Erin Wides says running a marathon honors Holocaust survivors

Erin Wides, a team captain for the Nashville chapter of Nice Jewish Runners, is preparing to run the New York City Marathon on Nov. 1 to raise support and awareness for Holocaust survivors. In a column for The Tennessean, Wides argues that remembrance of the Holocaust must be an active pursuit that provides dignity, care, and tangible support to survivors who are still living today.

The run serves as a fundraiser for The Blue Card, a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing essential assistance to Holocaust survivors in need across the United States. Wides, who works at the Jewish Federation of Greater Nashville, views the 26.2-mile race not merely as a personal athletic milestone, but as a vehicle to ensure that the dwindling number of survivors are not forgotten by the public.

Turning remembrance into action

For Wides, the motivation for the marathon is deeply personal and tied to the vanishing presence of survivors in her own community. She notes that in Nashville, only two Holocaust survivors are still living. This scarcity of living witnesses underscores her argument that the community must decide how to handle these stories now, rather than treating remembrance as a purely retrospective exercise.

Wides writes that a portion of her race is dedicated to the memory of Gary Lenzner, the grandfather of a close friend, who survived the Holocaust and passed away in 2024. By connecting her physical struggle on the race course to the resilience of survivors like Lenzner, she aims to turn the act of remembering into something active. She argues that while the horrors survivors endured cannot be undone, the current generation can choose to provide love and support to those still with us.

“Holocaust remembrance cannot only be about looking backward. Survivors are still here. They deserve love, care, dignity and support while they are alive.”

Overcoming physical and emotional hurdles

The path to the start line has not been a linear one. Wides describes a period of significant doubt starting in June when she was diagnosed with hamstring tendonitis. The injury forced her to pivot her training to cycling, rowing, and physical therapy, making “easy runs” difficult and leading her to question if completing a full marathon was even possible.

However, she suggests that the struggle of the injury mirrored the broader emotional weight many in the Jewish community have felt over the last few years. Wides writes that the support she received during her recovery—from friends checking in to people donating to her cause—served as a reminder of the “good in people” and the power of a community deciding to carry someone else through a difficult period.

This community-centric approach to athletics is a shift for Wides, who spent years running primarily alone before discovering run clubs. She credits the support of others for pushing her beyond her perceived limits, a sentiment she intends to carry into the race on Nov. 1.

The stakes of the final miles

The “so what” of this effort extends beyond a single athlete’s achievement. By leveraging a high-visibility event like the NYC Marathon, Wides is attempting to bridge the gap between historical education and current humanitarian need.