Hedy Epstein (née Wachenheimer), born August 15, 1924 in Freiburg, Germany, was a human rights activist and German-American Holocaust survivor. On May 18, 1939, she escaped the horrors that were coming and went to England on a children’s transport.
She escaped Germany in 1939 via Kindertransport to England. The rest of her family wasn’t so fortunate; the Nazis killed the rest of her family at the Auschwitz concentration camp. After the war, Epstein returned to Germany to work on the Nuremberg Trials, launching a career devoted to aiding refugees and fighting discrimination.
Throughout her life, she fought tirelessly for marginalized groups including Jewish and Haitian refugees. She served as executive director of Freedom of Residence, Greater St. Louis, where she played an instrumental role in ending housing discrimination in Missouri.
After the Sabra and Shatila massacre in 1982, Epstein deepened her involvement in the fight against the oppression of Palestinian people. She paid a steep personal price: the Israeli army teargassed her during one protest, and security forces detained her at Ben Gurion Airport in 2004, cavity searching her and labeling her a terrorist. She later told her story in Jews Step Forward — a confessional documentary featuring 24 Jewish activists who “deconstruct Zionism” against a backdrop of searing, on-the-ground images and footage of atrocities perpetrated by Jewish citizens and military against Palestinian men and women.
She began to opposite Israel’s military practices during the 1982 Lebanon War. In 2001, she founded a St. Louis chapter of the Women in Black, an anti-war group founded by Israeli women focused on ending Israel’s occupation. She began travelling to Palestine and volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in 2003, and she has been outspoken about what she witnessed and her own experiences with the Israeli state. Watch her speak at the University of California at Berkeley in 2010 here.
Hedy has been active professionally and personally in the causes of civil and human rights and social justice. Some of her causes have included fair housing, abortion rights, and antiwar activities. As a peace delegate, Hedy journeyed to Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Cambodia in 1989. Hedy visited the Israeli Occupied West Bank five times since 2003, to witness the facts on the ground. She participated in several non-violent demonstrations, together with Israelis, Palestinians, and other internationals, in opposition to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, the 25-foot-high cement wall, and the demolition of Palestinian homes and olive orchards.
Epstein passed away in 2016 at the age of 91. According to the New York Times, “Ms. Epstein often addressed audiences at schools and community events about the Holocaust. Her talks concluded with an admonition: ‘Remember the past, don’t hate, don’t be a bystander.’”
