[Archived] Alexandria to Mark Remembrance of Holocaust with Civic Ceremony on April 14; Former Director of Holocaust Museum and Religious Leaders Among Featured Speakers


News Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Date:	Tuesday, March 30, 1999
Contact:	Allan Labowitz, Citizen Planning Committee, (703) 461-2274 or (703) 548-2723; Amy Bertsch, City of Alexandria, (703) 838-4300 or (703) 838-4636

Alexandria to Mark Remembrance of Holocaust with Civic Ceremony on April 14; Former Director of Holocaust Museum and Religious Leaders Among Featured Speakers

The City of Alexandria will observe the Days of Remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust with a civic ceremony at noon on Wednesday, April 14, in Market Square in front of City Hall (301 King Street) in Alexandria. The principal speaker will be Walter Reich, M.D., the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior at The George Washington University and former director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C.

The event is hosted by the Alexandria City Council and is open to the public. "In the event of inclement weather, the ceremony will be held in the Vola Lawson Lobby of City Hall (Cameron Street).

Every year since 1988, the City of Alexandria has sponsored a civic ceremony observing the Days of Remembrance of the Holocaust, known internationally as Yom Hashoah. The Alexandria event, which is planned by a committee of local citizens and City staff, is the only community-government sponsored commemoration of Yom Hashoah in the Washington metropolitan area. At the April 14 ceremony, Alexandria Mayor Kerry Donley will deliver a City Council proclamation designating the week of April 11 through April 18 in Alexandria as Days of Remembrance of the victims of the Holocaust. Members of City Council, City Manager Vola Lawson and Dr. Reich, assisted by Irene Rehbock, a Holocaust survivor, will light candles in memory of those who perished in the Holocaust.

Also participating in the ceremony will be Holocaust survivor Charlene Schiff, Rabbis Arnold Fink and Jonathan Biatch, both of Beth El Hebrew Congregation in Alexandria, and Reverend Dale Seley, President of the Alexandria Interfaith Association and Pastor of the Downtown Baptist Church in Alexandria. Hazzan Dr. Ramon Tasat, of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria, will perform appropriate music during the ceremony.

This event is being held in conjunction with civic observances planned throughout the nation during the week of April 11 to commemorate the six million Jews and other victims of Nazism who lost their lives during World War II.

Note: I have included a two-page biographical sketch on Dr. Walter Reich for your use.

WALTER REICH, M.D.

Biographical Sketch

Walter Reich, 55, is the Yitzhak Rabin Memorial Professor of International Affairs, Ethics and Human Behavior at The George Washington University. In addition, Dr. Reich is a Senior Scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and former Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A physician, Dr. Reich is also Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at The George Washington University School of Medicine; Lecturer in Psychiatry at Yale University; Professor of Psychiatry at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences; and Contributing Editor of The Wilson Quarterly. For many years he was a Senior Research Psychiatrist at the National Institute of Mental Health.

Dr. Reich has written widely on the Holocaust, human rights, psychiatry, medical ethics and national and international affairs. He is the author of A Stranger in My House: Jews and Arabs in the West Bank and the editor of Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind. His articles and essays have appeared in scholarly publications as well as in such newspapers and magazines as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Los Angeles Times, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper's, Commentary and The New Republic.

For 25 years, Dr. Reich has worked for the protection of human rights around the world. He has been the Chair of the Committee on Human Rights of the American Psychiatric Association and is Co-Chair of the Committee of Concerned Scientists, which fosters the human rights of scientists and physicians in all countries. He has also worked to protect human rights as a member of the Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

Dr. Reich received his A.B. from Columbia College in 1965, and his M.D. from the New York University School of Medicine in 1970. In 1973, following his psychiatric residency at the Yale University School of Medicine, Dr. Reich joined the National Institute of Mental Health in Washington, where over a period of 21 years he worked in research and education. He interrupted his tenure at the NIMH three times to work at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars on the political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, the psychology of terrorism; and the scientific, ethical and public-policy dimensions of health. After completing his work at the NIMH, he joined the Wilson Center full-time to found and direct its Project on Health, Values and Public Policy. From June 1995 through March 1998 he served as the Director of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

An Associate Fellow of Davenport College at Yale and a Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, Dr. Reich has received awards from a number of universities and other organizations, including the Solomon A. Berson Medical Alumni Achievement Award in Health Science from the New York University School of Medicine, and has been a Lustman Fellow at Yale. In June 1998 he was awarded a Special Presidential Commendation from the American Psychiatric Association "in recognition of his distinguished leadership and scholarship as Director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, and of his being a renowned champion of Human Rights." He was in residence several times at Mishkenot Sha'ananim in Jerusalem, a center for scholars, artists and writers, where he wrote on Israel, the Middle East and the Holocaust.

Dr. Reich lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife, the novelist Tova Reich. They have three children.