NEW YORK (EJP)—Guinness World Records has confirmed that 112-year-old Israel Kristal, is the oldest man on earth.
Born in Poland, near the town of Zarnow on 15 September, 1903 to parents Moszek-Dawid and Brucha Krystztal, the man, who lives in Haifa, Israel, has survived both World Wars, the Holocaust and the infamous death camp Auschwitz.
Marco Frigatti, head of records for Guinness World Records, presented Kristal his certificate of achievement for Oldest living man.
Upon being confirmed as the world’s Oldest living man and receiving his Guinness World Records certificate, Kristal said: “I don’t know the secret for long life. I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men then me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost.”
Aged three Israel Kristal started to learn in a local Heder school and began to speak Hebrew.
At four he learnt Bible and at six, Mishna. At eleven, separated from his parents, he survived the First World War.
In 1920 he moved to ?odz in Poland to work in the family confectionary business.
Following the Nazi invasion of Poland and the occupation of ?odz, Kristal was moved into the ?odz ghetto with his family in 1939.
Four years later he was sent to Auschwitz. Kristal lost his wife, Chaja Feige Frucht and their two children in the Holocaust.
Kristal himself survived, performing backbreaking slave labour in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. He was rescued from the brink of death by the Allies in May 1945 weighing only 37 kilos.
The previous oldest man, Yasutaro Koide of Japan, died in January 2016 at the age of 112 years.
