CLEVELAND — A life of service was written in the stars for Dr. Eiran Gorodeski, a cardiologist specializing in heart failure at University Hospitals Harrington Heart & Vascular Institute and professor of medicine at Case Western Reserve University.
"I grew up in a medical family," Gorodeski says. "That was our life."
That life, also rooted in the history of heroic efforts made by his family members, who not only survived, but fought back against the Holocaust.
At 21, his maternal grandfather, Asher Binder, managed to escape the Holocaust when it started.
"He joined the Soviet partisans who were guerrilla fighters in the forests of Ukraine, and that's how he survived," Gorodeski said. "After the war was over, he actually was awarded some medals of valor through the Soviet Red Army."
A country away, his paternal grandfather, Dr. Chaim Hercberg, was a courageous medical pioneer in the ghettos of Poland, where the Nazis forced Jewish people to live.
"He served as a doctor in internal medicine and obstetrics," Gorodeski told us. "He became one of the Jewish doctors in that ghetto, and in that ghetto, he opened up a hospital along with three nurses and two technicians.
"It's an incredible story, and this team took care of thousands of people. Many of them had typhus fever."
In 1942, Hercberg escaped a Nazi labor camp and joined the Polish army as a physician.
"(My grandfather) told us that he survived the Holocaust because he was a physician," Gorodeski said.
Now, more than eight decades later, Gorodeski — who was born in Israel and raised here in Cleveland — says dedicating his professional life to medicine honors the heroism of his ancestors.
"Not surprising that my dad was a doctor and I ended up being a doctor, and my sister is a doctor," he admits. "I think there's got to be some kind of a connection through that inspiring story."
Just recently, this husband and father of three was honored with an endowed chair, which is the most prestigious honor an academic institution can bestow on a faculty member at UH. The award, donated by Jane S. and James B. Wolf Jr. and the Wolf Family Foundation, is for cardiovascular excellence.
"It means a lot, you know?" Gorodeski said. "There's a cultural connection, there's a religious connection, there's a community connection, o, I'm very honored."
Honor, bravery, and sacrifice — Gorodeski carries them with pride.
"I am very, very proud of my family, of my grandfathers," he said. "So incredibly proud of the fact that they were able to reinvent themselves, despite this trauma, and it's been very inspiring to me."
Gorodeski is a graduate of Beachwood High School. According to a new release from University Hospitals, "after he served as a major in a medical company in the Israel Defense Forces, Dr. Gorodeski’s father, George, practiced obstetrics and gynecology at University Hospitals and was promoted to Professor of Reproductive Biology at the CWRU School of Medicine. Gorodeski’s mother and aunts were nurses."
Editor's Note: The following video is from a previous, unrelated report.