During the September campaign Gutnajer's antique shop and apartment at 16 Mazowiecka Street were destroyed in a bombardment. The antique shop at 11 Mazowiecka Street remained intact. Opinions are divided as to the fate of his collection kept in his house. It is believed that it was probably not destroyed and was secured somewhere after the first bombardments of the capital. Before his displacement to the Warsaw ghetto, Gutnajer returned the items accepted for consignment sale before the outbreak of the war. What Abe Gutnajer took with him to the ghetto, except for the painting "Portrait of a Reading Man" by Peter de Greberr, is unknown. He probably deposited the rest of the collection with his friend, Edmund Mętlewicz, who, on his orders, sold the canvases in the Warsaw antique shops "Skarbiec" and "Miniatura", and transferred the money to the ghetto.
