Arthur and Rose Gelbart collection

Rose Gelbart (born Rozia Grosman) is the only child of Jozef Grosman and Sabina Stella Langner. She was born in January 3, 1935 in Leszno Poland, where Jozef owned a shoe store. The family lived in Kalisz, which housed in the rear of the home a workshop which had ten employees. In October 1939, after the Nazi invasion of Poland, the Grosman family moved to Rzeszow. In December of that year, the ghetto was established, and the first deportations to the Belzec death camp began in July 1942. Sabina Grossman, who did not look Jewish, took her daughter Rozia out of the ghetto and placed her with a Polish family, but the arrangement did not work as Rozia missed her parents. A few days later Sabina again brought Rozia out of the ghetto when she left for forced labor. A Polish woman arranged for Sabina to interview for a job as a housekeeper with Adam Zak in Warsaw. Adam, who knew that Sabina and Rozia were Jewish, obtained a false identification card (or Kennkarte) for Sabina and helped to find numerous hiding places for the little girl. Adam's children, Hanka and Marian, were instrumental in hiding Rozia. In the summer of 1943 Adam sent his daughter Hanka and Rozia to Warka, Poland. After two months the girls had to escape because someone suspected that Rozia was Jewish. The girls went to Ostroleka where the Red Army liberated them. Rozia's father, Jozef Grosman, perished in Rzeszow. Sabina and Rozia left Poland soon after the end of the war and lived at first in the Neu Freiman displaced persons camp and later moved to Munich where Sabina met and married Josef Gerszanowicz. They immigrated to the United States in 1951 and settled in Cleveland, Ohio. In 1955 Rose married Arthur Gelbart. In 1995, Adam Zak and his daughter, Hanka Janczak were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.

Arthur Gelbart was born Abram Gelbart on March 25, 1929 in Kłobuck, Poland. His father, Mordechai Gelbart, was a kosher butcher and his mother, Liba Zelkowicz Gelbart, took care of their four children: Chana Rywka (b. 1925), Edzia Ester (b. 1926), and Zisl Frajdl (b. 1931). The Gelbart family home was a traditional one, and Mordechai took Abram to the synagogue every Friday and Liba wore a handkerchief to cover her hair. In September 1939, shortly after the German invasion of Poland, Mordechai Gelbart wanted to leave the area annexed to the Reich. He took his three youngest children wand walked towards Warsaw, but after reaching Kielce, they turned back. In the fall of 1941, Mordechai Gelbart was caught by the Germans slaughtering a cow and was deported to Auschwitz, where he perished. With the help of Chana’s husband Pejsach Cyncytus, Liba and her three children moved to the Częstochowa ghetto. They stayed there until 1942, before returning to Kłobuck. The three children were sent ahead, while Liba waited due to Yom Kippur. She was killed the next day. Edzia, Abram, and Zisl were sent from Kłobuck to the Zagorze labor camp. The children worked hard labor, tearing down houses and Jewish tombstones (matzevoth) from the Jewish cemetery. In December 1942, the four Gelbart children and Pejsach were deported to Blechhammer, a sub-camp of Auschwitz. A few days later the girls were transferred to the Langenbielau labor camp, a sub-camp of Gross-Rosen. Abram worked for the next two years in building and repairing roads. In January 1945, all the prisoners of Blechhammer were forced on a death march for several weeks to Buchenwald. Once there, Abram Ensel, from his hometown of Kłobuck, looked after him and after the camp was liberated, came to get him. They went to Altenburg near Bayreuth, before reuniting with his sisters in the Weiden displaced persons camp in Germany. Abram eventually immigrated to the United States in March, 1947. In 1948 he was drafted into the United States armed forces, and served until 1950. In 1955, he married Rozia Grosman.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

The Arthur and Rose Gelbart collection was donated to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum by Rose Gelbart in 2000 and 2003. These two donations were given separate accession numbers: 2000.506.1 and 2003.444.1 respectively. These two accessions have since been merged, and can be located through the accession number 2000.506.1.