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Reb Yehuda Aharon Widavsky z”l, one of the oldest Holocaust survivors in Israel and a venerable chossid of Sochatchov and Modzhitz, was niftar on the first night of Rosh Hashanah at the age of 107.

A survivor of the Lodz Ghetto and Auschwitz, Reb Yehuda Aharon rebuilt his life after the Holocaust, merited to establish generations of descendants, and devoted decades to preserving Jewish cemeteries and the resting places of tzaddikim throughout Poland.

The levayah was scheduled to take place on Motzoei Rosh Hashanah at midnight at the Nachalat Yitzchak Cemetery in Givatayim, where he was to be laid to rest.

Reb Yehuda Aharon was born on 27 Tammuz 5679 (1919) in the Polish town of Turek to his father, Reb Avraham Mordechai z”l. As a young man, he was among the young chassidim of Sochatchov and developed a deep attachment to the Admorim of the chassidus.

The family later moved to Lodz, where Reb Yehuda Aharon managed the family textile business and became involved in the life of the local Jewish community.

With the outbreak of World War II, his world was shattered. Reb Yehuda Aharon endured the horrors of the Holocaust, first imprisoned in the Lodz Ghetto and later deported to the Auschwitz extermination camp. Amid unspeakable brutality and the constant threat of death, he remained steadfast in his emunah and Jewish identity with extraordinary mesirus nefesh.

He survived the inferno, but most of his family members were murdered al kiddush Hashem.

Following liberation, he married his wife, Mrs. Dabrish Widavsky a”h, née Wasserzug. In 1950, the couple made aliyah to Eretz Yisroel, where Reb Yehuda Aharon rebuilt his home upon foundations of Torah and yiras Shomayim. He viewed the family he was privileged to establish as the ultimate victory over the Nazis who had sought to destroy the Jewish people.

Over the ensuing decades, Reb Yehuda Aharon became widely known for what developed into one of the great undertakings of his life: preserving the memory of the Jewish communities destroyed in the Holocaust and rescuing and restoring Jewish cemeteries throughout Poland.

Beginning in the 1970s, he invested enormous effort and resources in dealing with Polish authorities and others to restore the vast Jewish cemetery in Lodz and to redeem hundreds of Jewish graves and cemetery sites across Poland.

Among the most significant accomplishments resulting from his efforts and meticulous research was the restoration and rebuilding of the ohel of the Sochatchover Admorim in the town of Sochaczew. The site subsequently became a destination for thousands of chassidim who traveled there to daven at the resting places of the tzaddikim.

Reb Yehuda Aharon also endured personal tragedy in his later years. Several years ago, his son-in-law, Dr. Reb Mordechai Himmelpharb z”l, was niftar. Dr. Himmelpharb, a Modzhitzer chossid, was a prominent ear, nose and throat physician in Bnei Brak and at Ichilov Hospital and passed away while still at the height of his professional activities.

For decades, Reb Yehuda Aharon maintained a deep connection with the Admorim of both Modzhitz and Sochatchov and was privileged to have close relationships with numerous tzaddikim.

With great chasdei Shomayim, he merited extraordinary longevity while retaining his clarity of mind into his final years. When he reached his 100th birthday, a special gathering was held in his honor, attended by Admorim, rabbonim and public figures, who paid tribute to his remarkable life as an oved Hashem b’simcha and a man devoted to chesed.

Reb Yehuda Aharon leaves behind doros yesharim u’mevorachim, generations of descendants continuing the legacy of a man who survived the destruction of European Jewry and spent the decades that followed rebuilding, preserving and perpetuating its heritage.

Yehi zichro baruch.

{Matzav.com}