The Last Stage of Deportation Is Death

Working as a clerk and telephone operator for the Judenrat (Jewish Council) in the Warsaw ghetto, Gustawa Jarecka had access to official information and statistics that most residents lacked. Between July 22 and September 21, 1942, the Nazis conducted the Great Deportation (Grossaktion Warschau), a major operation in occupied Poland that led to the deportation and killing of an estimated 265,000 to 300,000 Jewish inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto. From her role at the Judenrat, Jarecka had access to the official numbers of people being sent to the Umschlagplatz (the railroad collection point), and she knew that “resettlement” actually meant mass murder. The manuscript of her report, damaged by water, was discovered in the first cache of the Ringelblum Archive, Oyneg Shabes.