The daughter of David and Rosa, Debora Epstein was born in Montevideo, Uruguay in 1929. The only daughter of an assimilated Jewish family, she completed her education at high school. At the age of 17 she joined the Zionist Youth Movement and became interested in the idea of becoming a pioneer, and was concerned about the fate of the Jewish people in the Diaspora and the future of Eretz Yisrael. She joined a program at a farm to prepare herself for a pioneering life based on agriculture.
She arrived in Eretz Yisrael in December, following the U.N. Partition Resolution of 29th November 1947 and the outbreak of fighting. Within a few months she had already earned the right to be here. When she traveled by bus to Kibbutz Nitzanim for the first time, the bus was ambushed and attacked from a nearby orchard. Under fire for the first time in her life, and in the face of danger, Debora reacted with quiet courage and self-assurance.
During the days when the attacks on the settlement were fierce and continuous, Debora carried out her duties with devotion and courage, displaying considerable fortitude.
After halting the progress of Egyptian forces to Ashdod, and with Kibbutz Nitzanim isolated in the rear, the Egyptians understood that they could use that point as a base for gaining control, and they reinforced their forces for battle. The Egyptian attack took place on 7th June 1948. When night fell, fierce attacks began on the kibbutz, and increased in the morning with infantry assaults, but the kibbutz fighters retaliated. The Egyptians increased their artillery fire, and brought in planes to bomb the kibbutz, causing heavy damage. Under cover of this fire, the Egyptian armor and infantry succeeded in overcoming and taking control of the kibbutz.
On 7th June 1948, a few hours before Nitzanim fell, Debora was given the order to stand by the bunker, at the side of the bombarded orchard, Sten gun in hand. Her words were: “The tanks have broken through, the positions have collapsed, many have been killed.” She carried out this task fearlessly, despite her anxiety for the fate of the kibbutz; she was fully aware of its destruction and the fate of the lives of the young people there.
In the last hours of the stand of Kibbutz Nitzanim, she was seriously wounded as she was giving aid to a wounded comrade, and she died the same night as a prisoner of the enemy in the Egyptian hospital at Majdal.
Debora Epstein was buried at Kibbutz Nitzanim. She is remembered in the pages of the booklet, “The Battle of Besieged Nitzanim.”
Source: Translated from the Yizkor website by Joe Woolf