From Dr. Mengele's experiments in the extermination camp to the miracle in the gas chambers:
Olga, an 84-year-old Holocaust survivor, was captured by the rabbi at the end of the war for the rest of her life - until her exciting meeting today (Tuesday) with the rabbi's grandson, President Yitzhak Herzog.
Olga Grossman Shalmon was born in Czechoslovakia in 1938, and at the age of six she was taken with her twin sister and their parents to the Birkenau camp.
From there, the sisters were transferred to the Auschwitz extermination camp, where they were part of a group later called the "Mengele Twins," after the horrific experiments performed on them by the Nazi criminal.
Upon her release from Auschwitz in January 1945, she returned to Czechoslovakia and due to her precarious medical condition and lack of close family she was taken by Rabbi Sheinfeld's organization to foster families.
Olga says that on the way to England, the delegation stopped in Ireland, and the first to receive them with open, warm and loving hands was the late Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Halevi Herzog, who was in the midst of his famous campaign to save Jewish children after the Holocaust.
It was a very significant meeting for her, engraved in her memory ever since.
Today, nearly 80 years after the atrocities she went through, her immigration to Israel and the establishment of her family, Olga - along with her children Leah Schnirer and Tzali Shalmon - came to hold a unique closing ceremony at the President's House in Jerusalem.
When she met with President Herzog, the grandson of the Jewish Savior, she told him excitedly: "I can still feel and imagine before my eyes the tangle that made me finally feel safe and protected. I have come a long way, and the meeting with him will remain etched in my heart forever. I am grateful. About the exciting meeting today here at the President's House. "
At the end of the meeting, the President said to Olga: "It is a great honor for me to host you here as President of the State of Israel, years after my grandfather met you and entered your heart at a very fateful moment in your life.
President Yitzhak Herzog and Holocaust survivor Olga Grossman, at their meeting at the President's House, Photo: Haim Tzach / GPO
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