Hedy Epstein – A Personal Message

My message to Hedy Epstein as she sails to Gaza:

Your participation, in the flotilla brings shame to you and worse is a betrayal of your family, those that died in Auschwitz. It is hard to comprehend how distorted your view of life, of Judaism, and of Israel must be to bring you to the point that you sail against your own people. Yes, you’ll say you sail for human rights, for humanity and some such nonsense but last year’s flotilla – and very likely this one, displayed the worst of humanity.

There is no humanitarian crisis – so says the Red Cross just two months ago. What arrogance you have to think you know better. You, who make your life in America, dare to tell us how we should live in this land, in this area.

Had there been an Israel when your family was taken to Auschwitz, Israel would have saved them – as we have saved Jews all over the world. No, we are not going to be victims ever again, nor are we interested in making the Palestinians victims.

We have offered peace time and time again, only to be met with violence. You are not interested in the 14,000 rockets fired at Israel, that’s fine. Clearly, you only use your earlier association with the Jewish people to get yourself headlines and attention. You use your label as “survivor” to betray those who died, while you were blessed enough to survive.

I believe that there is a “next life,” a time that we answer for what we have done in this life – for the good and for the bad. At the gates of this next life, your parents, grandparents, all those you left behind in Auschwitz will stand there.

As a Jew, as an Israeli, I am deeply ashamed of you and believe you have betrayed all that they died for. I have little doubt you will rationalize this away as something honorable, it isn’t; as something brave, it isn’t. There was a reason why your parents worked so hard to get you on that children’s transport that saved your life…whatever that reason was – it was not so you could betray the people they were, the religion they held.

Shame on you, Hedy Epstein and may your parents find comfort not in you, but in so many of the other children who survived as you did – but who came to live in Israel to build it, not to destroy it; to honor it, not to betray it. Indeed, Hedy Epstein – shame on you.

Background information on Hedy Epstein

According to her website, Hedy Epstein calls herself a “Holocaust survivor and a speaker.” She was born in 1924 in Germany; she was an only child. She was lucky – she was one of those fortunate enough to be part of the children’s transport – she escaped Nazi Germany among the 500 children that managed to get out.

Her parents were killed by the Nazis. The last message she got from her mother was in 1942 – it said, “Traveling to the east…sending you a final goodbye.” How Hedy got from that child to where she is now, is hard to explain but where she is now is on the Flotilla heading towards Gaza to show her support.

She is the perfect prop for the flotilla organizers – the Jew…no, better, the Holocaust survivor. She abuses the memory of her parents and all who died by comparing Israeli soldiers to the Nazis.

There are no gas chambers in Gaza, Hedy Epstein; there are no concentration camps. Palestinians are not rounded up and shot simply for being born Palestinians. I recall no instances of Jewish children being taken into Nazi hospitals for treatment as Palestinian children are regularly assisted.

Hedy Epstein was lucky enough to escape, while 6 million did not. Sadly, she uses and abuses that “title” of survivor to her personal advantage – again and again.

29 Comments

  1. Epstein is many things a holocaust survivor is not one of them. She is a refugee from Germany the same that Einstein was and Dr. Ruth, the sex therapist was. To have survived the holocaust is to have a tattoo on your arm or to have been in hiding in an attic for years. One is not a survivor because you spent the war in a London orphanage.To equate her with survivors imbues her with the same level of suffering as Elie Wiesel, Primo Levi and Anne Frank. She says she is a survivor because her family died, well under that guise every Ashkenazi Jew and some Sephardi Jews are survivors too. The problem is that we let people like Epstein and the other “As a Jews”steal the narrative. We should confront them for what they truly are, usurpers of history, hate mongers and collaborators.

  2. Hedy is disgusting but I am sorry if someone as a young child loses their parents to the Holocaust and escapes as a child, they are a survivor.

