Last Of The Last

List of Last Survivors of Historical Events

The following is a list of notable people documented as the last living individuals to have witnessed, survived or participated in significant historical events or whom were the last living members of a historic group that directly contributed to such an event (e.g. Manhattan Project scientists).

Jerry Maren: Death: 24 May 2018 (aged 98)  Last adult Munchkin and cast member with a speaking/singing role in The Wizard of Oz  (Event Date: 25 August 1939)

Donald "Nick" Clifford: Living (age 98)  Last worker who participated in the construction of Mount Rushmore (Event Date: 31 October 1941)

Gerhard Klopfer: Death: 29 January 1987 (aged 81)  Last attendant of the Wannsee Conference  (Event Date: 20 January 1942)

Rudolf Brazda: Death: 3 August 2011 (aged 98)  Last Concentration Camp survivor deported by Nazi Germany on charges of homosexuality  (Event Date: 8 August 1942)

Traute Lafrenz: Death: Living (age 100)  Last member of the White Rose  (Event Date: 18 February 1943)

Marek Edelman: Death: 2 October 2009 (aged 86–87)  Last leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising  (Event Date: 16 May 1943)

Aliza Melamed Vitis-Shomron: Living (age 90–91)  Last participant of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Event Date: April-May 1943)

Samuel Willenberg: Death: 19 February 2016 (aged 93)  Last participant in the revolt at the Treblinka Extermination Camp  (Event Date: 2 August 1943)

Simjon Rosenfeld: Death: 3 June 2019 (aged 96)  Last survivor of the Sobibor Extermination Camp Uprising  (Event Date: 14 October 1943)

Richard Sidney Albion Churchill: Death: 13 February 2019 (aged 99) Last prisoner who participated in the Great Escape from Stalag Luft III (Event Date: 25 March 1944)

Robert Hébras: Living (age 94)  Last survivor of the Oradour-sur-Glane Massacre (Event Date: 10 June 1944)

Ewald-Heinrich von Kleist-Schmenzin: Death: 8 March 2013 (aged 90)  Last participant of the 20 July Plot to assassinate Hitler (Event Date: 20 July 1944)

Miep Gies: Death: 11 January 2010 (aged 100)  Last member of the group which hid Anne Frank in the Secret Annex

Charles W. Lindberg: Death: 24 June 2007 (aged 86)  Last Marine in the Iwo Jima Flag Raisings (Event Date: 23 February 1945)

Luciano "Louis" C. Graziano: Living (age 96)  Last witness to the German Surrender Ceremony  (Event Date: 7 May 1945)

Harold Stassen: Death: 4 March 2001 (aged 93)  Last signer of the United Nations Charter (Event Date: 26 June 1945)

Theodore Van Kirk: Death: 28 July 2014 (aged 93)  Last crew member of the Enola Gay  (Event Date: 6 August 1945)

Chester Nez: Death: 4 June 2014 (aged 93)  Last Navajo World War 2 code talker

Levi Oakes: Death: 28 May 2019 (aged 94)  Last Mohawk World War 2 code talker

Bruce Fraser, 1st Baron Fraser of North Cape: Death: 12 February 1981 (aged 93) Last signer of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender (Event Date: September 1945)

Claude Choules: Death: 5 May 2011 (aged 110)  Last veteran of both World War I and World War II

Umberto II: Death: 18 March 1983 (aged 78)  Last King of Italy  (Event Date: 12 June 1946)

Simeon II: Living (age 82)  Last Tsar of Bulgaria  (Event Date: 15 September 1946)

Benjamin Ferencz: Living (age 99)  Last prosecutor during the Nuremberg Trials  (Event Date: 1 October 1946)

Sam Schulman: Death: 5 July 2019 (aged 90)  Last American crewmember aboard the SS Exodus (Event Date: 11 July 1947)

Ring Lardner Jr.: Death: 31 October 2000 (aged 85)  Last member of the Hollywood Ten  (Event Date: 25 November 1947)

Michael I: Death: 5 December 2017 (aged 96)  Last King of Romania (Event Date: 30 December 1947)

Gopal Godse: Death: 26 November 2005 (aged 86)  Last conspirator involved in the assassination of Gandhi  (Event Date: 30 January 1948)

Arieh Handler: Death: 20 May 2011 (aged 95)  Last witness to the signing of the Israeli Declaration of Independence  (Event Date: 14 May 1948)

Omar Bradley: Death: 8 April 1981 (aged 88)  Last General of the Army and last American to hold a Five-Star rank  

Morton Sobell: Death: 26 December 2018 (aged 101)  Last defendant in the Rosenberg spy trial (Event Date: 5 April 1951)

William Kelly Harrison, Jr.: Death: 29 May 1987 (aged 91)  Last signer of the Korean Armistice Agreement (Event Date: 27 July 1953)

Zelma Henderson: Death: 20 May 2008 (aged 88)  Last plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Education case  (Event Date: 17 May 1954)

John Lewis: Living (age 79)  Last speaker at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom and last member of the Big Six  (Event Date: 28 August 1963)

Clint Hill: Living (age 87)  Last passenger of John F. Kennedy's presidential limousine after Kennedy was shot  (Event Date: 22 November 1963)

James Cross: Living (age 98)  Last kidnapping victim of the Front de libération du Québec during the October Crisis  (Event Date: 28 December 1970)

Jacques Rose: Living (age 72)  Last perpetrator of the October Crisis (Event Date: 1970)

Constantine II: Living (age 78)  Last King of Greece  (Event Date: 1 June 1973)

Yao Wenyuan: Death: 23 December 2005 (aged 74)  Last member of China's Gang of Four (Event Date: 6 October 1976)

Egon Krenz: Living (age 82)  Last Chairman of the State Council of East Germany (Event Date: 5 April 1990)

Dmitri Yazov: Living (age 94)  Last Marshal of the Soviet Union  (Event Date: 28 April 1990)

Helmut Kohl: Death: 16 June 2017 (aged 87) Last Chancellor of West Germany  (Event Date: 3 October 1990)

Mikhail Gorbachev: Living (age 88)  Last Head of State of the Soviet Union  (Event Date: 25 December 1991)

Václav Havel: Death: 18 December 2011 (aged 75)  Last  President of Czechoslovakia  (Event Date: 31 December 1992)

F. W. de Klerk: Living (age 83)  Last leader of the Apartheid Government of South Africa and last State President  (Event Date: 10 May 1994)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_last_survivors_of_historical_events