Stella DeLeon
1926-2001
“For all the time I was in the camps, in Auschwitz and everything, I always had the feeling, ‘I’m going to survive. I’m going to get out of here.’ But by the middle of April [1945], I figured, no way I can survive and get out, especially after my little sister died…I said, out loud, ‘[There]’s no God. God won’t let us suffer like this.’ And, believe it or not, a miracle happened. That afternoon, the camp was liberated.” – Stella DeLeon
Stella was born to a large Sephardic family on the island of Rhodes in 1926. In July 1944, the Nazis deported 1,700 Jews from Rhodes to Auschwitz, including Stella, her seven siblings, and their parents. From their 2,000-year-old Jewish community, only 151 Jews survived, including Stella and her sister Flora. Tragically, their sister Janetta died of typhoid just three days before liberation. On April 15, 1945, Stella and Flora were liberated by British soldiers in the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp and then made their way to Rome.
In December 1945, a cousin in Los Angeles found the girls’ names on a list of survivors and sponsored them to come to America in 1947. Stella lived in Los Angeles for two years before meeting her future husband, Ralph DeLeon while on a trip to Seattle. They were married within six weeks, and Seattle became her home. Stella was a member of the Ezra Bessaroth Sephardic synagogue and was a part of the Holocaust Center for Humanity’s Speakers Bureau. Stella and Ralph had two children, whom they named Rochelle and Jack in memory of Stella’s beloved siblings. Stella passed away in 2001.
Video Testimony – Stella DeLeon
Island of Rhodes
Tattoo
Burning Smell
Diseases in the Camp
Full Testimony (1995)
Journey’s to Seattle: Stella DeLeon
Photo Gallery – Stella DeLeon
S. DeLeon Gallery 1
Stella's parents' engagement photo. Her mother is 17 years old. 1920.
S. DeLeon Gallery 2
Stella's mother, Clara. 1930s. Clara was 42 years old when she was murdered in the Holocaust.
S. DeLeon Gallery 3
Stella's father, Moshe Hasson. 1930s. Moshe was born in 1893 and was murdered in the Holocaust in 1945.
S. DeLeon Gallery 4
Stella's sisters. Left to right: Rochelle, Stella, Flora, and Donna. 1930s.
S. DeLeon Gallery 5
Joseph, Stella's brother. 1934. Joseph was murdered in the Holocaust.
S. DeLeon Gallery 6
Stella's family in Rhodes. Stella is second from the left.
S. DeLeon Gallery 7
Stella and her husband, Ralph DeLeon, looking through a cardboard cutout, 1949.
S. DeLeon Gallery 8
Stella (second from the left) in the 1960s.
S. DeLeon Gallery 9
Stella (top row in the middle) with her husband Ralph, her children, and grandchildren, 1980.
S. DeLeon Gallery 10
Stella, her granddaughter Jessica, and her sister Flora. 1994.
