Edith Bell (z”l)
November 11, 1923 – May 22, 2022
Birthplace: Hamburg, Germany
Religious Identity: Jewish – not observing
“We arrived in Auschwitz. The officer said, ‘You go this way, you that way,’ and I told him, ‘This is my mother I want to stay with her.’ He informed me that it was okay: ‘She’ll go on the bus, you’ll walk and you’ll see her in 10 minutes’. That was the last time I saw my mother. It took me several days to find somebody to tell me that the people who were sent to the ‘other side’ had been gassed and cremated.”
Edith Bell’s life changed forever in 1938, when she was 14 years old. Her family left their home in Hamburg to flee the Nazis, settling in the Netherlands. Their safety was short-lived; two years later, the Nazis invaded the Netherlands. In early 1943, Edith’s parents and aunt were deported. Her parents were sent to Theresienstadt and her aunt to Auschwitz, where she was murdered. In the summer of 1943, when she was 19 years old, Edith was deported to Westerbork transit camp and then to Theresienstadt. In Theresienstadt, she saw her father die. From there, she and her mother were sent to Auschwitz, where her mother was killed. Edith was transferred yet again, this time to Upper Silesia, where she worked outdoors digging defense trenches. Soon, the whole camp fled westward on foot from the approaching Russian Army. After several days, when she could no longer walk, she was left behind.
Russian forces liberated Edith and ten other women in January 1945. Edith was 21 years old. After liberation, she returned to the Netherlands, got married, and moved to Palestine to join her sister. After her first husband died, she took a trip to visit friends in Panama, where she met Sidney Bell, a soldier in the U.S. Army. They married and moved to Wisconsin and then to Athens, West Virginia, where her husband taught at Concord College for 30 years. Edith often spoke in local schools about her experiences during the Holocaust. The couple had two children, and in 2001 Edith moved to Pittsburgh to be closer to them. During her “In Celebration of Life” interview in 2016, she proclaimed herself an avid peace activist. She said that as a Holocaust survivor, it was important to speak out for human rights, whoever the humans are.
Edith passed away peacefully on Sunday, May 22, 2022.
“It certainly didn’t hold me back, I think it strengthened me. I am a fighter, a survivor. I get very annoyed when people introduce me as ‘Holocaust survivor, Edith Bell’ it is not my defining identity.”
-Biography adapted from “In Celebration of Life: The Living Legacy Project” (2016)
More about Edith
Edith Bell | Distinguished Daughters of Pennsylvania
Remembering the inspiring lives of Lucy Nichol, Edith Bell, and Miriam Thompson | Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom
Raging Grannies | Pittsburgh Quarterly