Most likely drawn in the Warsaw Ghetto. [Another source says "Before 1939."] Gela and her husband Izrael were forced to move into the Warsaw Ghetto probably in 1940. Just before the Ghetto was sealed off in that year, Gela gave birth to her daughter, Margalit. Gela and Izrael were both active in the Ghetto in charity organizations. Gela held drawing classes in the Ghetto, and mounted small exhibits of her students' works. She probably participated in making the costumes for a children's show entitled "The Seasons" in 1942. She was awarded a prize, for her work with children, by the Judenrat chairman Adam Czerniaków. Gela continued to paint during her Ghetto years, drawing portraits such as children in the soup kitchen, her daughter, her husband, and her friends writers. Gela, together with Izrael, actively participated in the Oneg Shabbat enterprise, headed by Dr. Emmanuel Ringelblum, which dealt with secretly documenting Jewish life within the Ghetto. In July 1942 German deportations from the Ghetto started. Knowing that the end is near, Gela prepared her works for hiding in the secret archive. In the early days of August, Izrael Lichtenstejn her spouse, and two of his students, Dawid Graber and Nachum Grzywacz, hid Gela's paintings, together with other documents, in the archive boxes that he buried in a school cellar on Nowolipki Str. The exact date of Gela's death is unknown, but it is believed that she was still alive at the end of the ghetto in 1943, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Gela left more than 300 paintings. Most of them can be found in the Jewish Historical Institute, although there are a few paintings also in Washington Holocaust museum and one oil painting in Yad Vashem art section. Gela is mentioned in Izrael Lichtenstejn's will from 1943, cited in Paul Auster's book, The Invention of Solitude. He writes there: "I want my wife to be remembered. Gele Seckstein, artist, dozens of works, talented, didn't manage to exhibit, did not show in public. During the three years of war worked among children as educator, teacher, made stage sets, costumes for the children's productions, received awards. Now together with me, we are preparing to receive death..." [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gela_Seksztajn]