Image copyright AFP/Getty Image caption Yisrael Kristal has lived through two world wars 
 
 A survivor of the Auschwitz death camp is now the world's oldest man, the Guinness World Records organisation says. 
 
 Yisrael Kristal was born near Zarnow in Poland in 1903 and lived through two world wars before moving to the Israeli city of Haifa. 
 
 He was 112 years and 178 days old on 11 March, Guinness World Records says. 
 
 The previous oldest-recorded man, Yasutaro Koide of Japan, died in January aged 112 years and 312 days. 
 
 As he received his Guinness World Records certificate, Mr Kristal said he did not know the "secret for long life" and that he believed everything was "determined from above". 
 
 "There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men then me who are no longer alive," he added. 
 
 "All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost." 
 
 The son of a religious scholar, Mr Kristal was separated from his parents during World War One. He later moved to Lodz to work in the family confectionery business. 
 
 After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, Mr Kristal and his family were moved into the Lodz ghetto. 
 
 His two children died there and Mr Kristal and his wife Chaja Feige Frucht were sent to Auschwitz in 1944 after the ghetto was liquidated, the Jerusalem Post reports. 
 
 Mr Kristal's wife was murdered in Auschwitz but he survived, performing slave labour in that and other camps. When he was found by the Allies in May 1945 he weighed just 37 kg (5 stones 11 lbs). 
 
 The sole survivor from his family, Mr Kristal emigrated to Israel in 1950 with his second wife and their son, where he continued to run his confectionery business until his retirement. 
 
 Image copyright Getty Images Image caption The previous oldest man Yasutaro Koide died in January 
 
 His daughter, Shula Kuperstoch, said the Holocaust had not affected her father's beliefs. 
 
 "He is optimistic, wise, and he values what he has," she told the Jerusalem Post. 
 
 The oldest person alive today is believed to be an American woman, Susannah Mushatt Jones, who is 115 years and 249 days. 
 
 The oldest person ever to have lived is thought to be Jeanne Calment from France, who died aged 122 years and 164 days. 
 
 Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp 
 
 Image caption Time is running out to prosecute the few Auschwitz guards still alive 
 
 Construction began in 1940 on site that grew to 40 sq km (15 sq miles) 
 
 About one million Jews were killed at the camp in Nazi-occupied Poland 
 
 Other victims included Roma (Gypsies), disabled people, homosexuals, dissidents, non-Jewish Poles and Soviet prisoners 
 
 How the Holocaust unfolded, year by year 
 
 Why did ordinary people commit atrocities in the Holocaust? ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption Yisrael Kristal, the world's oldest man, has died at the age of 113 
 
 The world's oldest man - the only member of his immediate family to survive the Holocaust - has died at the age of 113. 
 
 Polish-born Yisrael Kristal died on Friday, a month before he was due to turn 114, Israeli media reported. 
 
 Mr Kristal, who lived in Haifa, Israel, hit the headlines last year after deciding to celebrate his bar mitzvah a century late. 
 
 The original celebration had not taken place because World War One broke out. 
 
 Mr Kristal was born in the village of Zarnow, about 90 miles (146km) south-west of Warsaw, in 1903. 
 
 The son of a religious scholar, Mr Kristal lost his mother and father during World War One, according to reports. He later moved to Lodz to work in the family confectionery business. 
 
 After the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, Mr Kristal and his family were moved into the Lodz ghetto. 
 
 His two children died there and Mr Kristal and his wife Chaja Feige Frucht were sent to Auschwitz in 1944 after the ghetto was liquidated. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Mr Kristal remarried after the Holocaust and had two children (pictured in 2016) 
 
 Mr Kristal's wife was murdered in Auschwitz but he survived, performing slave labour in that and other camps. When he was found by the Allies in May 1945 he weighed just 37 kg (5 stones 11 lbs). 
 
 According to Tablet Mag, he thanked the Soviet soldiers who rescued him by making them sweets. 
 
 The sole survivor from his family, Mr Kristal emigrated to Israel in 1950 with his second wife and their son, where he continued to run his confectionery business until his retirement. 
 
 Mr Kristal was officially recognised as the world's oldest man by the Guinness Book of Records in March 2016. 
 
 Speaking at the time, he admitted he did not know the secret to a long life, saying: "There have been smarter, stronger and better looking men than me who are no longer alive." 
 
 He is survived by two children, as well as grandchildren and great-grandchildren, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported. 
 
 His daughter Shula Koperstoch said he had died on Friday afternoon after becoming ill on Thursday. 
 
 She told Israeli news website Ynet [in Hebrew] she had had a "great father", adding: "Despite all that he went through, and he lost the whole family in the Holocaust, he had a lot of optimism, and he always saw only light and good in everything."
– Yisrael Kristal came very close to dying in the Holocaust along with millions of others—including his wife and their two children. Instead, the 112-year-old survived Auschwitz and has now been confirmed as the world's oldest man, having outlived Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime by more than 70 years, the BBC reports. Kristal, who remarried, had two children, and moved to Haifa, Israel after the war, was a slave laborer at Auschwitz and weighed just 77 pounds when the extermination camp was liberated in May, 1945. He was born in Poland in 1903 and ran successful confectionery businesses before and after the war. "I don’t know the secret for long life," he told the Guinness Book of Records after receiving his certificate. "I believe that everything is determined from above and we shall never know the reasons why. There have been smarter, stronger, and better looking men than me who are no longer alive. All that is left for us to do is to keep on working as hard as we can and rebuild what is lost."