Heidi Gurcke Donald, a retired public health nurse, graduated from the University of California in San Francisco.
She is cofounder of the German American Internee Coalition (GAIC), a group of German Americans and Latin Americans interned by the United States during World War II, their families and friends.
In 2009 she testified at the House Judiciary Committee’s Immigration Subcommittee Hearing on the Wartime Treatment Study Act, introduced for the 4th time that year. If enacted, a newly authorized Congressional commission would have examined the WWII program that interned civilians of European ethnicity. Congress failed to act.
Left—Heidi with her sister, Ingrid, at a 2006 Manzanar National Historic Site exhibit about their family and other former internees.
Right—Testifying before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee, March 2009 (from left: John Christgau, Karen Ebel, Heidi, John Fonte)