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Saint Louis. Missouri.
Hedy Epstein, 82, was born in Freiburg, Germany, in 1924(1)
and lived in Kippenheim, a village located approximately 30 km
north of Freiburg. She was the only child of parents who died
in the Nazi extermination camps. She is a tireless worker for
human rights and for the dignity of all people.
Hedy decided to visit Palestine in 2003. She returned terribly
shocked with what she had seen there, women and children
defenceless, Palestinians locked up into ghettos, an entire
people brutalized.
She had learned to love the people that she met, and was
determined to tell the world of the injustices she had seen.
Palestinians were being dispossessed of their land, removed
from the homes that they had lived in for centuries. Nothing
that anyone has done, no protests that have been made, has
made Israel stop its treatment of the Palestinians. In fact,
it has become worse every time Hedy has returned.
So,she is joining other human rights advocates who are sailing
to Gaza on the boat, FREE GAZA (2) to demand justice for the
Palestinians, and a correction of 60 years of oppression by
the Israelis.
Silvia Cattori: Your entire life has been devoted to justice.
But, since 2003, you have increased that commitment by
advocating for justice for the Palestinians. I understand you
are going to take some risks to make the world aware of the
crimes perpetrated against them!?
Hedy Epstein: I was invited to join the Free Gaza boat by the
organizers, and I feel honoured that I was invited to join
(3).
Silvia Cattori: Entering the waters of Gaza with Palestinian,
international, and Israeli peace activists is sure to be a
wonderful project; but won't it be full of tension? Are you
not anxious about participating in such an expedition?
Hedy Epstein: Of course, I have some concerns. But, does life
insure that nothing will happen to me? You know, tomorrow
morning when I get out of bed, I might feel so sleepy that
I'll trip over my own feet and fall down and break my back. So
what am I going to do, remain in bed for the rest of my life?
No.
There are no guarantees in life. Perhaps no one should put
herself in a situation that's dangerous. But my participation
is a small contribution that I can make compared to the
sufferings that the Palestinians endure every single day. And,
if by doing this, we can tell the world what is happening
there, then it's worth going. I'm 82 years old, and I have
lived, most of the time, a good life. Let me make a
contribution before it's too late.
Silvia Cattori: This boat going to Gaza coincides with the
60th anniversary of the departure from Marseille of the
EXODUS. Don't you think it's somewhat controversial to be in a
boat sailing to the same place as the EXODUS?
Hedy Epstein: No. What I'm doing is what I believe in, and
what I stand for. In some quarters, especially in the
mainstream Jewish community, it looks like I'm a traitor, a
"self-hating Jew". Nonsense. I don't hate myself. Several
years ago, the editor of a Jewish weekly newspaper said to me
that I shouldn't have gone to Palestine. Instead I should have
gone to Israel to volunteer in a hospital where people were
being treated for injuries as a result of a Palestinian
suicide bombing.
And I said I'd be happy to volunteer, but if I did help in an
Israeli hospital, would he go to a Palestinian hospital and
help people who have been injured as a result of what the
Israelis have done? He was appalled. "In Palestine?" I said, «
Yes, you can, I have been there, so you can go there also, and
when you do that, then I will be happy to work in an Israeli
hospital». That was several years ago, and I have never heard
from him since then.
Silvia Cattori: Why did you choose to advocate in a place
where the Israelis are so opposed to your involvement?
Hedy Epstein: Let me give you a little bit of my background,
so that you will know how I've gotten to where I am today. I
was born into a Jewish family in Germany. When Hitler came to
power, I was eight years old. My parents very quickly realised
that Germany was not a safe place for them to stay and to
raise a family. They were willing to go anywhere, and they
tried desperately to leave. But they were NEVER willing to go
to Palestine, because they were ardent anti-Zionists.
I didn't understand at the time what Zionism was and what
being an anti-Zionist was, but I did know that in the village
where I lived, which is Kippenheim in South-West Germany,
there was a "Zionist" youth group and my parents did not allow
me to participate in it. I was the only Jewish child in the
village who didn't become a part of that group. Since my
parents were ardent anti- Zionists, even though I didn't
understand what this really meant, I was an ardent
anti-Zionist also.
