THE SWAMP: Documentary Review: 'I Am Here'
March 6, 2022
"In 2019, a group of white nationalists in South Africa started engaging in Holocaust denial. One woman, a longtime resident of South Africa, responded not by meeting their hate and ignorance with more hate but by bravely asking these young men to meet with her and talk with her and hear her story. That woman’s name is Ella Blumenthal, she’s 98 years old and she survived stints in three different German extermination camps during World War 2.
Naturally, the cowardly, ignorant, white nationalists hid themselves away because they likely knew that there was no way they could stand up to someone who had actually been through something the way Ella has. The remarkable new documentary I Am Here gives Ella the chance to tell her story in forceful and vigorous terms, through Ella’s own powerful words. I am Here proceeds with a first person narrative as Ella narrates her story over exceptionally moving animated sequences and instances of archival footage."{
