My cousin Pini (Pinchas) Doron, reminded me that his grandfather and namesake died in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is the story he sent me this morning:
“The Okopowe Cemetery is the old big cemetery in Warsaw that we visited with the whole family in 1995, including Pnina’s (his wife) parents.
“Her mother used to run from the Ghetto through the cemetery to the fields to bring potatoes to her family when she was 13 years old.
“Amazing stories.
“I have seen in your post the stone sign for the people who died in the Ghetto. As I told you, my grandfather Pinchas Kolski died in the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 and was buried in a temporary cemetery inside the ghetto. As we know, in 1940 they no longer allowed anyone to bury the dead in the Okopowa Cemetery outside the Ghetto.
Mirka and Rachel Kolski at Pinchas Kolski’s grave in the Warsaw Ghetto. He died in 1940.
“We have this picture of Grandmother Rachel Kolski and her daughter Mirka (see the white sleeve with the [Star of David]-I think this was before they introduced the yellow star)?
“Mirka told me that after this visit to the grave, they managed to escape the Ghetto and to meet your step grandfather (that would have been Zygmunt Bereda) who hid them.”
Uncovering Jewish Heritage 
The Warsaw Ghetto was closed in November 1940 and the Okopowa cemetery was inside its borders till the end of 1941. The burrials were arranged in the cemetery with no problems. At the end of 1941 the ghetto borders were changed and the cemetery was excluded from the ghetto (due to the huge smuggling of food through the cemetery wall), but it was still functioning for burrials until the ghetto was liquidated in Spring 1943. In addition to the cemetery itself the dead were also burried in the area bordering the cemetery – the prewar sporting field, due to large numbers of dead (it is estimated that some 100 thousand died in the gheto till July 1942). It is however true, that since November / December 1941 no one could freely cross the ghetto borders to go to the cemetery except of those who were permitted (i.e. members of funeral companies)
Regards, Ewa (the tour guide of Warsaw)
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Thank you for the detailed information about the ghetto and the cemetery.
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