Just weeks before his 101st birthday, Holocaust survivor Mordechai Ciechanower died at the age of 100. Ciechanower, who was laid to rest Tuesday morning, dedicated his life to Holocaust education.
He led delegations of Israeli students and IDF officers on educational trips to Poland, lectured worldwide about his personal experiences, and authored an autobiography, "A Star Gleams in the Distance," which was translated into English, German and Polish.
Ciechanover was born in 1924 in the Polish town of Maków Mazowiecki. To survive two years in Auschwitz, he worked as a roofer, repairing barracks in the camp. He was liberated from Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945, and later that year immigrated to Israel under a false identity, posing as a British soldier. He was laid to rest Tuesday in Yarkon Cemetery. Senior officials from the Shin Bet and Mossad, who had attended his lectures — including former Police Commissioner Yaakov Shabtai — helped carry his casket. Singer Yonatan Razel performed "Shir Mispar," a song he and Ciechanower had created together.
Born to Meir Zvi Hirsch and Rachel, Ciechanower grew up in a family that made edible and industrial oils. He was educated at the Yavne religious school, where his primary language was Yiddish, though most subjects were taught in Hebrew. As a child, he studied the Talmud at night while listening to discussions among members of the Zionist youth movements Hashomer Hatzair and Betar.
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When World War II broke out in September 1939, the Jews of Maków Mazowiecki were ordered to assemble in the town square. Ciechanower, along with hundreds of other young men, was sent to forced labor camps. By late 1940, the town’s Jewish residents were relocated to a designated Jewish quarter, and by the end of 1941, a ghetto was established. Ciechanower’s family shared a cramped room with two other families.
“The overcrowding was unbearable, and food was scarce,” he recalled in a 2018 Zikaron BaSalon testimony - a social initiative of informal gatherings in private homes where participants listen together to the testimonies of Holocaust survivors. “I removed my yellow badge, approached Poles, and asked for bread – they gave it to me. I brought it home, and within 20 minutes, my family had devoured a whole kilogram of bread. For three years, from 1942 until the end of the war, I was constantly hungry. My greatest dream was simply to sit at a table full of bread and eat.”
In November 1942, the ghetto was liquidated and Ciechanower was deported to the Mława Ghetto before being sent, along with his family, to Auschwitz a month later. Upon arrival, his mother, Rachel, and sisters, Rivka and Chana-Hadasa, were murdered in the gas chambers. Ciechanower and his father were selected for forced labor, surviving for three and a half months.
“The journey to Auschwitz — the largest Jewish cemetery in the world — was horrifying,” he recounted. “A man who leaned on me throughout the trip died during the journey. I wept as I bid farewell to my mother and sister. I took one last look at them before entering the camp.”
On his first night in Auschwitz, Ciechanower recalled the barracks overseer telling them: ‘The weak will be exterminated, the strong will work until they die. Look at the smoke rising from the chimney—those are your families.’
His father’s fingers froze in the bitter cold, and he was taken to the infirmary. A month later, Ciechanower was injured. During a selection process, he was loaded onto a truck bound for the crematorium, but a delay due to the arrival of a transport from Greece saved his life.
Later, Ciechanower worked as a roofer in the camp and acted as a messenger for the Jewish underground inside Auschwitz. After the Sonderkommando uprising, he and 500 others were transferred to the Stutthof concentration camp in northern Poland. His journey of suffering continued, moving from camp to camp, and enduring brutal forced labor.
At the end of the war, he was liberated from Bergen-Belsen. In Munich, he discovered that his father had survived. “I took a train to see him. When he opened the door, we both fainted. I promised him we would never be separated again,” he said.
Ciechanower and his father immigrated to Israel through Egypt, disguised as British soldiers. He served in the Alexandroni Brigade during the War of Independence and later married his wife, Deborah. Together, they raised two daughters.
On the most recent Holocaust Remembrance Day, Ciechanower participated in Paskol Shlishi, a collaborative album by Galgalatz Radio and Zikaron BaSalon. The album featured songs inspired by personal testimonies, collective memory, and a shared future, created by Israeli musicians. The artists met with Ciechanower during the project and even celebrated his 100th birthday with him.
“Each of us held onto something from his story,” they said of the songwriting process. “One remembered divine intervention, another recalled the search for his father, and a third was struck by the number tattooed on his arm. However, the most remarkable detail was the mandolin — a musical instrument that symbolized life before the war and resurfaced even in Auschwitz. That’s why, at the end of every verse, we let the mandolin play. The melody carries an old European Jewish essence, filled with sorrow yet unwavering optimism —j ust like Mordechai Ciechanower’s story.”