The death of Romanchenko was confirmed by the Memorial Institute of the Buchenwald concentration camp in series of tweets.
Romanchenko survived the camps at Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dor and Bergen-Belsen during World War II, the memorial says, adding that he was “stunned” by the news of his death.
It stated that Romanchenko “worked intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee.”
The opening of Buchenwald on April 11, 1945 marked the beginning of the liberation of more than 21,000 prisoners from one of the largest Nazi concentration camps of World War II.
The official U.S. military liberation report called the camp “a symbol of the cold-blooded brutality of the German Nazi state” where thousands of political prisoners were starved to death and “others were burned, beaten, hanged and shot.”
Romanchenko’s granddaughter told the memorial that he lives in an apartment building in Kharkiv that was damaged during the Russian attack.
In 2012, Romanchenko attended an event marking the liberation of Buchenwald, where he recited an oath dedicated to “creating a new world in which peace and freedom reign,” the memorial says.
In 2018, a Kharkiv newspaper reported on his visit to Buchenwald on the 73rd anniversary of the liberation of the camp by US troops.
“The event was attended by the last surviving prisoners of Buchenwald from Ukraine and Belarus – Boris Romanchenko from Kharkov, Alexander Bychok from Kyiv and Andrei Moiseenko from Minsk,” the message says.
Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, addressed Romanchenko’s death on his Telegram account.
“This is what they call a ‘denazification operation,'” he said, referring to Russia’s claim that its invasion of Ukraine is intended to save the country from Nazi elements.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba called Romanchenko’s death an “unspeakable crime” on Twitter.
“Outlived Hitler, killed by Putin,” he wrote.
Ukrainian officials said Monday that the northeastern city of Kharkiv has been under heavy rocket and rocket fire since the start of the Russian invasion, but is not yet completely surrounded.