Yehuda Aharon Widawski, a Holocaust survivor who spent decades preserving Jewish burial sites in Poland, has died at the age of 107. Born in 1919 in Turek, Poland, he later lived with his family in Łódź. During the Second World War, he and his relatives were forced into the Łódź Ghetto. In August 1944, Widawski and several family members were deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau, where his parents and some siblings were killed. Widawski and his brother Yehoshua survived selection and were later transferred to Friedland for forced labor assembling aircraft components.
Soviet forces liberated the camp in May 1945. After returning to Łódź, Widawski married, raised a family, and eventually moved to Israel in 1950, settling in Tel Aviv. Decades later, he returned to Poland to search for his grandmother’s grave. During that journey, he encountered neglected and damaged Jewish cemeteries, inspiring him to dedicate much of his life to preserving them.
Widawski helped identify and restore more than 3,000 Jewish graves, particularly in Łódź, while traveling throughout Poland to locate and protect additional burial sites. His efforts preserved important links to Jewish communities whose histories had been devastated by the Holocaust. In 2012, he was selected to light a torch during Israel’s official Holocaust Remembrance Day ceremony at Yad Vashem.
Widawski often described Jewish survival and the continuation of family life as a powerful response to the Nazis. President Isaac Herzog later praised his work and legacy. His life represented survival, rebuilding, remembrance, and service. Through the graves he restored and the stories he helped preserve, Widawski ensured that countless names and family histories would continue to be remembered by future generations.