The Beginning
On September 1st, 1939, the Nazis invaded Poland. George Elbaum was one-year-old at the time of the invasion. His father had to serve in the Polish army, leaving him and his mother on their own. Soon, the street George was born on became part of the Warsaw Ghetto.
The 1939 invasion of Poland
The Warsaw Ghetto
The Warsaw Ghetto, located in the city of Warsaw in Poland was the largest Jewish ghetto in Europe with a population of about 400,000 Jewish inhabitants. An area of about 1.3 square miles was closed off from the rest of the city by a guarded and over ten foot high wall with barbed wire. Tight living conditions meant disease spread easily, causing many to suffer. The Jews starved in the ghetto, as they were given insufficient food rations from the German authorities. Furthermore, with 83,000 reported deaths between 1940 and 1942, the death rate was high. Mass deportations of Jews to the Treblinka killing center by German officers occured in 1942, within the same year George Elbaum's mother smuggled him out of the horrific Warsaw Ghetto.