Holocaust Survivors Reflect: Ella Blumenthal

Ms. Ella Blumenthal was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1921 to a large and extended family. In October 1940 she was deported to the Warsaw Ghetto. She survived the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943. The Nazis deported Ms. Blumenthal, her father and her niece Roma to Majdanek death camp. Ms. Blumenthal’s father was beaten on arrival and never seen again by Ms. Blumenthal. Ms. Blumenthal and Roma survived Majdanek. They were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi German concentration and death camp (1941-1945), and later to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where they remained until liberation. Of the 27 members of her immediate family, only Ms. Blumenthal and Roma survived the Holocaust. After the war, Ms. Blumenthal managed to get to Paris and then to Tel Aviv, before moving to South Africa. She lives in Cape Town and has four children, eleven grandchildren and eleven great grandchildren.