A 97-year-old Holocaust survivor’s dream of going to college has come true. Jacqueline Kimmelstiel had a chance to be a student for a day thanks to her assisted living facility and a university in the Bronx.

"We just launched the 'Golden Dreams' program and Jacqueline is our very first 'Golden Dreams' recipient,” Wendy Steinberg, chief communications officer at RiverSpring Living, said.

“She told us how much it bothered her that she didn't get to school, and we thought, you know what, that's something that we can help out with."

Born in Germany, Kimmelstiel’s family fled to France when she was five to evade Adolf Hitler’s Nazi regime. The family changed their name and learned to speak French in order to blend in. She had to stop going to school when she was 12 for fear of being discovered she was Jewish.

"I learned by myself, and I learned how to read, how to write and how to make a composition because I wanted to be heard, and I wanted to learn," she recalled.

"Why did that bother me because I didn't have the experience of going to school with other kids." 

The family moved to the United States in 1947 on her 20th birthday. There she met her husband Albert and started a family. But the wish to go back to school was never fulfilled.

"Unfortunately, with what happened during the Holocaust her education was truncated, and she was never able to advance," son Fred Kimmelstiel said.

"And, she's always been very, very sorry about not being able to get a higher education."

Fast forward 85 years, Kimmelstiel final gets her wish of being a college student for a day.

Joined by her grandchildren, Kimmelstiel interacted with professors and students at the University of Mount Saint Vincent in the Bronx.

She took classes in English and French literature. Reading poems and speaking French with her professor, something she hasn't spoken for years.

"Poetry was never my favourite, but it was good because the professor was good," Kimmelstiel said.

After class, she attended a scrimmage basketball game where she was wheeled out to center court.

"All these beautiful things,” she said. “I know that my late husband would be so proud."

The day culminated in Kimmelstiel receiving a certificate of achievement with all the pomp and circumstance that goes along with a college graduation.