'Oldest nun', credited with sheltering Jews during Holocaust, dies aged 110

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A 110-year-old woman, believed to be the world's oldest nun and a rescuer of Jews during the Holocaust, has died.

Father Pawel Rytel-Andrianik, spokesman for Poland's Roman Catholic Church, on Thursday confirmed the death of Sister Cecylia Roszak last week at a Dominican convent in Krakow.

He described her as "probably the oldest nun in the world" and someone remembered as saying that "life is so short and passes so quickly".

Born on March 25 1908, Sister Cecylia joined the convent aged 21.

W Krakowie zmarła najstarsza siostra zakonna na świecie – Matka Cecylia Maria Roszak z klasztoru sióstr dominikanek „Na Gródku". Z okazji 110. urodzin, które obchodziła 25 marca tego roku, odwiedził ją #abpMarekJędraszewski.@EpiskopatNews https://t.co/tUH8x8vvmW pic.twitter.com/vPj7CA0tyX
— Archidiecezja Krakowska (@ArchKrakowska) 16 November 2018

During the German occupation of Poland during the Second World War, when she was in her 30s, she was one of several nuns who set up a new convent near Vilnius, today in Lithuania, sheltering Jews who had escaped the ghetto there.

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Press Association <press.association@premier.org.uk>

Article by Press Association

Reporting courtesy of Press Association.

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