One of nine children, Hela grew up in the Polish capital of Warsaw. Her father was an art and antique furniture dealer and had a store on Marszalkowska Street. Every year, from the beginning of the summer break until the Jewish High Holidays in the fall, the Los family vacationed in the town of Miedzeszyn, located a short train ride's distance from Warsaw.
1933-39: Hela and her family were still at their vacation home when the Germans entered Warsaw on September 28, 1939. As soon as it became possible, they returned to Warsaw by foot, only to find that their house had been partially destroyed. That winter, the Germans confiscated Jewish-owned businesses, so her father registered his store under the name of their Christian piano tuner who then brought Hela's family the money from their store's sales.
1940-45: The Germans confined Warsaw's Jews to a ghetto in 1941. Hela sewed Nazi uniforms in the ghetto's Toebbens workshop, but seven of her siblings weren't so lucky--they were deported as "unskilled laborers." In 1943, after hearing that an uprising was being planned, Hela, her parents, and her brother hid on their roof, waiting. The Germans threw grenades into the basement bunkers; a few days later, fires threatened their way down. Her family escaped in time, but others waited too long--they had to jump from the rooftops; many broke their legs.
A few days later, Hela and her family were deported to forced-labor camps. Liberated in Bergen-Belsen in 1945, Hela immigrated to Palestine in 1947 with her mother and brother.
Item View
Jozef was the youngest of three children born to Roman Catholic parents in the town of Rzeszow in southern Poland. Jozef's father was a career officer in the Polish army. Jozef excelled in sports, and his favorite sport was gymnastics. He also studied the piano.
1933-39: Jozef was 14 when Germany attacked Poland on September 1, 1939. The invasion affected him deeply. Brought up in a patriotic family, he had been taught to love and defend Poland. The Germans were bombing Warsaw, the Polish capital, but Jozef was too young to join the army. The Germans reached Rzeszow on Sunday, September 10. After that, Jozef made his way to Warsaw, where he joined his two older sisters.
1940-43: In Warsaw Jozef became a sapper in a special unit of the Polish resistance. His code name was "Orlik." On April 19, 1943, during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, his unit was ordered to blow open part of Warsaw's ghetto wall so Jews could escape. As his unit approached the wall on Bonifraterska Street with explosives and weapons under their coats, his friend "Mlodek" tripped and his pistol accidentally dropped to the pavement. A policeman spotted the pistol and opened fire. Chaos erupted. German units opened fire on the unit before it could reach the wall.
Jozef and "Mlodek" were killed. Their retreating unit detonated the explosives, blowing up Jozef's and "Mlodek's" bodies to make them unrecognizable. Jozef was 18.
Item View
Mendel was one of six children born to a religious Jewish family. When Mendel was in his early 20s, he married and moved with his wife to her hometown of Wolomin, near Warsaw. One week after the Rozenblits' son, Avraham, was born, Mendel's wife died. Distraught after the death of his young wife and left to care for a baby, Mendel married his sister-in-law Perele.
1933-39: In Wolomin Mendel ran a lumber yard. In 1935 the Rozenblits had a daughter, Tovah. When Avraham and Tovah were school age, they began attending a Jewish day school, where they studied general subjects in Polish and Jewish subjects in Hebrew. Avraham was 8 and Tovah was 4 when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
1940-44: By the fall of 1940 the Rozenblit family had been sent to the Warsaw ghetto. During the ghetto uprising in April 1943, Mendel and his family managed to escape to the outskirts of Warsaw. They decided that if anyone should get lost in the chaos, they would all meet at a designated farmhouse. Suddenly, Avraham disappeared. Perele set out to find him, and was never seen again. Mendel eventually found Avraham, shoeless, at the farmhouse. Not long after, Mendel, Avraham and Tovah were arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
At Auschwitz Mendel was selected for hard labor. His children were gassed. In 1947 Mendel immigrated to the United States, where he began a new family.
Item ViewVladka belonged to the Zukunft youth movement of the Bund (the Jewish Socialist party). She was active in the Warsaw ghetto underground as a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In December 1942, she was smuggled out to the Aryan, Polish side of Warsaw to try to obtain arms and to find hiding places for children and adults. She became an active courier for the Jewish underground and for Jews in camps, forests, and other ghettos.
Item ViewBen was one of four children born to a religious Jewish family. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. After the Germans occupied Warsaw, Ben decided to escape to Soviet-occupied eastern Poland. However, he soon decided to return to his family, then in the Warsaw ghetto. Ben was assigned to a work detail outside the ghetto, and helped smuggle people out of the ghetto—including Vladka (Fagele) Peltel, a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), who later became his wife. Later, he went into hiding outside the ghetto and posed as a non-Jewish Pole. During the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943, Ben worked with other members of the underground to rescue ghetto fighters, bringing them out through the sewers and hiding them on the "Aryan" side of Warsaw. From the "Aryan" side of Warsaw, Ben witnessed the burning of the Warsaw ghetto during the uprising. After the uprising, Ben escaped from Warsaw by posing as a non-Jew. Following liberation, he was reunited with his father, mother, and younger sister.
Item View
We would like to thank Crown Family Philanthropies, Abe and Ida Cooper Foundation, the Claims Conference, EVZ, and BMF for supporting the ongoing work to create content and resources for the Holocaust Encyclopedia. View the list of donor acknowledgement.
