Dr. Ruth looked back on her life before her death at the age of 96

Dr. Ruth Westheimer had an eventful life.

Years before her death on July 12 at the age of 96, the sex therapist, who had a humorous approach to human sexuality, told PEOPLE in 2019 about her life story – including that she was a Holocaust orphan and an Israeli soldier.

Westheimer’s spokesman Pierre Lehu confirmed her death to PEOPLE on Saturday, July 13. “She was peaceful when she died. Her son and daughter were with her, holding her hand at that moment,” he said, adding, “She was able to go as peacefully as she could. She was 96.”

“It’s unbelievable that things were still happening in her life (she’s releasing a book with Allison Gilbert in the fall) and someone wants to make a biopic about her,” Lehu continued. He did not provide any further details about Westheimer’s cause of death, but according to The New York Times And The Washington Post, She died at home in New York City.

Read PEOPLE’s 2019 article featuring Westheimer from the archives below.

In 1980, when Dr. Ruth Westheimer started her late-night radio call-in show WYNY, Sexually, She says: “There were seven words you weren’t allowed to use on public radio. But I was allowed to use them all.”

The sex therapist, now 90 years old, escaped censorship, she says, “because I was very well educated. I had my doctorate. I had the courage. We say Chutzpah in Hebrew. And I had the gift of speaking well.”

This unique gift made her 15-minute radio show a phenomenon of the 1980s and changed the way Americans talked about sex. Now a new film has been released, Ask Dr. Ruth, tells the story of her extraordinary life.

Westheimer, a German-Jewish refugee, describes herself as an “orphan of the Holocaust.” She lost her entire family in World War II. Her father, Julius, was abducted by the Nazis in 1938. When she saw him walk out of her window, she remembers: “He turned around and smiled. He didn’t want me to worry.”

About six weeks later, her mother and grandmother put her on a train to Switzerland as part of the “Kindertransport,” the organized escape of thousands of Jewish children from Germany.

“I wasn’t that scared. I was more curious,” she says of the trip. “I thought it would only be for a short time and I would see my parents again.”

She never did.

It was only many years later that she found their names in records from Auschwitz. “The Nazis kept excellent records of the people they murdered,” she says.

After the war, she emigrated to what was then Palestine, where she was trained as a sniper for the Israeli army. “I’ve never shot anyone,” she says, “but I know how to use a rifle and a hand grenade.”

From there she moved to Paris to study psychology and then to New York City. Married and divorced twice, in 1961 she met Fred Westheimer, a telecommunications engineer. He became her third husband and she calls their 36-year union her “real marriage.”

While she was doing research on human sexuality after completing her doctorate, she began working at Planned Parenthood, where she trained family planning counselors. Then, in 1980, she got the offer that would change her life.

Betty Elam, community affairs manager at public radio station WYNY, who had heard Westheimer’s speech, then proposed the idea of ​​a call-in show on sex education. What began as a 15-minute debut after midnight evolved into a live call-in show Sexually speaking The project lasted ten years and resulted in a series of television and radio broadcasts.

Westheimer was known for answering questions clearly and often with humor. “When people wanted to learn about oral sex, I told them to buy an ice cream cone and practice,” she says.

By the time she became famous, her two children, Miriam, who was living in Israel at the time, and Joel, who was studying at the time, had already left home. “I tried to keep my children away from my public image because so much of it was about sex,” she notes.

In later years, she made a name for herself by giving talks, teaching and writing books. Even though she is almost ten years old, she has no plans to retire. “Never. The next investment!” she says.

After all, she has to promote a film.

“I have two wonderful children and four amazing grandchildren,” she says. “People all over the world tell me I helped them by talking openly about sex. And Hitler is dead and I’m alive. Write that down!”

Ask Dr. Ruth will be in theaters on May 3rd and on Hulu on June 1st.