Kinder Surprise

by Erica Morris - Thursday 25th September 2008


A Holocaust survivor from America was the unlikely subject of controversy this week as she prepared to embark on a speaking tour of the UK.

Hedy Epstein, who has said that there's no difference between the treatment of Jews during the Shoah and the plight of Palestinians today, is set to address audiences in churches, mosques and town halls across Britain starting in Edinburgh next month.

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Organised by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, the two-week 'Never Again! End Israel's Crimes against Humanity' tour also includes an event at Lambeth Town Hall - the only London venue on the schedule.

As community leaders this week expressed concern over the 84-year-old's message, there was no sign that she intended to tone down her views. "What is happening in Palestine, it is no different than what was done to the Jews," she told TJ. "And I'm saying 'never again with Jews, never again by Jews'".

Gavin Gross, public affairs director at the Zionist Federation, said: "We recognise that Hedy Epstein suffered the trauma of living under the Nazis.
"However, her comparison of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians to that of Nazi Germany towards the Jews is monstrous and false.

"As Israeli Ambassador Ron Prosor has said: 'Bashing Israel will not build Palestine.' If she truly wants to help the Palestinian people, she should avoid working with extreme organisations whose intention is to delegitimise the state of Israel".

Ben Helfgott, who survived Buchenwald and Theresienstadt concentration camps, added: "Comparing what is happening now in Israel to the Holocaust is uncalled for and an exaggeration."

He also took issue with Epstein, who escaped to the UK on the Kindertransport before the start of the war, referring to herself as a 'Holocaust survivor'.

Helfgott said: "Being a refugee must have been difficult, I'm sure, but it is not the same as being in a concentration camp. "There is no comparison and one shouldn't compare."

Epstein is a member of the International Solidarity Movement and has travelled to Gaza and the West Bank on five occasions since 2003. She provoked controversy four years ago during a similar tour in California, when she compared security tags placed on her airline luggage at an Israeli airport to the yellow stars Jews were forced to wear during World War II. Fliers for that tour also showed a picture of a Nazi group next to a number of Israeli Defence Force soldiers.

Epstein, who describes herself as a secular Jew and an anti-Zionist, said: "I know what it means to be persecuted.

"The Palestinian people are suffering at the hands of the Jewish people. As a Jew I feel I need to stand up and say 'No, not in my name'."

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