Northeast
Rose Girone, oldest living Holocaust survivor, dies at 113
Rose Girone, believed to be the oldest living Holocaust survivor and a strong advocate for sharing survivors’ stories, has died. She was 113.
She died Monday in New York, according to the Claims Conference, a New York-based Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany.
MY FATHER SURVIVED THE HOLOCAUST. CENSORSHIP DIDN’T STOP THE NAZIS, IT HELPED THEM
“Rose was an example of fortitude but now we are obligated to carry on in her memory,” Greg Schneider, Claims Conference executive vice president, said in a statement Thursday. “The lessons of the Holocaust must not die with those who endured the suffering.”
Girone was born on January 13, 1912, in Janow, Poland. Her family moved to Hamburg, Germany, when she was 6, she said in a filmed interview in 1996 with the USC Shoah Foundation.
When asked by the interviewer if she had any particular career plans before Hitler, she said: “Hitler came in 1933 and then it was over for everybody.”
Girone was one of about 245,000 survivors still living across more than 90 countries, according to a study released by the Claims Conference last year. Their numbers are quickly dwindling, as most are very old and often of frail health, with a median age of 86.
Six million European Jews and people from other minorities were killed by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Holocaust.
“This passing reminds us of the urgency of sharing the lessons of the Holocaust while we still have first-hand witnesses with us,” Schneider said. “The Holocaust is slipping from memory to history, and its lessons are too important, especially in today’s world, to be forgotten.”
Girone married Julius Mannheim in 1937 through an arranged marriage.
She was 9 months pregnant living in Breslau, which is now Wroclaw, Poland, when Nazis arrived to take Mannheim to the Buchenwald concentration camp. Their family had two cars and so she asked her husband to leave his keys.
Jens-Christian Wagner (r), Director of the Buchenwald and Mittelbau-Dora Memorials Foundation, speaks to participants at a wreath-laying ceremony on the roll call square at the Buchenwald Memorial on January 27, 2025. (Martin Schutt/picture alliance via Getty Images)
She said she remembers one Nazi saying: “Take that woman also.”
The other Nazi responded: “She’s pregnant, leave her alone.”
The next morning her father-in-law was also taken and she was left alone with their housekeeper.
After her daughter Reha was born in 1938, Girone was able to secure Chinese visas from relatives in London and secure her husband’s release.
In Genoa, Italy, when Reha was only 6 months old, they boarded a ship to Japan-occupied Shanghai with little more than clothing and some linens.
Her husband first made money through buying and selling secondhand goods. He saved up to buy a car and started a taxi business, while Girone knitted and sold sweaters.
But in 1941, Jewish refugees were rounded up into a ghetto. The family of three were forced to cram into a bathroom in a house while roaches and bed bugs crawled through their belongings.
Her father-in-law came just before World War II started but became sick and died. They had to wait in line for food and lived under the rule of a ruthless Japanese man who called himself “King of the Jews.”
“They did really horrible things to people,” Girone said of the Japanese military trucks that patrolled the streets. “One of our friends got killed because he wouldn’t move fast enough.”
Information about the war in Europe only circulated in the form of rumors, as British radios were not allowed.
When the war was over, they began receiving mail from Girone’s mother, grandmother and other relatives in the U.S. With their help, they boarded a ship to San Francisco in 1947 with only $80, which Girone hid inside buttons.
They arrived in New York City in 1947. She later started a knitting store with the help of her mother.
Girone was also reunited with her brother, who went to France for school and ended up getting his U.S. citizenship by joining the Army. When she went to the airport to pick him up in New York, it was her first time seeing him in 17 years.
Girone later divorced Mannheim. In 1968, she met Jack Girone, the same day her granddaughter was born. By the next year they were married. He died in 1990.
When asked in 1996 for the message she would like to leave for her daughter and granddaughter, she said: “Nothing is so very bad that something good shouldn’t come out of it. No matter what it is.”
