Jewish collectible coin and banknote wholesaler who lived on East 32nd Street and befriended Fischer 20 years ago , when she lived a block away . The Blumins made their home in New York , where they had relatives . The 5-foot-2-inch immigrant married Walter Fischer , another Austrian , who earned money performing odd jobs . The couple lived with Fischer 's mother ; Ida Fischer earned money from a variety of office jobs . Fischer , who was in her mid-70s when Last met her in the late 1980s , gave the impression that she was just scraping by , he said . `` She hung around on the street and talked to everybody and people gave her food and clothes , '' he said . `` She was very thrifty . '' She once traveled with her mother to Israel , but did not appear particularly religious , Last said . Gabor Szanto , who met Fischer nearly 40 years ago upon his arrival in the United States from Hungary by way of Italy , disagreed , saying his friend observed all the high holidays . `` I used to take her to the synagogue , ''
-LRB- CNN -RRB- -- New details have emerged about a Jewish immigrant who fled Austria as World War II was brewing , lived frugally in New York and left an estate whose size -- $ 300,000 -- astounded some . Ida Blumin fled Austria in 1938 for the U.S. and married Walter Fischer , who earned money performing odd jobs . In a story published Monday , CNN and other news organizations reported neither the woman 's name nor much else about her , except for the fact that she had donated half of her estate to Hebrew University in Jerusalem , a school with which she had had no known contact . Since then , CNN has contacted two of her friends and a relative , who have identified her as Ida Fischer , who was born Ida Blumin in 1911 in Vienna . They said she was neither a concentration camp survivor nor had she ever been homeless , as the school originally reported . Her life story , however , was still remarkable . In 1938 , she , her mother , her sister and her sister 's husband fled Austria , said Peter Last , a