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Westheimer was born in Germany to a Jewish family. As the Nazis came to power, her parents sent the 10-year-old girl to a school in Switzerland for safety while they remained behind because of her elderly grandmother. Both were killed in concentration camps. After World War II, she emigrated to British-controlled Mandatory Palestine. At 4 feet 7 inches tall and 17 years of age, she joined the Haganah (the IDF), and was trained as a sniper. On her 20th birthday, she was wounded in action by an exploding shell during mortar fire on Jerusalem during the 1947–1949 Israeli War of Independence, and almost lost both feet.
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