  3. I went to Hedy’s web site and I have sympathy for her family — especially her grandmother, Lina. She looked so matronly at her 75th birthday celebration. She looked so defeated in the Camp de Gurs. I have sympathy for her parents who wished to protect her from the harsh realities of prison camps…

    How Hedy can compare Nazi concentration camps to Israeli security measures is beyond comprehension to me. One site said she had to endure a strip search upon entering Israel in 2004. Thanks to her Islamic-terrorist friends many of us have to endure additional airport security — I never thought I’d see the day when 10 year old girls and 95 year old women would be “frisked” in their private areas in order to board a flight. Alas, thanks to the suicide bombers, that’s today’s norm!

    Speaking of the Islamic-terrorists, the movement Hedy supports is called the International Solidarity Movement (ISM). According to Wikipedia (a fountain of liberal bias): During a CNN interview, Paula Zahn with Adam Shapiro and Huwaida Arraf [ISM leaders] asked about an article they had co-authored which stated: “Palestinian resistance must take on a variety of characteristics, both violent and nonviolent. But most importantly, it must develop a strategy involving both aspects. Nonviolent resistance is no less noble than carrying out a suicide operation.” She noted that “some people could lead to the conclusion that you were promoting suicide bombing.”

    Really? Islamic Terrorist supporters promoting violence in the guise of a non-violent peace organization — if this surprises anyone, you need to wake up and get you head out of…. the sand!

  4. Of course Hedy is a holocaust survivor. She was in Germany during the Nazi period, she is a jew, she survived. How much more do you need to do. Just because you don’t like her worldview doesn’t give you the right to denigrate her life experience. Personally I believe that every jew alive during the holocaust, wherever they lived, who survived is a holocaust survivor. The aim of the nazis was to kill every jew, those who avoided that fate are survivors.
    You might say she is not a camp survivor or a pogrom survivor or somesuch, but she and millions of others are holocaust survivors.

  5. it’s interesting that you view ms. epstein’s participation in the flotilla protest as a protest “against your own people.” it’s that kind of universal nationalism (the idea that all jews everywhere must approve of all israeli policies or be deemed a traitor to their people) that gives the pro-zionist position such a bad name.

    i actually know hedy epstein. she is a friend of mine, though i haven’t seen her for many years. you may disagree with her protest, maybe you think confining 1.6 million people into a poverty stricken area and then subjecting them to an economic blockade is justified, but plenty of people, including most of the world, disagree with you. and your attack directed against this specific individual who you don’t know seems particularly unfounded.

    but that’s just how i see it.

    i wonder if this comment will get past your moderation queue. it’s your blog, approve or disapprove of it as you wish. but if you do censor this comment, i will only wonder what you are so afraid of.

  6. Only a few people know how Hedy in 1939 in Germany could escape: Christian Zionist Hermann Maas organized the transport of Jewish children to London and saved so many children, including the then 11-year Hedwig Wachenheimer (Hedy Epstein later).
    Hedy Epstein has “full-time Holocaust survivor” since retired…..

  7. I ditto everything that “Independent Patriot” said…she dishonors the memory of the Holocaust victims, and likewise dishonors all of the REAL Holocaust survivors. How utterly appalling that she identifies with Israel’s detractors!! Jan Rubenstein

  8. Ms. Epstein is supporting people who deny that the Holocaust ever happened; that deny her own history. Will she stop and take the time to explain to Hamas and the Gazans that they are wrong in refusing to teach the Holocaust in their schools, and wrong again in denying that it even ever happened?

  9. Only a few people know how Hedy in 1939 in Germany could escaped: Christian Zionist Hermann Maas organized the transport of Jewish children to London and saved so many children, including the then 11-year Hedwig Wachenheimer (later: Hedy Ep…stein).
    So Hedy Epstein is a special kind of “full-time Holocaust survivor” since she is retired…..

  10. Wow – so many comments. I hope I can answer some of them…

    To Independent Patriot – yes, there is a question of the definition of a survivor. My grandfather, like Hedy, lost his family in Auschwitz – at least his mother and his two sisters, and all other relatives he had in the world. He had gone to America to try to save money to pay for their passage to a new and safer world. He did not call himself a survivor, though his personal tragedy was as great as many. My in-laws considered themselves survivors…but they were there for the whole war. My mother-in-law was in a gas chamber before the Nazis pulled her out for a work detail.

