Auschwitz survivor at 112 likely the oldest man alive

[Martinus]

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Israeli-Holocaust-survivor-112-likely-oldest-man-in-the-world-442354

It is a kind of great and tragic story, in particular if you consider what this guy has been through, having lost his children and wife in Holocaust. The indomitable nature of human spirit is amazing.

[jimmy olsen]

Wow, that's incredible.

[Josquius]

I can't help but find it amazing that people were already old when they experienced historic events.
I mean. Think about it. For the moon landings he would have been already a pensioner 
Blows the mind.

[Valmy]

The oldest lady in the world in the 1990s was some French woman who was 110+ and I remember being blown away by the realization she was in her 40s during WWI.

[KRonn]

Amazing story, as are most of the Holocaust survivor stories. This guy has been through and seen a lot.

[Martinus]

I think it is kinda amazing (and I find it impressive, despite my overall views) that he stayed religious through all of this. I may be wrong but I think most fire-and-brimstone, in-your-face fundies would probably lose faith if they went through half of what this guy has. He seems like the biblical Job.

[Valmy]

I think it is kinda amazing (and I find it impressive, despite my overall views) that he stayed religious through all of this. I may be wrong but I think most fire-and-brimstone, in-your-face fundies would probably lose faith if they went through half of what this guy has. He seems like the biblical Job.

Huh. Why? It is not like Jews expect God to make their lives awesome and get all disillusioned when he doesn't.

And nothing made Poland so Catholic as a few decades under Communist and Orthodox/Protestant rule. Persecuting people for their religion tends to strengthen that identity.

[mongers]

I also like the story of the German Jewish teenager who was hiding from the Nazis in 1943 and found herself at a school shaking the hand of Hitler.

[Grinning_Colossus]

I think it is kinda amazing (and I find it impressive, despite my overall views) that he stayed religious through all of this. I may be wrong but I think most fire-and-brimstone, in-your-face fundies would probably lose faith if they went through half of what this guy has. He seems like the biblical Job.

She was an old woman of a family with a long genealogy. Leza Shikakunamo- "The Besetting One"- had stretched out his hand against her family. He slew her mother and her father while she was yet a child; and in the course of the years all connected with her perished. She said to herself, "Surely, I shall keep those who sit on my thighs"- but no, even they, the children of her children, were taken from her. She became withered with age, and it seemed to her that she herself was at last to be taken. But no, a change came over her: she grew younger. Then came into her heart a desperate resolution to find God and ask the meaning of it all. Somewhere up there in the sky must be His dwelling: if only she could reach it! She began to cut down trees, immense, tall trees, joining them together, and so planning a structure that would reach to heaven. It grew and grew, but as it was getting to be as she wanted it, the lowest timbers rotted and it fell. She fell with it, but without being killed or breaking a bone. She set to work again and rebuilt the structure, but once again the foundations rotted and it fell. She gave it up in despair, but not her intention of finding Leza. Somewhere on earth there must be another way to heaven! So she began to travel, going through country after country, nation after nation, always with the thought in her mind: "I shall come to where the earth ends, and there, where the earth and sky touch, I shall find a road to God, and I shall ask him, `What have I done to Thee that Thou afflictest me in this manner?"" The old woman never found where the earth ends, but, though disappointed, she did not give up her search. As she passed through the different countries the people asked her, "What have you come for, old woman?" And her answer would be, "I am seeking Leza." "Seeking Leza! For what?" "My brothers, you ask me! Here in the nations is there one who suffers as I have suffered?" And they would ask again, "How have you suffered?" "In this way. I am alone. As you see me, a solitary old woman: that is how I am!" And they answered again, "Yes, we see. That is how you are! Bereaved of friends and kindred? In what do you differ from others? Leza Shikakunamo sits on the back of every one of us, and we cannot shake him off!" She never obtained her desire: she died of a broken heart.

[Eddie Teach]

I also like the story of the German Jewish teenager who was hiding from the Nazis in 1943 and found herself at a school shaking the hand of Hitler.

I like the story of the American archeologist who had Hitler sign his father's diary.

[Valmy]

I also like the story of the German Jewish teenager who was hiding from the Nazis in 1943 and found herself at a school shaking the hand of Hitler.

I like the story of the American archeologist who had Hitler sign his father's diary.

I hear he took out a tank single handedly.

[DGuller]

I think it is kinda amazing (and I find it impressive, despite my overall views) that he stayed religious through all of this. I may be wrong but I think most fire-and-brimstone, in-your-face fundies would probably lose faith if they went through half of what this guy has. He seems like the biblical Job.

Huh. Why? It is not like Jews expect God to make their lives awesome and get all disillusioned when he doesn't.

And nothing made Poland so Catholic as a few decades under Communist and Orthodox/Protestant rule. Persecuting people for their religion tends to strengthen that identity.

When I was in high school and had to read a book for a report (I think it was written by a Mossad agent who was hunting Eichmann), he did write that most of the Israelis in Mossad did not believe in God.  Holocaust was the proof to them that God didn't exist, and that they had to take charge of their own defense.

[Malthus]

I think it is kinda amazing (and I find it impressive, despite my overall views) that he stayed religious through all of this. I may be wrong but I think most fire-and-brimstone, in-your-face fundies would probably lose faith if they went through half of what this guy has. He seems like the biblical Job.

Huh. Why? It is not like Jews expect God to make their lives awesome and get all disillusioned when he doesn't.

And nothing made Poland so Catholic as a few decades under Communist and Orthodox/Protestant rule. Persecuting people for their religion tends to strengthen that identity.

When I was in high school and had to read a book for a report (I think it was written by a Mossad agent who was hunting Eichmann), he did write that most of the Israelis in Mossad did not believe in God.  Holocaust was the proof to them that God didn't exist, and that they had to take charge of their own defense.

Many Israeli Zionists were (and are) atheist, but that dates to long before the Nazis - many Israeli Zionists were intellectually products of European socialism.