World War II Holocaust survivor killed in Ukraine's Kharkiv

Boris Romanchenko, 96, survived the Nazi Buchenwald, Dora-Mittelbau and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps

He survived the Nazi Buchenwald concentration camp during World War II. He survived the Dora-Mittelbau concentration camp in the same war. And the Bergen-Belsen camp.

Last week, Boris Romanchenko, a 96-year-old Holocaust survivor, was killed when shelling hit his ordinary flat in the war-ravaged Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

"It is with horror that we report the violent death of Boris Romanchenko in the war in Ukraine," the memorial for the Buchenwald survivors said on Monday in a statement.

The multi-storey apartment building where Romanchenko lived was shelled and caught on fire," said the statement.

Kharkiv, Ukraine's second largest city, has been under heavy fire from Russian artillery throughout the invasion, which Russian President Vladimir Putin calls a "special military operation" necessary to disarm and "denazify" its neighbour.

"Please think about how many things he has come through," President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said late on Monday.

"But was killed by a Russian strike, which hit an ordinary Kharkiv multi-storey building. With each day of this war, it becomes more obvious what denazification means to them."