Annie Hershkovitz
1945-2020
The notice of Annie’s death appeared in the Jewish Chronicle on October 16th. What follows are anonymised selections of tributes on the GASi forum in response to David Glyn posting the sad news. They are preceded by details of Annie’s life, kindly sent by her husband David Lass and sister Miriam. A group effort…….
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Annie often spoke of her father. He was born in 1904 in the “Yemin Moshe” quarter of Jerusalem in the then province of Palestine of the Ottoman Turkish Empire where his Hasidic Russian family had settled in the mid 18th century. On contracting malaria in 1930, since no cure was available, he travelled to Paris to await a visa to the USA. Whilst there, he met and married Rosette Reisman in 1932, and stayed.
Annie was conceived in Nazi occupied Paris. Her mother had been told she would never have another child after Brenda, twelve years older. When her father was arrested and deported, the family went into hiding. It was there, in circumstances similar to those described by Anne Frank, that Rosette realised she was pregnant. There was natural anxiety that a baby would threaten the family’s survival but Paris was liberated in August 1944, their father returned and Annie was born in February 1945. A younger sister, Myriam, arrived in 1948. Annie spoke early and produced amazing drawings, writes Myriam, she took first prize each year and was among the top 3% to pass the difficult entrance exam to the lycée.
In 1957, aged 12, Annie and her family moved to the UK – to a grammar school, a new language and a different culture. Annie went to university, graduated in sciences and her first, successful, career was in the pharmaceutical industry. She left to follow her dream of studying art. At the University of London Goldsmiths College, she studied Art, Art Therapy and, in 1995, Group Psychotherapy. She worked for many years with in- and out-patients in an NHS psychiatric hospital. With her husband, David Lass, an academic librarian at Trinity College Dublin, Annie travelled regularly to France and Israel.
Annie never fully retired, continuing to speak and attend at conferences, and translate books from French to English. She was passionate about art, theatre and cinema, Judaism and Israel. David writes that Annie died painfully and suddenly due to pancreatic cancer at the Trinity Hospice, Clapham on July 21st.
Tributes from the GASi Forum
…..in supervision with her I know that she was innovative in her work through her combined training.
She was a fighter/survivor since her mother’s womb in Nazi time. She had the integrity of defending her ideas with courage. I will keep this honesty and bravery from her.
It is quite shocking to know that she died in July, and none of us knew, after so many years of her being such a vital participant. I feel very sad.
Annie was so lively in being present in many conferences, travelling, raising her voice. I’ll miss her. Forum was a sort of home for her, it was my feeling, and her way of being here the last time was a bit like saying good bye. I am really sad, we will never meet our Annie again. Wishing you peace, wherever you are, dearest Annie.
Her memory stays with us!
So sad I can’t even write more now
I first met Annie when she joined the Group Psychotherapy training at Goldsmiths College in 1995. I knew she was already an art therapist trained at the same College under Sally Skaife and Diana Waller. Her combativeness was the public part of her and she and other students had many struggles in understanding each other. I met her subsequently many times in workshops, symposia, conferences and at other gatherings. I recall finding her at a lecture that Terry Eagleton (a Marxist) gave to the UK psychoanalytic institute. He was great and she seemed impressed though whether the institute was I cannot say. No matter what the occasion, she was always ready to confront whatever she considered to be anti-semitic. She would at suitable times visibly bristle at others’ remarks and apparent attitudes. Once only did I see her disarmed, in a most gentle and oblique way, at a QMG meeting, when those who did not know her reputation for staunch, robust declaration, somehow defused her ferocity and led her into the group’s evolving dialogue. It was a significant moment for me in the way that such a group might ‘defuse’ an individual and take part in exchange. Whenever we met she was warm and friendly in talk. She was devoted to her art therapist practice in the NHS and outraged and disgusted at the creeping privatisation over the past 2 decades and more. It will be strange no longer to see her at events and on the Forum.
Whenever we met face to face she was very tender to me; beside, before she got ill, she contacted me twice backchannel, both times genuinely worried about two colleagues, asking me if I knew something about them and if they were in trouble.
