Yehuda Aharon Widawski, Israel's oldest living Holocaust survivor, passed away on Friday night at the age of 107.
Widawski, who survived the Lodz Ghetto, Auschwitz, and forced labor during the Holocaust, later devoted decades of his life to preserving Jewish cemeteries and heritage sites in Poland.
He was born in 1919 in Turek, Poland, to Abraham and Leah Widawski, the second of four children in a traditional Zionist family. In 1933, the family moved to Lodz, where Widawski became active in the Hashmonaim youth movement.
As a young man, he entered the textile business. By 1936, he was managing an operation employing dozens of Jewish seamstresses and supplying textile products throughout Poland.
After the German occupation of Lodz in September 1939, the Widawski family obtained an apartment in the area that would become the Lodz Ghetto. Fifteen members of the family lived together there. Widawski succeeded in bringing property from the family's home and business into the ghetto, resources that later enabled the family to assist others.
When the ghetto was sealed in 1940, the family continued working in textiles. Their home also became the site of one of the ghetto's early soup kitchens, through which they helped friends and acquaintances.
In August 1944, as the Lodz Ghetto was liquidated, the family was deported to Auschwitz. Widawski's parents and his older brother Gabriel were murdered there. Other members of his family were also murdered during the Holocaust.
Widawski and his brother Jehoszua survived and were later sent to the Friedland labor camp, where they were forced to work producing airplane wings.
In May 1945, the Germans abandoned the camp and left the prisoners locked inside. The Red Army liberated the camp the following day.
Widawski and his brother returned to Lodz after the war, where they discovered that their former home was occupied by Poles and learned that most of their family had been murdered. Widawski rebuilt a textile business and married Lea Dobrysz. He also assisted the Irgun in efforts to smuggle weapons to Israel.
In 1950, Widawski immigrated to Israel and settled in Tel Aviv. He established and managed a number of businesses in Israel, initially remaining in the textile field and later working in other commercial enterprises.
Beginning in 1978, Widawski repeatedly returned to Poland and became deeply involved in preserving the remnants of Jewish life there. Together with his friend Yosef Buchman, he worked extensively to restore the Jewish cemetery in Lodz, renovating thousands of graves.
His preservation work extended to other Jewish sites in Poland. In Sochaczew, he worked to locate and reconstruct the ohel over the graves of the Sochatchov Rebbes, and he was also involved in restoring the ohel of Rabbi Yisrael Taub, the first Modzitz Rebbe.
Widawski made dozens of visits to Poland over the years as part of his efforts to identify graves, restore cemeteries, and preserve the memory of Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust.
In 2012, he was chosen to light one of six torches at the State Opening Ceremony for Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Day at Yad Vashem.
He also regularly participated in Holocaust remembrance ceremonies held by the association of former Lodz residents in Israel.
In 2018, shortly before his 100th birthday, Widawski traveled to Poland with 31 members of his family on a journey through significant places from his life.
A celebration marking his 100th birthday was held in 2019 and attended by former Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, the Modzitz and Sochatchov Rebbes, and other rabbis.
Speaking in an interview several years ago about his survival and the establishment of the State of Israel, Widawski said that his answer to the Nazis was their defeat and the existence of a free and strong Jewish state.
Widawski had two children and lived to see five generations of descendants.