything was 'determined from above.'"
"There have been smarter, stronger and better-looking men than me who are no longer alive," Kristal said. "All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost."
Though he lived through a horrifying time, his mindset continues to be positive. "He is optimistic, rise, and he values what he has," Kristal's daughter, Shula Kuperstoch, told the Jerusalem Post.
Ironically enough, as Kristal is crowned the world's oldest man, the Auschwitz survivor gets to see the Auschwitz trial nearly 71 years since he was rescued from the allies.
Ex-Auschwitz guard Reinhold Hanning went on trial starting Feb. 11, 2016. Hanning, 94, is accused of the murder of at least 170,000 people. Prosecutors claim the Nazi guard met prisoners at the camp when they arrived and also may have been the one who escorted many to the gas chambers.
Hanning admits that he was a Nazi SS guard, but he turned down the prosecutors' claim of him being directly involved in mass genocide. Four others, three men and one woman, are also going on trial within the next few months.
Finally, justice is being given to the victims, survivors, the relatives of those and Kristal, the oldest-known man alive.
