Hedy Epstein
| Hedy Epstein | |
|---|---|
Hedy Wachenheimer Epstein in 2010
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| Born |
Hedy Wachenheimer August 15, 1924 Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany |
| Died | May 26, 2016 (aged 91) St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. |
| Cause of death | Cancer |
| Occupation | Activist |
| Website | Hedy Epstein's personal website |
Hedy Epstein (née Wachenheimer; August 15, 1924 – May 26, 2016) was a German-born Jewish-American political activist known for her support of the Palestinian cause through the International Solidarity Movement.
Born in Freiburg to a Jewish family, she was rescued from Nazi Germany by the Kindertransport in 1939. She immigrated to the United States in 1948, and lived in St. Louis, Missouri, for many years.
Hedy Wachenheimer was born to a Jewish family in Freiburg, and in 1939 fled Nazi persecution via the Kindertransport to England. All but two of her family were killed at Auschwitz concentration camp during the Holocaust. During World War II she worked in munitions factories and joined a group of left-wing German Jewish refugees who hoped to re-introduce democracy in their homeland – "the foundation of my political education which still stands me in good stead today," she said. Some 60 years later, she was interviewed about this experience for the film Into the Arms of Strangers: Stories of the Kindertransport.
After the war, Epstein worked with the Allied occupying forces in Germany, including working on the Doctors' trial at Nuremberg. In 1948 she immigrated to New York City, then moved to Minneapolis, and then to St. Louis, Missouri. There, she took up activism for affordable housing, the pro-choice movement, and the antiwar movement.
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