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Pennsylvania
From Chocolate Avenue to the World Cup, how Hershey, Pennsylvania, shaped Christian Pulisic
HERSHEY, Pa. (AP) — Hershey may be known as the “Sweetest Place on Earth,” thanks to its chocolate-drenched origins, but the Pennsylvania community is also home to Christian Pulisic — the most accomplished and famous player on a U.S. national team that’s dreaming big as it co-hosts the World Cup.
“Hershey to me is everything — it’s where my family is from, it’s where I grew up,” Pulisic recently said on his Instagram account as he promoted limited-edition Pulisic’s Milk Chocolate Bars by the Hershey Company that feature custom wrappers with his signature. “It’s where I learned how to play. It’s just home.”
A billboard featuring U.S. soccer player Christian Pulisic is pictured on the side of the Hotel Figueroa, Monday, June 29, 2026, in Los Angeles. (AP Photo/Chris Pizzello)
Pulisic grew up in this south-central Pennsylvania community surrounded by farms and rolling countryside, where even the streetlights along Chocolate Avenue are shaped like Hershey’s Kisses. The community was founded in 1903 by Milton S. Hershey, the American businessman and philanthropist who also built homes for workers, a hotel and a theme park that Pulisic often visited with family.
More than 120 years later, the Hershey Company is still the economic engine of Chocolatetown, USA. But the “Man Behind the Chocolate Bar” now shares the hometown hero honor with the soccer player nicknamed “Captain America.”
Pulisic inspires young soccer players in Hershey
Pulisic’s hometown roots run deep, and during the World Cup, his community has rallied around him as the U.S. plays some of its most exciting soccer ever.
“It’s pretty amazing that he came from Hershey and played for my club,” said Hershey High School rising freshman Cecelia Stefanelli who, on a recent afternoon, kicked a ball to score a goal on her father at a field where Pulisic played.
The Americans will attempt to win their first World Cup elimination game in 24 years on Wednesday evening, when they face Bosnia-Herzegovina in the round of 32 in Santa Clara, California. They should have a healthy Pulisic after the star missed the second group-stage game with a calf injury and played only 33 minutes as a sub in the final group match against Turkey.
“I’d love if USA won the World Cup; it’d make me happy,” said Stefanelli, a center back who also plays for the Pennsylvania Classics soccer club. Pulisic often credits the structure and coaches at PA Classics, where he played for eight years, with helping develop his skills. In 2021, he returned to the club for a ribbon-cutting ceremony for new fields that he financed and helped design. It’s now known as the Pulisic Stomping Grounds.
The club is located in Lancaster County, surrounded by chicken and dairy farms that give off a pungent odor of fermenting feed and manure.
On a recent day, Liam Gustafson and Moussa Oumarou juggled a soccer ball and passed it back and forth as they warmed up for training in front of a huge collage of photos of Pulisic that trace from his childhood training to starring for the U.S. at the World Cup.
“It’s really special to see someone from around here, where we live, playing in the World Cup,” said Gustafson, a 17-year-old forward who dreams of playing pro soccer and calls Pulisic his role model. “It’s really inspiring to see someone who paved the way, so that we can do that someday.”
Pulisic’s path to USMNT stardom ran through Hershey
The road to soccer was paved early as Pulisic followed in the footsteps of his parents. He was born in Hershey on Sept. 18, 1998, to Kelley and Mark Pulisic, both former collegiate soccer players at George Mason University. His father went on to play pro indoor soccer for the Harrisburg Heat. The family moved to England for a year while Pulisic’s mother completed a Fulbright Program teacher exchange and their 7-year-old rising star played for the Brackley Town youth team.
“Mark and Kelley could write a playbook on how to raise a humble, smart, kind superstar, while maintaining family relationships,” said Tara Seymour, a family friend and retired health and physical education teacher at Hershey Middle School. She met the family at a soccer camp and became close friends with Pulisic’s mother.