Then, in 1939, thanks to my parent's great love for me, I was
able to leave Germany on a Children's transport
(Kindertransport) to England. When I left in May 1939, it was
the last time that I saw my parents and other family members.
They all died in the camps. I came to United States in May
1948, about the same time that Israel became a state. I had
some mixed feelings about that event. On the one hand I was
very happy there was a place for people to go who had survived
the holocaust, who perhaps didn't want or weren't able to
return to their places of origin, but on the other hand,
remembering my parents' ardent anti-Zionism, I was worried
that somewhere down the road, no good was going to come of
this. What that might be, I couldn't even imagine. But I was
new in the United States, and there were new things to learn.
So Israel was on the backburner of my interest and remained
there for years.
In 1982, I received my personal wake-up call: the terrible
massacres in the two refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in
Lebanon. I needed to find out what the tragedy was all about,
why it happened, and who was responsible. Then, when I found
out, I needed to learn more about the history of what happened
between 1948, when Israel became a state, and 1982 in Sabra
and Chatila. And the more I learned and the more I understood,
the more I became disturbed by what the Israeli government was
doing, and doing in my name.
So, the more I learned, the more I began to speak out publicly
against the policies and practices of the Israeli government
vis-à-vis the Palestinian people. Then, in December 2003, I
went to Palestine.
Silvia Cattori: You had never entered Israel before?
Hedy Epstein: I had gone in 1981 to attend the first, and
probably the only international gathering of holocaust
survivors. It wasn't a happy experience for me. I found that
the survivors who attended seemed to be in competition with
each other as to who suffered more. They would say "Where were
you, in which camp?" and, no matter what the answer was, the
person who asked the question would always say, "Where you
were, it was nothing, it was much worse where I was". Why
compete with each other about who suffered more? Every one of
them suffered, and true, some of them suffered more than
others, but let us not compete about this.
And we were taken on a sightseeing tour, and the people on the
bus would ask:
"Who lives in this area?"
"These are Jewish people".
"Oh, it is beautiful, the gardens are beautiful. Who lives
over here?"
"These are Palestinians".
"Oh, it stinks, it smells, it's terrible, it's dirty".
In fact, the windows of the bus were closed, and even if they
were opened, we couldn't have smelled anything in the bus.
This disturbed me, this kind of discrimination and talk
against the Palestinians that they didn't even know. So that
is why it was not a happy experience for me and left a very
bad taste in my mouth, and I never went back.
In September 2003, I participated in Saint Louis, Missouri in
a weekly vigil against the war in Iraq. We had been holding
these vigils long before the war started, beginning right
after 9/11, every Sunday. A friend of mine was standing next
to me and asked me "Have you ever thought of going to
Palestine?"
I was shocked and surprised by my response, which was: "Yes,
I'm going". In fact, I hadn't made any plans to go at all, but
maybe, in my head, subconsciously, I was thinking about it all
along and had been preparing myself to go. By December of
2003, the friend who asked me, two other women and I, were in
Palestine for the first time. I went back in 2004, 2005, 2006,
and I hope to go to Gaza this year.
Silvia Cattori: Was it a difficult experience for you?
Hedy Epstein. I was really not prepared for all the horrors
that I saw. For instance, I had heard about checkpoints. And I
thought a checkpoint was something like a toll booth on a
highway here in the United-States. It's not like that at all.
And it's gotten worse every time I return. The way they are
now, they remind me of when animals are rounded up and taken
to slaughter, it's just so humiliating.
Let me share an experience that I had the very first time that
I was in Palestine. We were at a checkpoint near Ramallah. I
was asked some questions by an Israeli reservist; he was
probably in his late forties or early fifties, he looked at my
passport, and then he asked me if I was Jewish, and I said
that I was. And then he asked me if I had ever gone to
Ramallah. Before I could answer, in a very angry tone he said
"Don't you know that every Jew who goes to Ramallah is going
to be cut in half?" And he moved his hand four times across
his waist, repeating "will be cut in half" four times.
