Eli Zborowski | Holocaust memorialist, 86

Eli Zborowski, a survivor of the Holocaust who made it his mission to ensure that it would never be forgotten, founded an American organization to support Israel's official Holocaust memorial and raised more than $100 million for it, died Monday of cardiac arrest in Queens. He was 86.

Mr. Zborowski started the American and International Societies for Yad Vashem, the Israeli memorial, in 1953, a year after he arrived in the United States as a penniless Jewish immigrant from Poland with little knowledge of English. He was the founding and only chairman of what was - in fact, if not in name - a single organization. Under him, it grew to 50,000 members.

Mr. Zborowski served on the board of the memorial and helped come up with the idea, which it adopted, of remembering communities, not just individuals, lost in the Holocaust. He also founded the American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims, and was one of six survivors - and the only American - to greet Pope John Paul II during his 2000 visit to Yad Vashem. - N.Y. Times News Service