Hella Zellman was born on March 8, 1927 in Frankfurt/Main. When she was four years old, her mother was admitted to the Weilmünster Sanatorium. She remained there from March 1933 until February 7, 1941. From there, she was taken to the Hadamar killing centre and was probably murdered on the same day.

Her father, Icyk, was not a German citizen and had to leave Germany in 1933. In 1944, he went to Palestine.

Hella arrived at the Home 'Isenburg' from Frankfurt/Main on March 31, 1933, together with her brother Max Zellmann. He is also listed in this memorial book.

Following the November pogrom of 1938, Hella , then aged eleven, was forced to leave the Home 'Isenburg' on November 11, because the Nazis thugs had destroyed the main building of the home where the schoolchildren were housed. Hella presumably moved to the Jewish Orphanage on Röderbergweg in Frankfurt/Main, where her brother was also living.

On December 6, 1938, Hella and Max Zellmann fled the orphanage together with other children, were taken to France on a 'Kindertransport' and hidden by the child rescue organization "OEuvre de secours aux enfants (OSE)" in Saint-Laurent-les Églises". In 1941, they were hidden at the Château de Couret, in the Haute-Vienne department in the Pyrenees. On June 6, 1944 Hella and Max arrived in Switzerland and from there travelled to Spain. From there, they were rescued and taken to Palestine with the help of the Youth Aliyah. 

Hella married the British national David Goldhill. The couple lived in Uganda and had no children. When Idi Amin became dictator of Uganda, they fled to Kenya in the mid-1960s.

Hella died on December 22, 1974 in Nairobi, Kenya.

Sources: Stadtarchiv Neu-Isenburg; information provided by Volker Mahnkopp, Frankfurt/Main; Ancestry; thanks to the daughter of Max Zellmann, Dorit Yaron and Dr. Lothar Tetzner, the biography could be completed

State: March 28, 2026 (EEP)