Goodbye, Annie. I regret not to have contacted you when got to know about your trouble.
I remember deeply her story of her mother fleeing while in utero, so profound. I would have liked to meet her and I like how she is remembered for her eyes. I also felt her love of France.
I think of the pain of war and Annie held it viscerally. Her voice always made me think, I could feel her anguish and the unspeakable transgenerational traumas of war and genocide. Sadly I never managed to connect directly.
I didn’t agree with Annie on many political issues about Israel, but on the other hand, I accepted her open love and fervour for Israel and her understanding of Israel’s significance for Jews living in the Diaspora. She represented for me the Jewish fight for a Homeland, as it was in the beginning of last century. She represented her father’s views. Many of her generation stayed in this position. It’s not easy for most to both have gained our Homeland and also, to feel guilty for the prize the Palestinians paid and pay. Her view was that the Arabs/Palestinians remained attackers. For her an attack of the Arab Armies was just another (unsuccessful) pogrom. I understand her position, as her family was under great danger in Jerusalem’s siege in 48. People who are existentially attacked normally don’t think who started. This you can do from far away, not under fire. And if they survive, many hold their fighting position forever. Her history writing, as most of history writing, was emotional. These traumatic moments for her… were the foundation of her social and political beliefs.
She had also an open side – and participated many times in “voices after Auschwitz”, where she gave voice for Jewish survivors of her family and French identity too. But in the end she talked with Germans in a very deep way; she had a dialogue in spite of the opening difficulties.
I met Annie for the first time at the winter GAS (then) workshop on “Trauma” in Krakow in 2008 and since then in almost all the GAS(i) events. The society was a home for her, a home worth fighting for, as for other places that she felt belonging and identity – one of the crossings between belonging to GASI and her Jewish identity, identifying with the existential need for Israel to exist. At Krakow we could share the deep overwhelming tensions between anguish and the struggle to connect, lack of trust and the need to challenge it, hate and hope to trust again. One evening pork was served for supper. Some Jewish colleagues were hurt and angry by the very fact of it. Annie and I commented on whether they had the right to be outraged or not at the hosts’ offer of this meal. Earl convened the extremely loaded LG. Vulnerability and strength, alertness to attacks (on Israel) and genuine hope in kindness and goodwill between us were reflected for me in Annie’s forever blue eyes’ gaze. I wrote her and encouraged her, told her that in these moments she is missed so much and she said that she hopes things will improve. Both of us felt that was not the case. Still, not knowing about her death for 3 months, of a very present otherwise person here, is saddening about her, but even much more about us! Farewell dear friend, may your honesty and straightforwardness remain in our hearts.
Overwhelmed by her death and so sad that this event represents for me – at least for now – the unbearable experience of a tree falling in a forest that no one hears … Hope for her that comfort was with her in the last difficult moments and that her special smile stays with her family as it stays with me.
Annie was a warm and caring woman.
Annie was a strong fighter – and the pain behind these struggles was always palpable. Nonetheless she had a great smile and wonderful blue eyes.
I hope she did not suffer too much.
I suspect the reason she did not say farewell was a combination of fatigue and a reluctance to give up — and that quality is one I loved in her. I shall miss her.
I knew Annie for over 40 years as we first met as art therapists – we were on some sort of board together. She lent me a very long video called Shoah which was very powerful. We never saw eye to eye and were always at loggerheads but we managed to exchange friendly words in saying goodbye.
So Sorry to hear about Annie’s death. She was very meaningful friend of Israel and very devoted to many activities of the IIGA in Israel and abroad. But not only this: she knew the history of the country many times better than any of us, and of the Jewish nation, and fought like a lion when we were attacked. It was always a comfort to have her in the crowd of a large group, when we often felt isolated in the crowd that attacked us constantly. She always knew how to reach out and help with good advice and when we felt lost in our first steps as member of GASI. I will always miss her smile, her beautiful blue eyes and good will to help in my future visits ….
Compiled by Joan Fogel
November 2020