Woman thought to be world's oldest nun, who rescued Jews during the Holocaust, dies at 110

Officials in Poland say that 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 March 25, 1908, Roszak joined the convent at age 21. During the German occupation of Poland during World War II, 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.