Hadasa Hershkovichi fled to Israel in search of a home after the Nazis murdered her entire family. But while million-dollar apartments pop up throughout her Tel Aviv neighborhood, Hershkovichi lives in a shack originally built as a laundry room on the roof of a five-story building.
"The cold winter wind is coming in through the windows so I shove newspapers around the edges to stop the wind coming in," said the Romanian-born Hershkovichi, who suffers from a combination of ailments that make it very hard for her to climb the stairs to her tiny apartment.
"This is not the way for a human being to live," the 80-year-old said. "I only have a few more years to live and I want a proper home."
Hershkovichi is one of 190,000 Holocaust survivors residing in Israel today. She is also one of the 50,000 estimated to live below the poverty line, according to
the Association for Immediate Help for Holocaust Survivors. Israel classifies a person as poor if they survive on around $600 or less a month.
"I'm ashamed, I want to cry but crying doesn't help," Susan Rotem, a volunteer with the Association for Immediate Help for Holocaust Survivors, told NBC News. "It's hard to be old but it's very hard to be old, sick and lonely."
Rotem and some 3,000 fellow volunteers help people like Hershkovichi by giving them meals and medicine, paying their bills, and keeping them company