But I had just come from Ramallah, where I had stayed with two
different Palestinian families, and obviously had not been cut
in half. In fact, the hospitality that I received from these
two families, as well as by others in other places, is unlike
any hospitality that I have ever received anywhere in the
world. I always, at the very beginning, made it clear that I
am Jewish, and it has never made any difference. No matter
whom I encountered, families I have lived with, or people on
the street, when I told them that I was Jewish, it never made
any difference. They, as well as I, refused to be enemies. The
real enemies were the Israelis. They were the ones who treated
me miserably and painfully.
Silvia Cattori: So, it was a shock for you to discover that
the Israeli soldiers humiliate and brutalize Palestinian
people in such an inhuman way?
Hedy Epstein: Right. In some ways I feel sorry for the Israeli
soldiers who are in Palestine, because of what it's doing to
them. What kind of people are they going to be when they get
out of the military? Are they going to abuse their children,
their wives, because they are used to abusing Palestinians? It
must do something awfully bad to them. The occupation and all
that chaos has to stop, for the sake, not only of the
Palestinian people, but also for the sake of the Israeli
people.
Silvia Cattori: What about you? Were you brutalized by the
police when you were in Israel?
Hedy Epstein: Yes I was. I was in Ben Gurion Airport in
January, 2004. I was returning from the occupied territories
in the company of another woman. When we arrived at the
airport, the first security person we encountered separated
the two of us. My friend was asked to move over to the right,
and I was asked to move to the left. I was trying to make some
sense of this and thought, well maybe it's because she's
Christian and the Christians go to the right and the Jews go
to the left? When I got to passport control, and I had given
my passport and tickets, the woman there typed something in
the computer and seemingly, like growing out of the floor, two
men stood next to me, "We are security". They had their name
badges turned around, so I asked them "What are your names?"
and they remained silent.
I was taken to a place which I later found out was the police
station in the airport. I was told to move into a little
cubicle, which was part of a larger room, and I had take off
my shoes, which were taken somewhere to be X-rayed. I was
patted down, wanded, then asked to get undressed. I said "You
have no right to ask me to do this, I want an attorney," and
she said, "Sure, you can have an attorney but you are going to
be detained at the airport detention centre until you get
one".
How on earth could I get an attorney, since they had taken my
telephone, so I was not able to be in touch with anyone on the
outside? Also, I was worried about what was happening to my
friend, were they doing the same thing to her? One of us had
to get out of here and help the other one and maybe I am the
one. So I agreed to get undressed. Not only did I have to get
undressed in front of this young woman, who was probably 22
years old, but, after I got undressed, she asked me to bend
over. I said "Why?" and she said, "Because we have to examine
you internally". I had never been so angry and upset as I was
at that time. I asked "Why are you doing this?" She said:
"Because you are a terrorist, you are a security risk."
Meanwhile, they were going through every item in my luggage.
Once I came out of that cubicle, and I was dressed again, they
were still going through my luggage and finally they were done
and then they said, "You can pack your stuff." I was so angry
that I said: "You unpacked it, you pack it."
I was also observing what was going on with other people that
were in that police station. There was a young woman with a
little baby who was about seven or eight months old, and they
were going through her luggage and at some point the baby
started to cry and she wanted to appease the baby with food
that she had brought along with her. They refused to let her
feed that baby. I talked to her briefly, and she said "I'm an
Israeli, I'm Jewish, I was born in Israel, but I live in
England and probably this is happening to me and to my baby,
because I'm being punished because I don't live in Israel any
longer".
Silvia Cattori: Why did the Israeli police treat you in such a
humiliating way? Did they want to punish you, because you take
the side of the Palestinian victims?
Hedy Epstein: Probably not only because I went to Palestine,
but because of what I did there and what I saw there. I
participated in demonstrations against the occupation, and
that makes me a security risk, I guess, and a terrorist.
Peaceful non-violent resistance, the Israelis consider to be
terrorism. And yet, what they do in response to peaceful
non-violent resistance is the true terrorism, because they
shoot teargas at demonstrators, who are Israelis, Palestinians
and internationals. They use what they call rubber bullets,
but it's not a rubber bullet, it's metal with a very thin
coating of rubber around it and can kill you, they also use
live ammunition and water cannons.
