Baycrest

LEGACY SOCIETY SUMMER/FALL 2018 HONOURING SAM RUTH C E N T E N N I A L E D I T I O N Greetings As Baycrest celebrates its centennial this year, I am constantly reminded that we exist today because of the dedication and commitment of our community. Members of a women's group went door to door to collect funds to establish the first Toronto Jewish Old Folks Home, which has evolved to become an international leader in care, education, research and innovation related to brain health and aging. Throughout the decades, our community's pride in Baycrest and a desire to make a difference in the world fuelled this remarkable growth and transformation. Members of the Sam Ruth Legacy Society are part of a long tradition of caring that will endure for many years to come, and we thank you for your generosity. Holocaust survivor names Baycrest in her will Renee Gordon visits Baycrest regularly to see her older sister, and is grateful that the organization has an understanding of the special needs of Holocaust survivors. When the women were teenagers, the Jewish ghetto in their Lithuanian town was dissolved and they were separated. Gordon's sister went into hiding and Gordon was sent to brutal labour and death camps. Their parents and younger brothers did not survive, Gordon says, wiping away tears. Gordon badly injured her left hand with a knife while slicing rubber off telephone cables at at a labour camp and endured many unimaginable hardships, including being forced to pull a heavy sleigh in a death march in the winter of 1945. Then, she was locked in a freezing cold barn with hundreds of other women when typhus broke out and killed most of them. Gordon survived because she'd already had the disease as a child and had immunity. When the Russians arrived, they took her to a military hospital for treatment because her legs were frozen. The two sisters were eventually reunited in 1958 in Canada. Gordon established herself in Toronto by renting rooms, teaching dance and becoming an expert in skin care. It hasn't been easy, she says. She went through a devastating flood in her beauty clinic, was the victim of a major theft and experienced the suffering of a lengthy illness and eventual death of her daughter. continued on page 3 Josh Cooper President & CEO, Baycrest Foundation

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