Woman, 95, arrested for murder in Brooklyn nursing home beating of Holocaust survivor

Thomas Tracy, New York Daily News on Sep 17, 2025

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NEW YORK — A 95-year-old woman has been arrested for murder for beating an 89-year-old Holocaust survivor to death with a piece of metal from a wheelchair in the Brooklyn nursing home where they both lived, police said Wednesday.

Galina Smirnova is accused of killing Nina Kravtsov during a quarrel inside the Seagate Rehabilitation and Nursing Center on W. 29th St. near Surf Ave. in Coney Island about 10:25 p.m. Sunday, cops said.

Smirnova allegedly struck Kravtsov multiple times in the head with a piece of metal from a wheelchair as the clash escalated.

Medics rushed Kravtsov to NYU Langone Hospital-Brooklyn, where she died at 5:39 a.m. Monday, cops said.

Smirnova, who suffers from dementia, was taken to South Brooklyn Health for psychiatric evaluation as authorities weighed whether to charge her. She was awaiting arraignment in Brooklyn Criminal Court Wednesday morning on charges of murder and weapon possession.

Kravtsov had been living at the nursing home since 2020. After the attack, nursing home officials reached out to the Holocaust survivor’s daughter, Lucy Flom, who lives in Florida.

“I thought maybe she fell, and they said, ‘No, no, that’s not it. Your mom is in bad shape,'” Flom told CBS News New York.

As she booked a flight to New York, someone was able to put a cell phone to Kravstov’s ear so Flom could speak to her dying parent.

“They told me she would not respond but they think she could hear, so I told her the final words. I told her I loved her,” Flom said. “That happened while I was waiting for the flight. And as soon as I arrived to New York, they said that she passed.”

Staff at the nursing home wouldn’t comment on the killing except to say that an “investigation was underway.”

“It’s difficult to say what exactly happened because, as I understand, the door was locked,” Flom told CBS. “How did they even know what could’ve happened?”

The elderly dementia patient may be the oldest person in the city ever to face murder charges.

On March 14, 2022, Harvey Marcelin, 83, a transgender woman, was accused of murdering Susan Leyden, whose headless and limbless torso was discovered on a Brooklyn street earlier that month. At the time Marcelin was said to be the oldest person in recent memory to face murder charges in the city.