“She just quietly said to me one time, ‘We have never seen anything like this.’ This is a kid who could juggle the soccer ball hundreds of times when he was in elementary school,” Seymour said. Pulisic, she said, would practice in his backyard for hours, trying to emulate the moves of pros he saw on TV.
“He has an intensity that couldn’t be taught,” she recalled. “I think he had the opportunity to go pro earlier or go to Europe earlier and they held back just to make sure emotionally and maturity-wise he was ready.”
When the family returned to Hershey, Pulisic joined PA Classics at the age of 10. The club’s president and co-founder Doug Harris said Pulisic’s talent allowed him to play with older age groups, and he was often the smallest player on the field.
“I think if you were to pull kids in the world who want to achieve the level of Christian Pulisic, you’d have millions that would step up, raise their hand. They’re all gifted; they all can play,” Harris said. “But there’s something fundamental about what Christian has been able to do and I’d credit Mark and Kelley Pulisic with a lot of that.”
Looking forward to the future of American soccer
The Americans’ only World Cup knockout win came on June 17, 2002, when they defeated Mexico 2-0 in the round of 16 in South Korea. Pulisic has said the team’s approach won’t change in this round and the mood remains light despite the high stakes.
“It’s just special to be here,” he said. “You just don’t want it to end.”
Pennsylvania Classic coaches, Brittney Jakobson, left, and Nick Jakobson, right, look at a banner of U.S. national team soccer player Christian Pulisic with their children, Declan Jakobson, who wears an Argentina jersey, and Camden Jakobson, wearing a Portugal jersey, at the club were Pulisic honed his skills in Manheim, Pa., on Monday, June 29, 2026. (AP Photo/Luis Andres Henao)
Ahead of the game against Bosnia-Herzegovina, PA Classics coaches Brittney Jakobson and Nick Jakobson took their children, Declan and Camden, to kick a ball at Pulisic’s former club. The Americans, they said, have a shot at winning the tournament. But their legacy goes beyond the trophy.
“Their goal is to inspire a generation and it’s really fun to see that happening in real time … to hear people going out and watching the games, to see people buying the jerseys,” Brittney Jakobson said.
“Pulisic, obviously, in the short term is a great kind of figure to follow,” said Nick Jakobson. “But he does very much encourage that it’s not just about him. It’s not about just these four years. It’s about the next eight, 12, 16. It’s forward-thinking, and they’re laying a good foundation for what we can build on.”
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See more of AP’s World Cup coverage here
A one season wonder.
Photo: Clifton Prescod/Bravo
Knowing the history of successful Real Housewives shows, one could have assumed that Liz McGraw’s life was going to play out on TV for the next 20 years, à la Lisa Vanderpump or Vicki Gunvalson. This is, however, not the case. McGraw, one of the breakout stars of season one of The Real Housewives of Rhode Island, is leaving after just one season, she revealed on Instagram today. “I’m full of gratitude for the amazing opportunity to appear on this show,” she wrote. “As filming for Season 2 begins, I have made the decision to take a step back and focus on my family, my work and my passions. The RHORI cast is an amazing group of women who have created something special. I’ll be watching next season, rooting for the continued success of this franchise. For now, I look forward to enjoying this little corner of the world from the other side of the camera.”
The so-called Weed Queen of Rhode Island was part of the glue that held the women of RHORI together. She knew the most cast members and would often counsel both sides of a fight. Throughout the season, she got into arguments with friends, including Kelsey Swanson, Jo-Ellen Tiberi, and Alicia Carmody. There is no confirmation as to why McGraw is leaving, but we know it was her choice. Real Housewives producer Andy Cohen commented, “The door is always open … Just sayin’!” on her going-away post. In the meantime, Jo-Ellen, you have even more show to carry.
Editor’s note: Theo Wells-Spackman is a Report for America corps member who reports for VTDigger.
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