Today is International Holocaust Remembrance Day, and - as most Rush fans are aware - both of Geddy Lee's parents were Holocaust survivors. Shelli Sonstein of New York's Q104.3 spoke with Geddy about his family's incredible Holocaust survival story when Ged was in studio last month promoting his Big Beautiful Book of Bass. Q104.3 aired the entire interview this morning on Sonstein Sunday, and you can watch it below or at this location (thanks RushFanForever):
... Lee's parents, Morris and Mary Weinrib, met as adolescents in Nazi work camps in Poland at the beginning of World War II. Their relationship blossomed as the war intensified and as their situation became more and more grave. "My mum and dad were in Auschwitz for a couple of years," Geddy tells the show. "How they survived in there I don't know. My dad was transferred out of Auschwitz before my mother was. My mother, her sister and [their] mother survived together in Auschwitz." Geddy continues, relating a story from his grandmother. "[The soldiers] would line them up every day. They would go 'left, right, left, right.' If you went to one direction, you went to the gas chambers, if you went to the other direction, you went to work. So my grandmother would rearrange them in the lineup so they all went in the same direction. She believed that if they were all going to perish, they would perish together, and if they were all going to survive, they would survive together. My grandmother was an amazing person, she kept them alive throughout their time in the camps." ...
