Gerrit Polak was a frame maker. From his first marriage, to Flora Tas, he had four sons. After her death in 1920 he married her sister Sara Tas, with whom he had another son in 1922: Philip, an apprentice printer. Philip was murdered in Auschwitz on 30 September 1942, twenty years old. Gerrit and Sara were murdered there on 21 January 1943. Their son Salomon lived with his wife in the Molenbeekstraat.