The Polish Tekla Juniewicz, the second oldest person in the world, died Friday morning in her 116th year, announced Friday August 19 the grandson of the deceased to the Polish television channel TVN24. Tekla Juniewicz was born in 1906 in Krupsko, a village in the Lviv region (now Ukraine), which at the time was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Aged 12 when Poland became independent in 1918, she is considered the oldest person in Polish history.
Until the Second World War, Tekla Juniewicz lived in her native region, alongside her husband, who ran mining operations and shops. The Juniewicz family then had to go into exile in Silesia, a German region annexed by Poland after the defeat of Germany, after the annexation of the Lviv region by the Soviet Union in 1945.
“Tekla Juniewicz remained independent until she was 103 (…), she loved cinema, history shows, card games (…), reading, the company of others and travel”recalls in a press release the municipality of Gliwice (south-western Poland) where the former dean lived since 1945. Tekla Juniewicz had five grandchildren, four great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren , while her youngest daughter, 93, is still alive.
Lucille Randon, a 118-year-old Frenchwoman, is still the dean of humanity since the death on April 19 at the age of 119 of the Japanese Kane Tanaka, according to the list of the oldest people established by the Gerontology Research Group (GRG). Maria Branyas Morera, a 115-year-old Hispanic-American, is now the second oldest person in the world, again according to the GRG.