Dr. Ruth Westheimer was born Karola Ruth Siegel in Germany in 1928 to an Orthodox Jewish family. Much of her family died at Auschwitz, but she was saved by attending a Swiss boarding school which kept her out of harm's way, per Biography. Losing her family in the Holocaust is, in part, why being a grandmother is so important to her. "Whatever I do, I take full advantage of it with my whole soul. I am impatient. Maybe by becoming a grandparent that sense of urgency is heightened. To know that, like I said in the book, Hitler did not succeed. He didn't want me to live, and he certainly didn't want me to have grandchildren," she told The Baltimore Sun.
The 93-year-old sexpert has four grandchildren — who call her "Omi," the German word for "grandmother." And, while she's very open about sex topics in her work, she doesn't give sex advice to her kids or her grandkids, though she does leave her books around if they have questions, according to Jewish Unpacked.
Her celebrity status doesn't get in the way of her being a grandmother to her grandkids although she loves both roles. "When I go to a mall or Central Park and [people come up], I smile and say, 'Today I'm only a grandmother.' I never do [publicity] with my children or grandchildren. It's funny, my four 1/2-year-old does say, 'Omi ['Grammy' in German], everybody knows you'," she told The Baltimore Sun.
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