Holocaust is Remembered at Wexner Heritage Village

May 6, 2005

Wexner Heritage Village hosted a special memorial for Yom Hashoah, Holocaust Remembrance Day, on May 5. Guest speakers included three staff members from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. who served as tour guides when 45 associates of Wexner Heritage Village toured there last fall. Art Brown, education director, and his associates, Russell Garnett and Azita Mamdouhi, spoke about their calling to bear witness to the Holocaust to a crowd of residents, staff and guests.

In addition to his duties as an historian and educator, Brown leads an internship program at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum that teaches youth from the schools of Washington, D.C. to serve as tour guides. Garnett and Mamdouhi were both interns as high school students, and like many others in the program, stayed to work for the museum on a permanent basis. All three are African-American and spoke of the profound parallels between the sufferings of Jews in Nazi Europe and the sufferings of their ancestors as slaves and victims of hatred in the United States.

“ I found that the Holocaust is not merely a European history or a Jewish history, but it is a human history,” said Mamdouhi.

This year’s annual service had special significance for the 45 associates who traveled to Washington, D.C. to experience the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum last October. They each participated in readings during the service and lit six candles, one for each million of the Jews killed during the Holocaust.

Director of spiritual care for the organization, Rabbi Cary Kozberg conceived the idea to take staff members to the museum after visiting it himself several years ago. The opportunity became available thanks to a grant from The Wexner Foundation. The hope was that staff, many of whom are not Jewish, would gain a deeper personal understanding of the Holocaust and gain more empathy for those they serve.

Wexner Heritage Village is a not-for-profit provider of health, housing, social and spiritual services in the central Ohio community, primarily serving older adults and persons with disabilities. Its mission, guided by Jewish values and traditions, is to assist those it serves in pursuing their fullest human potential. The campus serves the entire community and includes: Wexner Heritage House, a 200-bed nursing facility, Heritage Tower and Bexley Heritage Apartments, HUD-sponsored independent living, Creekside at the Village, premier independent apartments, Victor Weinstein Shalom House and Shalom House South, two MRDD group homes, Village Shalom Apartments, Heritage at Home, and the Larry & Leonore Zusman Jewish Community Hospice.