    Is Hedy Epstein a survivor? I’m not sure, given her actual history and more, her attempt to get pay-off on it, that she is entitled to this “title.”

    Refugee? Certainly.

    And no, Loretta – Hedy Epstein doesn’t care that Hamas and others deny the Holocaust – that’s why she is so useful to them, a token.

    Holocaust orphan? Certainly.

    But survivor? Not sure. Either way, more insulting is what she has done with this tragic start of hers and her betrayal of that past.
    (comment is getting long – so I’ll divide it into a few)

  11. To Henry – no, I do not insult Holocaust survivors. She did not experience the Holocaust. She was spared that by other Jews and her parents who cared enough to save her. And she has spent much of her life betraying the things they stood for and those who risked their lives to save Jewish children with the hopes of finding a place where they could be free and safe. In the end, that place was re-established – Israel and Hedy does all she can to destroy Israel and to align herself with those who hate Israel and deny the very period of time she wishes us to associate her with.

    And upyernoz – of course I view her actions as against my people (and supposedly hers). All Jews do not have to agree with Israel – I never said that. But there is a huge difference between disagreeing with Israel and trying to commercialize on your tragic past to suggest that Israel does not have a legal right to a naval blockade. We do. These people she sails for and with – have kidnapped an Israeli soldiers and held him under illegal and barbaric conditions for five years. This 19 year old has not seen or spoken to anyone outside Hamas in all that time. That is illegal, yet this horrific “Holocaust survivor” ignores Gilad Shalit in favor of his captors. She supports a lie – there is NO humanitarian crisis in Gaza – none.

    As for economic sanctions…what would you have us do? Should we attack Gaza as the Syrians attack their own people? As the Egyptians attack theirs? Did you or Hedy bother to condemn the Egyptians for wounding over 1,000 of their own people last week alone? No – your silence betrays you (and her) for your hypocrisy. How dare SHE (and perhaps you) use your religion and tragic past in such a blatant and pathetic attempt to attract attention.

    To Jan and Independent Patriot and Prophet Joe – absolutely – Hedy “dishonors the memory of the Holocaust victims.”

  12. And to the Anonymous who wrote: Who the hell are you to judge what justifies surviving the holocaust?

    I would answer that by saying simply – Hedy is as much a survivor of the Holocaust as my grandfather, and thousands of others refugees and people who suffered tremendous loss as a result of the Nazi plan. Yes, if you count them all – we number in the millions because, after all, isn’t my husband a survivor? He wasn’t even born and yet his grandparents suffered the same fate as Hedy’s parents and my husband’s parents suffered a hell of a lot more than Hedy – THEY were survivors.

    My husband is the child of a survivor. Hedy is not that – because her parents didn’t survive. She did not survive a ghetto or a concentration camp. She was lucky, so blessed – to be saved early on – in 1939 before Hitler’s full plan to murder Jews was realized.

    She carries no tattoo – as my husband’s uncle does; she cannot bear witness to the horrors of the gas chambers as my mother-in-law did until her dying day.

    For many years, I told people I had no survivors in my family…until I realized that was because NO ONE SURVIVED. We lost hundreds of relatives in Poland and Russia – in numbers to great to count; names, faces and families lost forever. A great-grandmother and two great aunts – did they have children? We don’t know. Did my great-grandmother have brothers and sisters? Did they have children – all gone. That puts me in the same category as Hedy – no, I am not a survivor. I am the child, the grandchild, the daughter-in-law of those who suffered.

    Hedy Epstein uses the title “Holocaust survivor” to further her agenda – and I find that despicable. She ignores the plight of one young Jewish boy turned man while in captivity – Gilad Shalit, while floating along for her people’s enemy.

    If the Palestinians are not her enemy – that is because she has no empathy for the hundreds of thousands of Israelis under daily rocket fire – another fired this morning at southern Israel. Where is Hedy’s voice for Gilad? She is silent. Where is Hedy’s voice for the Jews living in Sderot, Ashkelon, Ashdod, etc.? She is silent.

