09/16/2026
With great sadness, we received information about the passing of Auschwitz Survivor Yehuda Widawski.
He was born on 26 July 1919 in Turek, near ลรณdลบ, in central Poland. In 1933, the family moved to ลรณdลบ, where he became active in the Hashmonaim youth movement and later helped run a textile business that employed dozens of Jewish seamstresses producing army shirts and underwear.
After the German occupation of ลรณdลบ in September 1939, the Widawskis were forced into the ghetto, where they continued textile work and ran one of the ghettoโs first soup kitchens from their home.
In August 1944, during the ghettoโs final liquidation, Yehuda, his parents Abraham and Leah, and several siblings were deported to Auschwitz; his parents and eldest brother Gabriel were murdered on arrival in a gas chamber. Eight days later Yehuda and his younger brother Jehoszua (Szyja) were transferred to a forcedโlabor camp in Friedland, where they produced airplane wings until the campโs liberation by the Red Army in May 1945.
Returning to ลรณdลบ after the war, Yehuda found their apartment occupied by others and learned that most of the family had perished; only he and his brother survived. He rebuilt a textile factory, married Lea, and had a son, Abraham. In 1950 he immigrated to Israel, where he founded and managed various commercial enterprises.
In 1978 he returned to Poland to search for his grandmotherโs grave in the ลรณdลบ Jewish cemetery; appalled by its condition, he began a longโterm project of archival research, field documentation, and restoration of Jewish burial sites across Poland. Over the following decades he helped identify and mark more than 3,000 graves and participated in the renovation of thousands more, becoming a central figure in PolishโIsraeli efforts to preserve Jewish memorial sites.
Yehuda Aharon Widawski passed away on 13 September 2026 at the age of 107.
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Photo: Yad Vashem
