More than eight decades after surviving three Nazi concentration camps, Helga Melmed, 98, spent part of this summer volunteering at Camp Gan Israel in Venice, Florida, packing kosher lunches for campers and sharing her story with the next generation of Jewish children.

Just months before her 99th birthday, Melmed joined her daughter, Lisa Bean, several times a week during the camp’s three-week season, helping prepare lunches for outings and pitching in wherever needed.

“Watching a nearly 99-year-old Auschwitz survivor prepare kosher lunches for young Jewish children is, to me, one of the most powerful expressions of life’s triumph over darkness,” said Rabbi Sholom Schmerling, director of the camp and Chabad of Venice and North Port. “They did not have the final word. The Jewish future is alive, joyful and flourishing.”

Born in Berlin in 1927, Melmed was deported with her family to the Lodz Ghetto in 1941, when she was 14. Her father was shot and killed there, while her mother died from exhaustion several months later.

Over the following four years, she survived Auschwitz, Neuengamme and Bergen-Belsen. When she was liberated in 1945, she weighed only 46 pounds. The Red Cross brought her to Sweden, where a local family helped nurse her back to health and locate an aunt in New York who sponsored her immigration to the United States.

Melmed later trained and worked as a public health nurse in Florida. After Rabbi Schmerling and his wife, Chaya Rivka Schmerling, established Chabad of Venice and North Port in 2005, she became an active member of the community, helping deliver Yom Tov packages, prepare communal events and assist wherever needed.

In recent years, Melmed has spoken about her wartime experiences at schools and Chabad centers across the country. Her daughter said she never turns down an invitation from a Chabad center and especially values meeting Jewish children.

At camp this summer, older campers and local CTeen staff heard portions of her story, while younger children encountered her simply as a devoted volunteer wearing a camp shirt and helping prepare their day.

“She sat with them and shared some of her experiences,” Rabbi Schmerling said. “She left an imprint that will last a lifetime.”

For Melmed, however, the work remains ordinary. “She believes that anyone in her position would do the same thing,” her daughter said. “That is part of what makes my mother so remarkable.”