    Her silent condemns her for what she is – a fraud.

    A survivor is not a child who escaped and was given refuge before the Nazis even implemented their plan. A survivor is one who survived despite all efforts to kill them. To her great blessing, no one tried to kill Hedy Epstein. She lost her parents in the Holocaust – that makes her an orphan, not a survivor.

    She is silent about Gilad – that makes her a pathetic excuse for a human being and certainly NOT a humanitarian.

    Are my words too strong? Too filled with anger? – Good – perhaps I am finally getting to the proper level of disgust I feel for this woman who would use and abuse the memory of the darkest days of my people, to further her political agenda.

    She dares…DARES…to compare Israeli soldiers to Nazis? That alone proves her incredibly ignorance. Shame, shame on Hedy Epstein and on that final day when she goes to meet her maker, I pray that He stands before her surrounded by the true Holocaust survivors. I know in my heart, at the forefront of those accusers, will be Hedy’s parents, who mourn every day, her blind hatred of her own roots.

    She has betrayed not just Israel and the Jewish people – she has betrayed all that worked to save her miserable life and those who did save her, know deep in their hearts, another Jewish child died so that Hedy could have her place. Perhaps worst of all – she betrayed that child as well.

  13. Soldier’s mother, All I have to say to you is KOL HAKAVOD for standing up for what is right. This woman betrayed the Jewish people as the Palestinians are not suffering at the hands of the Israelis but at that hand of Hamas!!!

  14. Hedy is not a child survivor. She has obviously divorced herself from Judaism. I think her best place to live is Gaza. She should apply for immigration immediately. She is very needed in Gaza; we do not need her here in the United States.

    Rachel Miller

  15. To Hedy’s friend bemoaning the Palestinians in Gaza: they were put there by the Arabs, not the Jews. If anything, they improved themselves under Israeli “occupation” with more roads, schools, hospitals, built than the Egyptians did. Furthermore, they have a border with Egypt–why blame only Israel? They elected Hamas, a freedom-hating, oppressive, anti-woman group of thugs and that is the source of their predicament.

  16. I am a Christian who finds it incomprehensible that there are Jews such as Hedy Epstein who denounce their heritage, calling herself a “survivor” AND then publicly support Hamas – who are non-believers of the Holocaust!
    If not the Holocaust, WHAT did she survive???

  17. There is a difference of opinion regarding a child who escaped on the Kindertransport, as to whether that person is a “survivor” or not. But the figure of 500 is incorrect. It is close to 10,000 children who escaped.

  18. Hedy Epstein (born Hedwig Wachenheimer)has been described several times on my blog. In her book “Erinnern ist nicht genug”, written in a period years before her involvement in the Middle East, she is very honest about her real goals. Hedy was 1941 incorporated in the communist FDJ organisation in London and stayed extreme left wing her whole live. When she calls herself jew or holocaust survivor she forgets to tell that her most identity is leftwing trouble maker. A tragic life at te same time , as she was all alone without family as 11 year old.

    http://www.google.nl/#sclient=psy&hl=nl&rlz=1R2ADBF_nlNL350&source=hp&q=site:keesjemaduraatje.web-log.nl+%22hedy+epstein%22&rlz=1R2ADBF_nlNL350&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&pbx=1&bav=on.2,or.r_gc.r_pw.&fp=c2f44e86b81aab2e&biw=1280&bih=572

  19. Hedy Epstein was 15 when she escaped to England. She joined assorted communist pro-Stalinist groups while she was there. Her website mentions none of this but does seek “honorariums” for her to speak as the Jew who supports the Jew-killers in Hamas. Before she found a sinecure with the ISM, she visited Pol Pot in Cambodia and praised his communist regime there that murdered over 2 million innocents. The film The Killing Fields recounted this and is on TV as I write this. Hedy has never rescinded her support for Pol Pot or condemned his regime because as a good communist she cannot do so.
    This woman is a liar and opportunist and the perfect foil to claim that Western Jews support
    Hamas Jew-killers over an Israeli Jewish state. This is the face of the ISM.

    http://www.StoptheISM.com

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