Holocaust survivors (L-R) Guenter Pappenheim, Eva Fahidi-Pusztai and Heinrich Rotmensch sit in wheelchairs at a ceremony at the Buchenwald concentration camp on Jan. 27, 2020, the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. All three died before the 80th anniversary. (Jens Schlueter/AFP via Getty Images)
(JTA) — Almost all of the Holocaust survivors alive today will be dead in 15 years, a new projection by a leading organization advocating for their compensation finds.
While the timeline is something of an actuarial inevitability — the Holocaust ended 80 years ago, meaning that all survivors are octogenarians at least already — the projection marks the first time that the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany, or Claims Conference, has attempted to plot out a trajectory for the disappearance of survivors.
The median age of survivors today is 87 and nearly half will die by 2031, according to the analysis, which is timed to Yom Hashoah, the Jewish Holocaust memorial day. By 2040, 90% are expected to die, leaving a total remaining population estimated around 21,300.
But the decline in survivor population is not equal across the 90 countries where they currently reside, the report found. In Israel, which is home to the largest number of Holocaust survivors, the population is expected to fall by 43% by 2030, where only 39% of U.S. survivors are projected to die by then.
In the former Soviet Union, on the other hand, a 54% decline in the number of living survivors is projected over the next five years. By 2030, the analysis found, just 11,800 survivors will remain there.
The analysis comes a year after the Claims Conference’s first-ever exhaustive tally of living survivors, which found that about 240,000 people who experienced the Holocaust were still alive. The organization says the findings underscore how important it is to find new ways to hear and document survivors’ stories, which it has made a centerpiece of its work since successfully negotiating compensation from countries whose Jews were persecuted during the Holocaust.
“This report provides clear urgency to our Holocaust education efforts; now is the time to hear first-hand testimonies from survivors, invite them to speak in our classrooms, places of worship and institutions,” said Gideon Taylor, president of the Claims Conference, in a press release. “It is critical, not only for our youth but for people of all generations to hear and learn directly from Holocaust survivors. This report is a stark reminder that our time is almost up, our survivors are leaving us and this is the moment to hear their voices.”
Currently, over 1,400 Holocaust survivors are estimated to be over the age of 100, according to the report. Since last year’s tally, the world’s oldest survivor has been replaced. Rose Girone died at 113 in February; now, Malka Schmulovitz, a 109-year-old Holocaust survivor from Lithuania living in Florida, is one of the oldest living survivors advocating for awareness of her generation’s stories.
“To be one of the oldest survivors alive right now at my age tells me we are running out of time. We all have a testimony that needs to be shared,” Schmulovitz said in a Claims Conference press release. “We all want to be sure that this generation of young people and the ones that come after them, hear and understand what truly happened during the Holocaust; if only so that we do not see it repeated.”
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