Mary Weinrib — a Holocaust survivor and mother of Rush bassist and vocalist Geddy Lee — has died. Weinrib passed away last Friday (July 2), weeks shy of her 96th birthday. She was 95.
An obituary calls Weinrib's life "an inspiring story of perseverance, survival and triumph." She was born in 1925 in Warsaw, Poland, and grew up in Wierzbnik, a Jewish shtetl that was part of Starachowice, Poland, that was occupied by the Germans beginning in 1939.
Weinrib "endured the labour camp at the munitions factory in Starachowice and the concentration camps at Auschwitz, where she met and fell in love with her husband Morris Weinrib, and at Bergen-Belsen, where she was finally liberated in April 1945."
Mary and Morris would be reunited and married in 1946 and emigrated to Canada soon after. Following her husband's sudden death in 1965, Mary took over managing the family's variety store north of Toronto in Newmarket while raising three children.
The obituary adds that as "an early supporter and a fixture at Rush concerts," Mary plastered the windows of the store with Rush posters upon the release of the group's first album in 1974, and "gave albums away to any kids who wanted them but didn't have the money to buy them."
More recently, Mary Weinrib appeared in the 2010 band documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage and alongside her son Geddy in Dave Grohl's docu-series From Cradle to Stage, which explores the relationships of successful musicians and their mothers.
Of their conversation, Grohl said in the episode, "It was funny for me to sit with Geddy and his mom because... he changed my life. Rush really changed my life. I loved music. I loved singing in the car to AM radio. But I never listened to the drums until I heard Rush. As we were sitting with Geddy and his mom, I was thinking...if it weren't for her I might not be a drummer."
Weinrib's family asks that donations made in her honour to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.
An obituary calls Weinrib's life "an inspiring story of perseverance, survival and triumph." She was born in 1925 in Warsaw, Poland, and grew up in Wierzbnik, a Jewish shtetl that was part of Starachowice, Poland, that was occupied by the Germans beginning in 1939.
Weinrib "endured the labour camp at the munitions factory in Starachowice and the concentration camps at Auschwitz, where she met and fell in love with her husband Morris Weinrib, and at Bergen-Belsen, where she was finally liberated in April 1945."
Mary and Morris would be reunited and married in 1946 and emigrated to Canada soon after. Following her husband's sudden death in 1965, Mary took over managing the family's variety store north of Toronto in Newmarket while raising three children.
The obituary adds that as "an early supporter and a fixture at Rush concerts," Mary plastered the windows of the store with Rush posters upon the release of the group's first album in 1974, and "gave albums away to any kids who wanted them but didn't have the money to buy them."
More recently, Mary Weinrib appeared in the 2010 band documentary Rush: Beyond the Lighted Stage and alongside her son Geddy in Dave Grohl's docu-series From Cradle to Stage, which explores the relationships of successful musicians and their mothers.
Of their conversation, Grohl said in the episode, "It was funny for me to sit with Geddy and his mom because... he changed my life. Rush really changed my life. I loved music. I loved singing in the car to AM radio. But I never listened to the drums until I heard Rush. As we were sitting with Geddy and his mom, I was thinking...if it weren't for her I might not be a drummer."
Weinrib's family asks that donations made in her honour to the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.
