Marcela Botnar was born Marcela Camelia Perian on 29th July 1928 in the historic city of Alba Iulia in Western Transylvania. When her studies were over, Marcela moved to Bucharest. In 1951 she met and married Octav Botnar, and then gave birth to their only child, Camelia Eugenia, the following year. 

In the 1960s, the family left Romania and settled in the United Kingdom, joining Octav’s brother, Max Bunford. In 1972, Camelia was tragically killed in a car accident just before Christmas at the age of 20. After the death of her husband Octav, Marcela carried out his wishes and created Fondation Botnar, based in Basel, to help children in need around the world.

Octav Bundorf (renamed Botnar after the Second World War) was born in 1913 in Chernivtsi, then  Czernowitz, in Austria-Hungary. 

In 1918, Austria-Hungary dissolved, and his hometown, renamed Cernăuţi, became part of Romania. Octav began life as a political activist in Romania and later became a leading member of the French Resistance, fighting to undermine Nazi Germany. He moved back to Romania and married Marcela Camelia Perian in 1951. 

They later moved to the United Kingdom in 1966, where Octav set up and nurtured a successful car business. Following the death of his daughter Camelia, he became a leading philanthropist donating more than USD 100 million throughout his lifetime to causes for children, including the Great Ormond Street Hospital in London.