Gretel Bachrach was born on October 2, 1922, in Neukirchen. Her family was in good shape economically. Gretel's parents, Julius and Mina Meta Bachrach, owned a house in Marktplatz 66 in which they lived, with a large garden plot. The father ran a business in Neukirchen.

With the Nazi takeover and the boycott of Jewish shops owners, the family began to decline economically, because Julius Bachrach gradually lost more and more customers. In September 1938, Julius and Mina Meta Bachrach finally had to sell their garden plot and in February 1939 the business. The warehouse apparently was taken over by a group of retailers business in Kassel,  allegedly "as requested by Julius Bachrach." Julius Bachrach now earned the livelihood of the family as a worker. In this situation, his daughter Gretel at the age of 17 began a six-month internship at the home of the Jewish Women's Association in Neu-Isenburg on September 1, 1939.

After her father's death on October 5, 1940, Meta and Gretel lived monthly 52 Mark welfare assistance, but still owned the house at Neukirchener Marktplatz. Despite her situation, Meta tried to support her brother Sally in the winter of 1940-41. Sally Bachrach was deported during the mass deportation of Jews from Baden to Southern France in October 1940 and suffered from hunger and cold in the Gurs camp.

Meta Bachrach’s assets were already registered by the tax authorities at this time. She was not allowed to freely dispose of her funds. Therefore, she applied at the foreign exchange office Kassel, to send her brother warming clothes, food and some money on December 27, 1940. Three days later, the foreign exchange office rejected that request without notice.

By a contract of May 22, 1941, Meta Bachrach finally had to sell their house to the City of Neukirchen. Meta Bachrach did not receive a penny for the house. The purchase price was supposedly exhausted to set off claims of creditors.

Gretel Bachrach was deported on June 1, 1942, along with her mother. The transport included 508 people from the district of Kassel. In Halle and Chemnitz the same amount of many victims were taken in total. The destination was the ghetto of Izbica in the Lublin district. Before the transport got there, they were screened, and the able-bodied men selected in Lublin were sent to the Majdanek camp. Probably other people were forwarded directly to the extermination camp of Sobibor (Gottwaldt / Schulle, S. 211 ff.).

At the time of deportation Gretel Bachrach was 19 years old and her mother 47.

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