93-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor, Pacemaker-Dependent and Living in Appalling Conditions with Son Suffering Mental Disorder, Pleads: Help Us Survive!

We entered a poor home, a small living room with a shelf full of medications. In another room lives the 54-year-old son afflicted with mental illness and cared for at a mental health center in Ramla. We couldn't fail to notice the state of his room, which definitely raises additional concerns given the health status of his mother, a Holocaust survivor living with a pacemaker.

We went to get a glass of water and found a dilapidated kitchen, a broken sink pipe, a washtub, bags of leftover bread tossed aside. The apartment doors are broken, for the most part, without handles. The home urgently needs renovation!

We sat down in the living room to listen to the Holocaust survivor, but at a certain point had to ask her to stop. We couldn't tolerate the apartment's suffocating heat. Olga and her caregiver both have trouble breathing, there's no air conditioning in the apartment at all.

When she showed us the large pacemaker implanted in her torso, which looked like it was about to burst through her thin skin, we also had trouble breathing.

Should a Holocaust survivor who led such a hard life have to exist this way at age 93?

From the moment we met, Olga never stopped tearfully hugging us, warmly grasping our hands and wordlessly pressing us to her heart. When it came time for us to go, Olga again rose with us and fell into our arms. All this gratitude for some food we'd brought her and a few supermarket vouchers.

Olga is 93 years old, a Holocaust survivor from Kiev whose entire family – parents, siblings, uncles, and aunts – were cruelly murdered by the Nazis. She was sent to work in a factory at age 14. Throughout the war years, she tells us, "I worked like an ox from morning till night."

You may well wonder about the many medals pinned to her housedress, a testament to her heroism – which she displays even now, as she seeks last-resort assistance. The medals are decorations conferred on World War II veterans. Some of these veterans fought the Nazis face to face and defeated them; most, like Olga's father, served in the Soviet army, which paid the heaviest possible price.

Dear fellow Jews: as you can see in the video, it's rare to encounter a woman of such refinement, nobility, fragility, and good nature. Just a few moments in her presence and your heart melts.

She could have been the grandmother of any one of us! Please join in the effort to help her, so she won't have to spend even another moment suffering!

We are grateful to all those who share our concern. May all of our Holocaust survivors be able to live out their lives in dignity – at the very least.

Donations can also be made in installments (not credit payments).

The initiative is being carried out with the assistance of, and by means of, Lev Naomi, an organization operated entirely by volunteers, with no salaried employees on staff. All Lev Naomi activity is exclusively volunteer-based! Additional information can be found at the Lev Naomi website: http://www.levnaomi.org.il.