Yehuda Widawski, born in Poland in 1919, dedicated his life to locating and restoring Jewish cemeteries that were destroyed or neglected during the Nazi occupation. After surviving concentration camps alongside a few members of his family, he moved to Israel in 1950 but returned to Poland in 1978, where he began his work restoring thousands of gravestones, including those of prominent rabbis and his own grandmother. The Times of Israel reports that Widawski passed away on Sunday at the age of 107.
In an interview with the Ynet news site in 2019, Widawski said, “My revenge against the Nazis is that they lost, and we have the State of Israel. We are free and strong, and no one can destroy us anymore.”
In a post on X eulogizing Widawski on Sunday, President Isaac Herzog recalled the “privilege” of hosting him three years ago.
“I was moved by his life story and by his decision to return to Poland years after he immigrated to Israel to search for his grandmother’s grave. That search became a lifelong mission — over the course of decades, Yehuda worked to locate and restore Jewish cemeteries and graves in Poland, and assisted in identifying more than 3,000 graves,” Herzog said.
Widawski grew up in Turek as the second of four siblings. By 1936, he was managing a business that made shirts and other garments for the Polish army. He and his family managed to find an apartment in the Lodz Ghetto after the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939. The ghetto was later liquidated, and his family was deported to Auschwitz, where his parents and older brother were murdered. His other brother and sister died in Buchenwald and Stutthof. The only survivors were Yehuda, his youngest brother, and their uncle.
After World War II, Widawski met his wife, Lea Dobrysz, and the two started a new textile business. At the same time, they played a role in smuggling arms to a Jewish militia before the establishment of the State of Israel as the Jewish people fought for independence. After Israel gained its independence, they moved to the Holy Land. Today, Widawski is remembered for his decades of work restoring Jewish cemeteries and identifying more than 3,000 graves, helping ensure that the memories of those buried there never fade.
The Fellowship and our supporters pray for the Widawski family during this time as we remember Yehuda, as well as the families and loved ones of those whose graves he helped identify and restore.