As the last Holocaust survivors die, despite documentation and recorded oral histories, the connection to lived experience disappears with them.
In “I’m Still Here,” the story of Ella Blumenthal is recounted against the backdrop of her 98th birthday. (She is currently 100 years old.) Surrounded by her children, grandchildren, and friends, for the first time she fully reveals the details of her five-year ordeal during World War II. She has previously withheld them from those closest to her.
The cheerful demeanor of an older woman in a green running suit may be the image she presents to the world, but her personal history is always with her–like the twenty-four relatives she lost in the Holocaust.