Media Essay
Deportations to and from the Warsaw Ghetto - ID Card/Oral History
Gisha Galina Bursztyn
Gisha was raised by Yiddish-speaking, religious Jewish parents in the town of Pultusk in central Poland. She married in the late 1890s and moved with her husband, Shmuel David Bursztyn, to the city of Warsaw, where Shmuel owned and operated a bakery on Zamenhofa Street in the city's Jewish section. In 1920 the Bursztyns and their eight children moved to a two-bedroom apartment at 47 Mila Street.
1933-39: By 1939 six of Gisha's children were grown and had left home: her eldest daughters had married, and her four eldest sons had immigrated to America and Mexico. Only her youngest son and daughter still lived at home. Her husband had given up his business and was working for the Kagan Bakery. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. After being attacked for four weeks, Warsaw fell to the Germans on September 28.
1940-42: When the Warsaw ghetto was set up by the Germans in November 1940, the Bursztyn's apartment ended up within the closed-off ghetto. Shmuel continued working at the Kagan Bakery, which was also located within the ghetto. In April 1942 he was killed by the Germans. Fearing the German roundups, Gisha decided to hide in one of the ghetto's makeshift bunkers. During a massive roundup that began on July 22, 1942, Gisha was rousted from her bunker, marched several blocks to an assembly point, and herded onto a boxcar.
Gisha was deported to the Treblinka killing center, where she was gassed in July 1942. She was 65.
Item ViewWelwel Rzondzinski
One of six children, Welwel was born to Jewish parents living in the predominantly Jewish town of Kaluszyn, 35 miles east of Warsaw. His parents were religious, and they spoke Yiddish at home. Welwel's father was a bookkeeper for a large landowner. After Welwel's father died, his mother ran a newspaper kiosk in Kaluszyn. Welwel married when he was in his twenties and moved with his wife Henia to Warsaw.
1933-39: When war broke out three months ago, many Jews left Warsaw in a mass exodus towards the east. They were mostly young and middle-aged men who were afraid that the Germans would deport them as forced labor. Welwel was scared, too, but he couldn't leave Henia and their two children, Miriam and Fiszel. Now the Germans have entered the city, and they are seizing Jews off the street for labor gangs. Welwel tries to stay inside as much as possible.
1940-43: The Jewish ghetto, situated in the heart of the Jewish quarter, was sealed off a few weeks ago. The Rzondzinski family's house on Gesia Street is in the ghetto and so is Welwel's grocery store, on Nowolipki Street. Only small quantities of food can legally be brought into the ghetto, so his stocks have shrunk. Most of his customers purchase the basic items that they are allowed on their near-starvation ration of bread, potatoes, and ersatz fat. Those of them who have the means complement their diet with black market goods.
Welwel and his family did not survive the war. They are thought to have been deported to the Treblinka killing center in the summer of 1942 or early 1943.
Item ViewChil Meyer Rajchman
Chil was one of six children born to a Jewish family in the industrial city of Lodz. His mother died before World War II, leaving his father to raise the family. Chil's father could not sustain the family financially, so Chil, as the eldest male child, went to work to help support his brothers and sisters.
1933-39: On September 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland. Chil fled Lodz with his younger sister to Pruszkow, a small town 10 miles southwest of Warsaw, where there were fewer restrictions on Jews. There was a ghetto there but it wasn't cordoned off. Three times a week they were taken to a railroad labor camp and forced to work--they were often beaten. When the Nazis liquidated the railroad brigades Chil was deported to the Warsaw ghetto.
1940-45: After several months in the Warsaw ghetto, Chil was transferred first to the Lublin area and then, in 1942, to the Treblinka killing center. When he arrived he heard a guard call out, "Who's a barber?" With nothing to lose Chil answered, "I am." He was handed scissors and marched to the gas chambers. Suddenly, a door at one end of the cell opened and screaming guards pushed naked women into the room and forced them to sit. Chil cut their hair in five snips, threw the hair in a suitcase and left the chamber before they were gassed.
In August 1943 Chil escaped from Treblinka during an uprising. He then hid until he was liberated by the Soviet army on January 17, 1945.
Item ViewSylvia Winawer
Sylvia's Jewish-born parents had converted to Christianity as young adults, and Sylvia was raised in the Christian tradition. Mr. Winawer was a successful lawyer and the family lived in an apartment in the center of Warsaw. Sylvia's mother collected art.
1933-39: Sylvia attended a private school run by the Lutheran Church, and she loved her school and classmates. When she was 9, her parents brought her the most wonderful "present"--a new sister! Two years later life changed when the Germans invaded Poland and reached Warsaw in September 1939.
1940-44: In October 1940 the Germans forced Sylvia's family to move to the Warsaw ghetto. In the ghetto she gave lessons in the third grade curriculum to an orphan girl named Feiga, and she grew very close to her. But Feiga was so poor that she was taken to an orphanage in the ghetto. Sylvia was very sad when Feiga and all the children of the orphanage, as well as the director of the orphanage, Dr. Janusz Korczak, were deported from the ghetto in 1942.
Sylvia and her parents escaped from the Warsaw ghetto and survived the war. Sylvia later learned that Feiga had been killed at the Treblinka killing center in 1942.
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