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This man who survived Auschwitz will finally get a bar mitzvah, a century late, at age 113
Born in what is now Poland, Kristal has survived 113 years of Jewish history. He was in his 30s when the Nazis invaded, and he was imprisoned with his wife and two children in the Lodz ghetto and then at Auschwitz. His wife and children died.
Speaking about the horror of Auschwitz, he once told Haaretz, “Two books could be written about a single day there.”
He moved to Israel in 1950 and now lives in Haifa. He remarried and had two children, and is now a grandfather and great-grandfather.
His daughter told the BBC that on his bar mitzvah day, Kristal will put on tefillin, the small boxes containing prayers that Jews above the age of bar mitzvah wrap around their arms and heads, and will say the blessings for the Torah.
He has maintained his faith throughout his life, she said. Talking to theJerusalem Post about her father surviving the Holocaust, she said, “He believes he was saved because that’s what God wanted.”