this morning i was watching our one english language channel and suddenly, my friend hedy epstein appeared on the screen. hedy and i met in 1994, when i was a law student in st. louis and had an clinical internship at a civil rights law firm where hedy worked as a paralegal. hedy lived down the street from me and so i started giving her rides to the office. we hit it off pretty well and soon i was dropping by every sunday morning for coffee. i ended up being hedy's date at her retirement party with the law firm. it was an odd friendship, she a 70-something holocaust survivor/human rights campaigner, and i a 20-something law student. she would tell me stories about being a jewish girl in nazi germany, her evacuation to england on the kindertransport just before the war, the bombing of london, her work as a translator during the nuremberg trials, her emigration to the u.s., and her work as a human rights campaigner and public speaker about the holocaust since then.
i haven't seen hedy in 15 years. when i graduated from law school hedy wasn't really a computer person which made it harder to stay in touch. but every once in a while she seems to pop up. a few years back she appeared in the middle of a documentary about the kindertransport that was made by a relative of mine. but i was completely surprised to be sitting here in this small city in kazakhstan and see hedy appear on the french news channel. apparently hedy is heading to gaza to protest the israeli blockade.