I experienced all of this, as a matter of fact, when in 2005,
I participated again in non-violent resistance in Bi'lin
village in Palestine. A sound bomb exploded right next to me,
and I have lost some of my hearing as a result. But that is a
minor thing compared to what the Palestinians have to endure
every minute of every day and night. They are in a prison,
they are prisoners. I can leave any time I want to. The
Israeli security people might have detained me at the airport
for several hours, but in the end, I can leave.
Silvia Cattori: How could they do that to a charming lady like
you? You were upset with their violent treatment of you?
Hedy Epstein: Yes. But that's not going to stop me, their
mistreatment of me. Perhaps they did it to discourage me from
coming back, but, of course, I have gone back and will be
going back.
Silvia Cattori: After this terrible experience, when you
returned to the United States and you spoke about that, did
people believe what happened to you?
Hedy Epstein: Some people believed my story, but then there
are those in the mainstream Jewish community for whom Israel
is always the victim, and the Palestinians are always the
terrorists. They don't really understand, they don't really
ask questions, and they don't really want to know what is
truly going on. I made a commitment to the Palestinians that I
met, all of whom asked me "When you go back to the United
States, please, tell the American people what you have seen
and what you have experienced". Because the American people
don't know. I made that commitment, so I take every
opportunity to speak about what I have seen and what I have
experienced. And, yes, there are people within the Jewish
mainstream community who want to shut me up. But that is not
going to happen. They may call me names, but I am going to
honour my commitment to the Palestinians.
Silvia Cattori: As a holocaust survivor, is it uncomfortable
for you to denounce the brutality by the Israelis against the
Palestinian people?
Hedy Epstein: I was never in a camp, because of my parent's
sacrifice of getting me out, so I never had the worst kind of
experience that survivors have had, but I know what it's like
to be discriminated against. I knew Hitler's murderous intent
between 1933 and1939, during which time my father was sent to
the concentration camp Dachau in 1938. He came back after four
weeks, but he was no longer the same father that I knew,
because he was an old, broken man when he came back.
And because I know what it's like, I feel I have a duty and a
responsibility to fight the injustices that happen to other
people. I can't do everything, and there are problems all over
the world, but I decided that the Israeli government's
treatment of the Palestinian people is an issue I am going to
protest against, and I will try to do whatever I can.
The motto for holocaust survivors has been "Never again, " and
" Remembering," and I certainly do my share of "Remembering ",
but " Remembering" also has to have a present and a future
perspective. You can't stop at "Remembering" and saying "Never
again " probably meaning for Jews only. When I stood next to
that terrible 25 foot high cement wall that Israel has built,
separating Palestinian from Palestinian, I thought, "My God,
this is what Jews are doing, the Jews that one time were
forced behind walls, they are building a wall, and putting
Palestinians behind that wall, and in the process destroying
Palestinian buildings, homes, wells, but never hope, the
Palestinian people are an amazing resilient, courageous
people.
Silvia Cattori: I guess that after those experiences, your
life changed completely? And that now you feel the need to go
back to the place of this trauma?
Hedy Epstein: Yes. I need to go back to test what Israel says,
that Gaza is free, that they are no longer occupying it. If
they are really not in Gaza, I should be able to go this
summer. And if I am prevented from going there, or have
difficulties in getting there, that is going to show the world
the lie that the Israelis are trying to sell saying they are
no longer in Gaza. If they are no longer there, why would they
be stopping me from going? This is like a test.
Silvia Cattori: Do you think that things are going from bad to
worse and nothing will change until the solidarity movement is
tougher with
Israel?
Hedy Epstein: You never know if what we do will make a
difference. So you have to keep on trying, and not give up,
and try something different, and this certainly is going to be
different. And it may get the attention of the world, perhaps
for the first time open their eyes and ears and minds to see
what is really happening in Gaza.
Silvia Cattori: I understood that what concerns you very much
is to try to make Jewish people and Jewish organisations more
conscious that they are going to the wrong direction in
refusing to recognize the Palestinians' sufferings and rights
of dignity?
