RIP Dr Ruth Westheimer

[notorious]

Originally Posted by 4th and Long

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.

That is one badass woman.