Ira Goetz has lost much of his sight. “I can see people,” he said. “But only shapes and colors. I can’t recognize the faces.” Keeping his remaining vision requires getting regular injections in his eye.
His hearing is almost gone too. For Mr. Goetz, a conversation is possible only with those who speak in a loud, deliberate voice, directly into his left ear, where he can still pick up sounds through a hearing aid.
Even with these challenges, Mr. Goetz, who turns 98 in December, still lives in his own apartment.
“My friends all died out,” he said. “I’m the one left.”
In many ways, Mr. Goetz has been a survivor since age 12. That’s when everyone in his immediate family was killed by German soldiers in the town of Biecz, Poland.
Mr. Goetz, the oldest boy in the family, recalled his mother telling him to run. “The town was being liquidated,” he said, “we knew the Germans were killing off everybody. I was the only one who managed to get away.”