Hedy Epstein: If they really love Israel, the way they say
they do, and they want it to continue, they should open their
eyes and open their minds and see what Israel is doing and how
wrong it is. If the Israelis want to be secure, they need to
stop what they are doing and they need to turn around and stop
the discriminations and the attacks on Palestinian people, and
then both of them can live in peace and in harmony. And that
is really what most of them want, but Israel is always
blocking the way, with the support of American Jewry and the
American government. It's wrong what they are doing; they are
doing the very opposite of what they want to achieve.
Silvia Cattori: Most of the people monitoring what happens in
Palestine are often accused by pro-Israelis of being
anti-Semitic; do you try to explain that this is a wrong way
to behave?
Hedy Epstein: I think, for Christians and Muslims, but
especially for Christians, it's very difficult, much more
difficult than for me as a Jew. If they speak out against the
policies and practices of the Israeli government, they are
going to be automatically called anti-Semitic. It's ridiculous
to call me anti-Semitic; I am a Semite, so why would I be
against myself? That's true for the Arabs as well. They ARE
Semites. But, for Christians, I think it's very difficult,
much more difficult, because it's true that some Christians
have been anti-Semitic, and when they say that what Israel is
doing is wrong, that makes them automatically anti-Semitic in
the eyes of some Jews.
Silvia Cattori: What do you say to those people who accuse you
of being an anti-Semite?
Hedy Epstein: I haven't been able to reach many of the Jewish
organizations; they don't want to hear from me. So, I have not
been successful in getting them to hear the story of what is
happening in their names. When I am invited to speak to
Christian groups, or non-Jewish groups, and Muslim groups, I
have always been received with great love and politeness and
friendship.
Silvia Cattori: Do you expect to touch the Israeli people
hearts doing this expedition? Do you think that most of them
will understand finally that something must change, that
brutality will not solve the problem?
Hedy Epstein: When I was in Palestine, and I encountered
Israeli soldiers, I took every opportunity that I had to try
and talk to them and ask them about themselves, who they are,
and what they are doing and why they are doing it. I tried to
urge them to talk about themselves, and how they would feel if
what they do would happen to one of their family members, to
their grandmother, to their father. How do you feel about
that; if you don't want that to happen, don't do it to
somebody else.
Silvia Cattori: Were they sometimes open to listening to you?
Hedy Epstein: Only one soldier said to me, "I will think about
it." Whether he did or not, I'll never know. But let me tell
you an amusing experience with an Israeli soldier. There were
several of us who tried to go somewhere in Palestine. This was
a film group, and I went along with them. In the morning
before we left, we put our backpacks in the trunck of this
car. I saw a soccer ball in the car, and I said, "Could I
borrow the soccer ball?"
They said " Yes, but what do you want to do with this?" I
said, "I don't know." They said "Sure." So I was walking
around holding this soccer ball, and we came to this flying
checkpoint. A flying checkpoint is not a regular checkpoint;
it's when Israeli soldiers just get a couple of jeeps and
block off the roads and won't let anybody through. So this
soldier told all of us Americans that we could go through
except the soundman. He was Palestinian, although he had an
Israeli ID. He wasn't allowed to go through. We begged, and we
pleaded. But the soldier said, "No, he cannot go through, the
rest of you can but he cannot", and so we were at a deadlock,
because we weren't going without him. So I just tossed the
ball to the soldier, then he tossed it back to me. We tossed
it back and forth for a while, and then he said, "OK, the
soundman can go through." That was a happy ending, but that
shows also the arbitrariness of the decision-making.
Silvia Cattori: This gives you some optimism about the human
beings?
Hedy Epstein: Well I can tell you that when I go to Gaza, I'll
have a ball with me. Not a soccer ball, but a little ball.
Silvia Cattori: So, you will be on the waters this summer,
going to Gaza: do you care if the Israelis army expel you in a
rude way?
Hedy Epstein: No. The worst that the Israelis have done to me
has already happened, and that was when I was internally
searched at the Ben Gurion Airport in January of 2004. That is
the worst, and they never ever are going to make me feel any
worse than that. This time, they will have to search all 70 of
us.
1)
http://www.hedyepstein.com/
2)
www.freegaza.org
3
http://www.counterpunch.org/cattori06072007.html
http://www.voltairenet.org/article148842.html
13 June. |
