Rachel

Rachel Epstein

Rachel was born in 1932 in St Quentin in the north of France. When the war broke out, her father, a professional dressmaker, joined the French army to fight against the Germans. In 1940, when the armistice was signed, the family moved into an apartment in Compiègne, where Rachel and her little brother stayed until the end of the war. On July 19, 1942, Rachel’s parents were arrested and taken to Drancy. They stayed there for a week before being transferred to Auschwitz where they were murdered. Throughout the war, Rachel and Léon remained safe and sound with a neighbor family who took them in and cared for them as if they were their own. Later on, Rachel and her brother made sure to nominate the family for the Medal of Righteous Among the Nations. After the war, Rachel was sent to the United States to an aunt’s house where her brother joined her a few years later. Today she lives in the United States with her husband Isidor, (Izzy) whom she met when she arrived in the country at the age of 17.