Taking a Stand: A Reflection on Elie Wiesel and Hedy Epstein by Mark Chmiel

These days I am thinking of two Holocaust survivors.

I met with one today: 86 year-old Hedy Epstein and I had lunch at a local St. Louis café.  The other is receiving an honorary doctorate tomorrow at Washington University: 82 year-old Elie Wiesel, who will also give the commencement address.

Mr. Wiesel and Ms. Epstein have in common the central experience of their lives: their families destroyed by the Nazi genocide.  He survived the Auschwitz death camp, and she left Germany in 1939 on a Kindertransport to Great Britain.

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