Yisrael Kristal facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Yisrael Kristal
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Kristal in September 2016, 11 months before his death
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| Born |
Izrael Icek Kryształ
15 September 1903 Maleniec, Końskie County, Poland, Russian Empire
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| Died | 11 August 2017 (aged 113 years, 330 days) Haifa, Israel
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| Nationality |
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| Occupation | Businessman |
| Known for | Oldest living man (18 January 2016 – 11 August 2017) Oldest survivor of the Holocaust |
| Spouse(s) |
Chaja Feige Frucht
(m. 1928; died 1942)Batsheva Kristal
(m. 1947; died 1993) |
| Children | 4 |
Yisrael Kristal (born Izrael Icek Kryształ; 15 September 1903 – 11 August 2017) was a Polish-Israeli man who lived to be very old. He was known as the oldest living person to have survived the Holocaust. For a time, he was also recognized as the oldest living man in the world. He lived to be 113 years and 330 days old.
Kristal was born in 1903 in a part of Poland that was then controlled by the Russian Empire. He came from a religious family and stayed religious his whole life. He worked as a candy maker. He lived through both World War I and World War II. After surviving the Holocaust, he moved to Israel.
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Early Life and Family
Yisrael Kristal was born on 15 September 1903, in a small town called Maleniec, in Poland. His family was Jewish and very religious. His father was a scholar who taught him about the Torah, which is a holy book in Judaism. Yisrael started learning about his religion and the Hebrew language when he was only three years old. He even remembered his father waking him up early to study.
When Yisrael was ten, his mother passed away. A year later, World War I began. He saw Kaiser Franz Joseph, a very important ruler, pass through his town. His father joined the Russian army, was captured, and died after the war. Yisrael then went to live with his uncles.
In 1920, when he was 17, Yisrael moved to a bigger city called Łódź. He first worked with metal, but soon he opened a candy store with one of his uncles. He became a very skilled candy maker. In 1928, he married Chaja Feige Frucht, and they had two children together.
Surviving the Holocaust
During World War II, Germany took control of Poland. In 1940, Yisrael Kristal continued to make candy in the Łódź Ghetto. Sometimes he made it secretly, and other times with permission from the ghetto leaders. Sadly, his two children died in the ghetto. In August 1944, Yisrael and his wife were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp.
Kristal's wife died in Auschwitz in 1942. Yisrael was forced to work and managed to survive. When the camp was freed by the Red Army, Kristal weighed only 82 pounds (about 37 kg). He went to a hospital and later returned to Łódź. He rebuilt his candy shop and met his second wife, Batsheva. They got married in 1947. They had a son, Chaim, born in Poland, and a daughter, Shula, born in Israel.
Life in Israel
In 1950, Yisrael and his family moved to Israel by ship and settled in a city called Haifa. He worked at a candy factory, where he was known as an expert. He even taught the factory owners how to make new kinds of sweets. Later, he started his own small business, making special candies at home and selling them from a small shop. He made interesting treats like tiny chocolate liquor bottles and chocolate-covered orange peels.
In 1952, he opened a factory called Sar and Kristal Factory. After it closed in 1970, he went back to making candies at home until he retired.
Yisrael Kristal had nine grandchildren and many great-grandchildren. In September 2016, when he was 113 years old, he celebrated his bar mitzvah. This is a special Jewish ceremony that boys usually have at age 13. He couldn't have one when he was young because of World War I. Yisrael Kristal passed away at his home in Haifa on 11 August 2017, just a few weeks before his 114th birthday.
The World's Oldest Man
After another Holocaust survivor, Alice Herz-Sommer, died in 2014, Yisrael Kristal became known as the world's oldest Holocaust survivor. He was actually a few months older than she was.
On 18 January 2016, he became the oldest living man in the world after a Japanese man named Yasutaro Koide passed away.
On 11 March 2016, Kristal was officially recognized by Guinness World Records as the world's oldest man. His age was confirmed after old documents from Poland were found. These documents showed his birth date, which was needed to prove his age for the record.
See also
- List of the oldest people by country
- List of the verified oldest people
