Irene Epstein
1942-2022
“I stayed with a couple [outside the ghetto], and one day I looked through the window and I saw this smoke…I said, ‘What is it?’..It was the uprising of the ghetto and the ghetto was burning.” – Irene Epstein
Irene Epstein (née Ginzburg) was born on January 2, 1924 to Polish-Jewish parents Karola and Leon Ginzburg in Warsaw, Poland. The Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 and forced Irene’s family, along with thousands of other Jewish people into the Warsaw ghetto. In 1943, Karola made contact with a priest, bought fake birth certificates for her family, and found them hiding places outside the ghetto walls. Irene’s fifteen-year-old brother Jurek was betrayed by those hiding him and sent to Trawniki, a forced labor camp. Both her brother and father died at this labor camp.
Irene escaped the ghetto in March of 1943 with the new identity of Anna Boroska – a Polish, Roman-Catholic seamstress – and began work on a Warsaw streetcar. Even with her false non-Jewish papers and identity cards, life became too dangerous in Poland for Irene. In August 1943, with her false identity, Irene volunteered for a factory job in Germany, working alongside women whose families had turned over Jews to the Nazis. After the war ended she worked for the United States Military as a translator at the Weinsberg Displaced Persons Camp in Heilbronn, Germany.
In 1946 Irene came to Seattle and soon met her future husband, Irv Epstein. The couple married in 1947 and had three sons. Irene worked as a teacher for nearly twenty years before retiring to Mercer Island.
Video Testimony
Poem to the President
That Was My Mother
The Ghetto is Burning
False Documents
In the Apartment by Herself
Full Testimony (2019)
Irene Epstein – Voices for Humanity
Photo Gallery – Irene Epstein
I. Epstein Gallery 1
Irene (age one) and her mother, Karola Ginzburg (age 25), at a summer resort. 1924.
I. Epstein Gallery 2
Irene's grandfather, Itzhak Ginzburg, and her great-uncle. Palestine, 1925.
I. Epstein Gallery 3
Irene with her baby doll in a stroller at Wiśniowa Góra, 1929-30.
I. Epstein Gallery 4
Karola with her brother, Benjamin. Warsaw, 1930.
I. Epstein Gallery 5
Irene's parents, Irene and Leon Ginzburg. Krynica, Poland 1937.
I. Epstein Gallery 6
Irene's brother, Jurek Ginzburg, at ten years old. 1938.
I. Epstein Gallery 7
Mother Karola, brother Jurek, and Irene. Summer resort, 1939.
I. Epstein Gallery 8
Top row, second from left is Karola. Bottom row on the left is Jurek. Irene is on the bottom row in the middle. Summer 1934.
I. Epstein Gallery 9
ID card in German and Polish for Anna Borowska (Irene) as a Roman Catholic, 1943.
I. Epstein Gallery 10
ID card issued for Anna (Irene) on July 6, 1943.
I. Epstein Gallery 11
Irene as Anna (second from right) with Polish coworkers. Fall 1944.
I. Epstein Gallery 12
Irene at the Weinsberg Displaced Persons Camp with Captain Powell. 1945
I. Epstein Gallery 13
Irene at 22 years old. Camp Weinsberg, January 1946.
I. Epstein Gallery 14
Train from Stuttgart to Bremen in Germany to catch the boat to America.
I. Epstein Gallery 15
Irene's picture taken in the late 1940s.
I. Epstein Gallery 16
Irene and Irv's wedding. October 7, 1947.
I. Epstein Gallery 17
Irene with granddaughter, Laura. November 1979.
I. Epstein Gallery 18
Irene and Irv Epstein. Seattle, 1993.
I. Epstein Gallery 19
Irene at Voices for Humanity, 2013.
I. Epstein Gallery 20
Irene Epstein in 2019 from the Exhibit Lest We Forget. Photo by Luigi Toscano.
I. Epstein Gallery 21
Irene's signing for her book, "To Laugh is to Thrive." March 31, 2022.
I. Epstein Gallery 22
Signing her book. University House in Issaquah on March 31, 2022.
I. Epstein Gallery 23
Irene signs and chats with University House resident, 2022.
I. Epstein Gallery 24
Irene with her three sons and daughters-in-law, 2022.
I. Epstein Gallery 25
Irene with her family. Left to right: Son David, sister in law Muriel, daughter in law Rosie, son Larry, daughter in law Lorena, son Ron, and daughter in law Olga.
