Sigmund Nissenbaum; Preserved Jewish Sites

Sigmund Nissenbaum, a survivor of the Warsaw ghetto best known for his work restoring Jewish cemeteries and cultural monuments across Poland, has died. He was 75.

Nissenbaum died Aug. 11 in the southern German city of Constance, where he had lived since the end of World War II, his family announced Tuesday.

Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski recalled the efforts of Nissenbaum--known in Poland as Zygmunt--to encourage Polish-Jewish dialogue and to preserve Jewish sites throughout the country.

“I was grieved to hear of the death of Zygmunt Nissenbaum, inmate of Nazi death camps, a man who has done a lot to preserve Jewish cemeteries and cultural remains,” Kwasniewski said in a statement.

Born in Warsaw in 1926, Nissenbaum and his family were moved to the Warsaw ghetto and later deported to the concentration camp at Treblinka. Toward the end of the war, Nissenbaum was sent with his father and brother to a labor camp near Offenburg, Germany.

After the war he remained in Germany, settling in Constance, where he started successful real estate and import-export businesses.

Nissenbaum built a synagogue and revived the Jewish community there. In the early 1980s he became active in Germany’s Jewish community, working toward reconciliation between Germans and Jews.

In 1983, he returned to his native Poland for the first time in 40 years and was shocked to see Jewish graves in terrible disrepair. Two years later, he set up the Nissenbaum Foundation in Warsaw to renovate Jewish cemeteries and synagogues throughout Poland.

His devotion to reviving Jewish culture in his homeland became his passion and his life’s work. Through his role in Warsaw, he became a leading figure in the discussion between Poland’s Jews and non-Jews.

Before World War II, Poland had a vibrant Jewish community of 3.5 million--10% of the country’s population--but most were killed in the Holocaust. Today, about 20,000 Jews live in Poland.

Nissenbaum is survived by his three children. He was buried last week in the Jewish cemetery in Constance.