Geddy Lee, the singer, bassist and keyboardist for the rock band RusH, Thanks to facial recognition technology, he was able to identify his mother in a photo showing Holocaust survivors. After this discovery, Lee used the process to locate even more family members.
“From Numbers to Names”
Daniel Patt developed the AI technology for the “From Numbers to Names” project. It allows users to upload photos of their family members and compare them to a database. It stores the faces of thousands of anonymous Holocaust photos.
“I started this project after visiting the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, Poland, in 2016,” Patt said. “I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might have walked past a photo of a family member without knowing it. I am the grandson of Holocaust survivors who are all from Poland.”
Further research
Lee’s mother’s name was Mary Weinrib and she died in 2021 at the age of 95. Researchers working for the From Numbers to Names project were able to use a photo of her to identify her. As a result, the project staff contacted Lee, which led to the discovery of other relatives of the rock musician.
“We reached out to Rush’s Geddy Lee with what we thought was his mother’s photo,” says Patt. “He was able to confirm that it was indeed a photo of her in the Displaced Persons Camp (Editor’s note: a facility providing temporary housing for displaced persons after the end of World War II) in Bergen-Belsen. Geddy then discovered photos of his grandmother, uncles, an aunt, and other family members.”
The Rush singer’s mother grew up in a Jewish community in Poland. She was later deported to Auschwitz. After her liberation in 1945, she met and married Morris Weinrib, with whom she had fallen in love in the concentration camp. They emigrated to Toronto, Canada.