Vera Bolaffio, 18 years old, might have been known for her wit, her waist-length ebony hair, or her talent as a poet. But her story ended in August 1944 in Florence, Italy. A German grenade struck her while she was searching for drinking water just eight months before Liberation Day. She is known today only because she was the last person to be buried in the old Jewish cemetery in Florence. The old cemetery had been closed for 60 years but was re-opened for Vera's interment because the new cemetery was outside the city center and deemed unsafe during the last days of the war.
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