A Time to Remember

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Malka Horwitz is a living, breathing miracle.

A resident of Florida’s Miami-Dade County, Horwitz celebrated her 110th birthday on March 16, 2026.

I came across her miraculous story online and could not pass it by. Truth be told, it might be one of the most important stories of the year, especially considering the things that are taking place in the Middle East at this very moment.

Beyond the world’s current events, though, Malka Horwitz’s age alone makes her a globally mathematical anomaly, as the Gerontology Research Group estimates that there are fewer than 450 verified supercentenarians (those aged 110 and over) among the world’s 8.3 billion residents. On top of this amazing statistic, Horwitz is also thought to be the world’s oldest living Holocaust survivor.

In 1941, as a 25-year-old wife and mother of a toddler son, she was imprisoned in the Nazi’s infamous Vilna Ghetto, located in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius. Eventually separated from her child, Horwitz lost many of her family members during that time, including her husband, her sister, and her parents.

She somehow managed to survive the Holocaust and became a post-war refugee in Cuba first and then the United States. With only twenty dollars to her name, Horwitz came to South Florida and built a life for herself and her two small children.

Her story of courage and resilience is amazing, but those admirable characteristics are a common thread in the stories of many Holocaust survivors. With over 11 million people (Jews and non-Jews combined) murdered by the Nazis before and during World War II, another 3.5 million people survived those unbelievable atrocities and lived to tell their stories of heroism and determination.

Sadly, the heroes and heroines of those survival stories are quickly disappearing. Time has most definitely taken its toll on the number of people who survived the atrocities of the Holocaust over the eight decades since the end of World War II.

According to the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (also known as the Claims Conference), approximately 196,600 Jewish Holocaust survivors are still alive in 2026, living in more than 90 countries around the globe. Barely 1400 of those survivors are currently over the age of 100, with the median age of living Holocaust survivors set at 87.

Right at half (50%) of those survivors live in Israel, while only 17% of the survivors reside here in the United States. It is disturbing to realize that Israel is projected to lose 40% of its survivors over the next five years. But one of the most disturbing statistics offered by the Claims Conference revolves around the fact that 70% of all Holocaust heroes are predicted to die within the next 10 years, and 90% will be gone within 15 years.

Considering that World War II officially ended in the first few days of September 1945, the youngest survivors of the Holocaust that are still alive in 2026 were the ones born during the final days of the war. So, even the Holocaust babies liberated from the war’s last functioning Nazi concentration camps will be celebrating their 81^st birthdays this year.

In mid-February, CBS News interviewed three of these Holocaust babies, whose young married mothers did their best to hide their pregnancies and eventually gave birth to their children in the infamous death camp of Auschwitz. Each of those 80-year-old survivors shared stories of “narrow misses, seemingly impossible twists of fate and luck, unimaginable suffering and miracles.”

On International Holocaust Remembrance Day, January 27, 2026, AP News also interviewed one of the world’s youngest Holocaust survivors, Ilana Kantorowicz Shalem, who was 81 at that time. Her mother had also tried to conceal her pregnancy while she was imprisoned at Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and was successful, probably because many of her fellow prisoners also had distended and bloated bellies due to extended starvation.

Shalem was born on March 19, 1945, only 30 days before the infamous death camp was liberated by British soldiers. She believes her survival as a newborn over those 30 days was most certainly a result of the Nazi leadership of the camp being in such a state of disarray at that point in the war.

Of course, her story is not a firsthand account. Instead, it is a story passed down to her by her mother, who is no longer alive to share their joint story of survival. So, that is why Shalem chose to share her and her mother’s story of survival now, for the first time in her life – because she realized how very few survivors of the Holocaust are still alive in 2026.

If the statistical predictions made by the Claims Conference and other groups, such as the Gerontology Research Group, are correct, then by 2041, these Holocaust babies born in 1945 may be the only living survivors of the Holocaust beyond that point. Their secondhand stories may also be gone by the middle of this century.

So, if 110-year-old Malka Horwitz is indeed the oldest living Holocaust survivor, her firsthand story of courage and resilience is now more important than ever.

For the truth is, the very same world that vowed in 1945 to “never forget” the atrocities committed by the Nazis during the Holocaust is the very same world that is already on the verge of totally forgetting.

Therefore, let us honor Malka Horwitz and the other remaining Holocaust survivors by issuing a worldwide clarion call to remember. Let us truly remember the 11 million people murdered in the Holocaust and the 3.5 million people who survived to tell the tale of one of mankind’s darkest moments in time.

For if we fail to remember, we will live to regret that failure.

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