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World’s oldest man dies at 113 — media

Yisrael Kristal was born in Poland on September 15, 1903

MOSCOW, August 11. /TASS/. Israeli citizen Yisrael Kristal, who was recognized as the world’s oldest man, died in Israel’s Haifa on Friday, the Haaretz daily said. He was 113.

Kristal was born in Poland on September 15, 1903. The Holocaust survivor was recognized as the oldest man in the world after the death of Japanese supercentenarian Yasutaro Koide, who passed away on January 19, 2016, two months before his 113rd birthday.

Jamaican supercentenarian Violet Brown, born on March 10, 1900, is currently the oldest verified living person in the world.

Life of Yisrael Kristal

According to the Haaretz daily, Yisrael Kristal "was born in on September 15, 1903, in the Polish village of Zarnow" [located southeast from the city of Lodz, which was part of the Russian Empire at the time - TASS]. "In 1920, at the age of 17, he moved to Lodz, where he later started a family and opened a candy factory."

In 1940, Kristal was deported to Auschwitz and lost his wife and two children in the Holocaust, the daily said.

After the World War II, he returned to Lodz and remarried, in 1950 the family moved to Israel’s city of Haifa, where Kristal continued to work as a candy maker.

Kristal is survived by his two children, numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.