Old Soul At The Poll: 100-Year-Old Holocaust Survivor Votes For 1st Time
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MIAMI (CBSMiami) – Many South Florida residents are voting for the first time this election season. In most cases, it's because they've just turned 18. But at 100 years old, a Holocaust survivor cast her first ballot Friday!
Menia Perelman has lived in this country for more than 20 years, but just recently became an American citizen.
Why now? She wanted to vote.
At first glance, Perelman looks like any other South Florida senior, getting ready to go and vote.
It's a civic duty carried out every election season. Except for this 100-year-old holocaust survivor, this is the first election she can take part in.
"I'd like to acknowledge Mrs. Menia Perelman, originally from the Ukraine, our newest citizen at 100 years old."
CBS4 was there in September, in Kendall, when Perelman took her oath of citizenship.
"It's a little tardy, but I'm happy," she said. "At least I'm a U.S. citizen."
She survived four years in a Nazi concentration camp. She initially tried to get to the U.S. after the war, only to be turned away because of immigration restrictions.
Perelman finally got here in 1993, but it was this year's election that motivated her to finally make it official.
"I wanted to vote," she said.
And vote she did, riding a special bus with some of her neighbors from the Palace at Coral Gables, where she lives, to the local library.
"Are you ready?" CBS4 Anchor Rick Folbaum asked her.
A determined Perelman replied, "I'm ready."
And so she did something she'd never, in all her years, done before.
"What do you think?" Folbaum asked her.
"I hope I did it correctly," she said.
"You hope you voted for the right one? Who did you vote for?" Folbaum followed up.
"May I tell you?" she responded. "Hillary."
Perelman's story has gotten attention all over the world. A news crew from Israel saw our story and came all the way to South Florida to interview her Friday.
In her 100th year of life, Perelman said she feels like a star. But on Friday, she was simply "an American."
For more on Campaign 2016, click here.
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