Liviu Beris, Romanian Holocaust survivor who became a genetics pioneer and debated an infamous antisemite on TV, dies at 93

BUCHAREST (JTA) — Liviu Beris, who survived the Holocaust in Transnistria to become an internationally recognized geneticist, died last week at 93 in Romania, where he tirelessly shared his personal story with younger generations and famously debated an antisemite on live TV.

Born in Herta, then a part of Romania and now a part of Ukraine, Beris was deported at the age of 13 with his family to the region of Transnistria, a strip of land in Soviet Ukraine under the administration of the Nazi-allied Romanian regime. According to official figures, between 220,000 and 300,000 Soviet and Romanian Jews were shot dead or died of typhus, starvation and extreme weather conditions in improvised camps and ghettos there run by Romanian officials.