26A Ogrodowa street - the last adress in Warszawa Ghetto before the deportation to death camp Treblinka

Before the war, my grandparents lived with her family at Twarda Street No. 3 and thereafter in the ghetto Ogrodowa Street No. 26a.

My grandfather Gabriel Rozental was taken to Umschlag during the First Deportation Action (Großaktion Warschau) in July 1942. The very first people to be selected for ‘deportation’ were the homeless and destitute – many of these had been brought into the ghetto area from towns and villages outside Warsaw.

My grandfather was taken to the Umschlaplatz on July 26, 1942, when he was standing at Ogrodowa Street waiting for some food with a soup can. He was 49 years old.

My grandmother Helena (Maria?) Rozental managed to find work at the "safe place" - the brushmakers factory at Swietojerska Street. According to German orders, Jews employed in workshops in the ghetto (known as sheds or szopy), and providing for the needs of the Wehrmacht, were to be exempt from deportation. Work in the sheds seemed to provide a chance of salvation. People thus strived to be employed there at any price. My mother thought that her mother was safe there. Brushmakers factory - Heeres-Unterkunftsverwaltung had sections: brush, shoemaking, and metal (production of pipes, kitchens, furnaces, boilers, fans). 

However, on August 3rd Helena Rozental was taken to the Umschlagplatz. My mother when she came to visit Helena at the brushmaker factory area at Swietojerska Street, found the room in which Helena lived empty. My mother was sitting in this empty room for hours and went home late, during police hours - that means when it was not allowed to be on the street. Jewish policeman stopped her and she furiously (desperately) smashed his face. Helena Rozental was 46 years old.

Also my grand grandfather Alfred Rozental was murdered in Treblinka 1942.

According to the Stroop report the Grossaktion claimed around 310,000 victims (murdered and deported).