Hedy Epstein: Holocaust Survivor Works for Palestinian-Israeli Peace
by Kathy Kamphoefner,
Quaker Representative Jerusalem
 "I owe a real debt of thanks to the Quakers. They fed my mother in the camps in the 1940s. They weren't able to save my parents-they were eventually taken to Auschwitz, where they died. But my mother wrote me that the Quakers fed her, and it made their lives a little easier at that time," said Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein on first meeting.
Hedy Epstein's parents, Hugo and Ella Wachenheimer, sent her to England in 1939 with the Kindertransport when she was 14 ½ years old. Epstein said. "It must have been a terrible sacrifice for them to send me away. By sending me away, my parents gave me life a second time. It had to be a terrible sacrifice to them, as their only child. Theirs was a powerful love." Quakers were also involved in the Kindertransport, she noted. England saved almost 10,000 Jewish children from Germany, Austria and Czechoslovakia in the 9 months preceding World War II; small numbers of the children were also sent to the US.
In 1941, the Wachenheimers were deported from their small town in Germany in what the Nazis euphemized as a 'transfer' program, to Camp de Gurs, a Nazi holding camp in Vichy France. Epstein recited their dates of being forcibly removed and the series camp names from memory. Over the next two years, the Nazis separated the couple and sent them to several different holding camps in France, until on August 19, 1941, Hugo was deported to Auschwitz, and Ella was deported there on September 11, 1942. Both died in Auschwitz.
In January 2003, Epstein received just under $30,000 in reparations from the French government, in compensation for the Vichy French government's role in deporting Jews to the Nazi camps. "I think it's blood money," Epstein said, "so I wanted it to be used for some good purpose." She established a foundation in the name of her parents, the Hugo and Ella Wachenheimer Education Foundation for Palestinian and Israeli Children to encourage others to contribute to the peace efforts. She donated the reparation funds to five organizations: Seeds for Peace (which sponsors camps which build friendships between Palestinian and Israeli children), the Peace Research Institute of the Middle East, Neve Shalom (an innovative Arab and Jewish school), the Ali Arab Mobile Clinic in Gaza, and the Israeli Coalition Against Home Demolitions.
Epstein founded a chapter of Women in Black in her US home city of St. Louis, Missouri in June 2001. "We wanted to bring it to public attention that we were for an end to the Israeli Occupation. That has been our prime focus," Epstein said, "although in November we focused on opposing the Wall in response to the world-wide efforts." Epstein came to Jerusalem in mid-December 2003 with three other St. Louis women to volunteer with peace groups working against the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.
Shootings in Mas'ha Demonstration
On December 28, 2003, the four St. Louis women joined a demonstration against the Separation Barrier/ Apartheid Wall in the now-encircled West Bank town of Mas'ha. At the demonstration, one Israeli and one international demonstrator were shot by Israeli soldiers. " The young Israelis cut the fence and were able to break open the gate," Epstein said. " I didn't see the shooting, but I heard shots. Others had rushed to the gate. I heard a shot. I assumed it was a warning shot. Then I heard another shot and I began to wonder if it wasn't more serious.
"I turned around and heard several more shots after that. The army was very close. I saw Gil being carried out by six people and blood was oozing from his body, leaving behind a trail of blood. A beat-up Palestinian car drove off with him," Epstein said. Gil Na'amati is a young Israeli kibbutznik. "The bullet went in and out one leg, on his upper thigh, and all the way through the other, shattering bone and severing an artery."
"Then Anne Farina, with our St. Louis group, said, 'I've been hit by something.' She pulled up her pants leg, and a metal fragment was just below her knee. Immediately someone came with an alcohol wipe and asked Anne to get in another car. The four of us were driven to a local clinic."
"At the clinic, we saw the young man on a gurney in the small room. There was a huge puddle of blood on the floor. Two men were working feverishly on him. They put a tourniquet on his leg, then covered him with a blue cloth and carried him out, blood trailing. They took Anne to the hospital, too, in Petah Tikva."
"A local Palestinian man, arranged for Chrissy and me to get a ride to the barricade in the road. From there we were given a ride to Ramallah," Epstein said.
Gil is recovering in an Israeli hospital. The Israeli army has declined to investigate the incident.
Holocaust Lessons
How does a Holocaust survivor come to work for justice for Palestinians? Epstein said, "I feel anger. I feel that those who were persecuted and their descendants have become the persecutors. It seems that is the lesson they have learned from the Holocaust," she said. "That is not my lesson."
Epstein noted, "the motto for Holocaust survivors has been "Never Again", meaning never again for Jews. As I stood next to the 25-foot high cement wall in Qalqilya, I coined this phrase, 'Never Again (for Jews), Again by Jews.'"
"My lesson is when I see injustice--I don't care who is responsible--I must do what I can. That's why I'm here. I speak out against Israeli policies in the US, also," Epstein said. "I'm not anti-Israeli. I'm opposed to the policies and practices of the current Israeli government as they relate to Palestinians."
Epstein visited Israel once before, in June 1981, for the first gathering of Holocaust survivors. "One of the possibilities was-people had been in many camps and ghettoes--so you might be able to find out information about your family, so I came," Epstein said.
"Some things disturbed me during that visit. The first was very ugly anti-Palestinian feelings people were expressing, without even knowing them. We were riding in a bus, and people said,
'This is a Jewish house. Isn't it beautiful?' And 'This is a Palestinian house, oh how it smells!' But we were riding in a closed bus and couldn't smell anything," Epstein said.
A second thing that disturbed her was competition between the survivors about who suffered more. "We all suffered," Epstein said. "Certainly some suffered more horribly than others. But let's not compete over who suffered more," she said.
One other thing was disturbing to Epstein about that 1981 visit. " The closing ceremony of the International Gathering of Holocaust Survivors took place in the open square next to the Kotel [the Wailing Wall]. They interrupted the ceremonies to announce that Israel had 'successfully' bombed the nuclear reactor in Iraq. And there were cheers. But there was one, at least, who did not cheer. I did not feel like cheering," said 79-year-old Epstein. "I've been a peace activist since I was a teenager."
Paul Pierce and Kathy Kamphoefner, a husband and wife team, are the Quaker International Affairs Representatives (QIAR) to Jerusalem, employed by American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Their work includes peacebuilding and advocacy for justice. Your comments are welcome to: qiar_jer@hotmail.com
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