PHENOMENON OF LODZ GHETTO

PHENOMENON OF LODZ GHETTO
CHRONOLOGY OF HOPE AND DESPAIR
1940 – 1945
In 1939, Lodz was Poland’s second largest city after Warsaw. One-third of its residents, more than
233,000 people were Jews.
Following German invasion of Poland (September 1, 1939), Germany and Soviet Union divided
the country. Poland’s western provinces, including the city of Lodz were annexed to Germany.
The central provinces formed the General Government, a German protectorate. The eastern part
of Poland was annexed to the Soviet Union until June 1941, when Germany invaded the USSR.
Before the end of 1939, 70,000 of the city’s Jews had been deported to labor camps in the General
Government or had fled to the Soviet Union. By May 1, 1940, the remaining Jews were forced
into a sealed ghetto to face starvation, uncertainty and misery.
The phenomenon of Lodz ghetto can be viewed as a multifactorial discourse. Multiple phenomena,
such as of Nazi-German inconsistency in the pursuing of the Final Solution, of Chaim Mordechaj
Rumkowski as an authoritarian leader of the ghetto and of the industrial mobility of Jewish
population in Lodz, all in all induced and maintained an extraordinary existence of the
hierarchically ruled and secluded from outside world ghetto.
The social structure in the Lodz Ghetto had the form of a pyramid that narrowed very swiftly in
the direction of its apex. At the very pinnacle stood the Eldest of the Jews, Chaim Mordechaj
Rumkowski.
The system of personal rule of the Jewish Eldest was established in the ghetto from the very
beginning. The entire internal ghetto regime with its division into different groups and segments
was narrowly linked with this person and with the Nazi policy that he realized in the ghetto. His
personal defects and qualities, his convictions and ideas and his character and temperament had a
decisive influence on the formation of the inner conditions in the ghetto.
Rumkowski surely considered the danger connected with his office. In the first weeks, he
experienced on his own body the quality of Nazi brutality, when he came to intervene on behalf of
the Jewish community secretary Sh. Nadler who had been seized for forced labor. The lust to rule,
however, overcame him, particularly since he was by nature not a coward and showed courage and
self-control when he stood face to face with a death threat.
In the areas of ghetto life, where the German supervisory authority over the ghetto left the Jews
free hands, Rumkowski’s powers were like those of an absolute ruler. He truly became the master
of life and death for over 150,000 Jews within the ghetto.
September 1, 1939 – May 1, 1940
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On January 19, 1940, the German chief of police in Lodz, Schäffer, issued a warning to non-Jews
not to enter the Jewish quarter because it had become a nest of infectious diseases (a common
practice of the Nazis in all occupied territories). On February 8, 1940, the establishment of the
ghetto was ordered. On March 1, 1940, the Eldest of the Jews, Chaim Rumkowski, issued his
Announcement No. 1, the Jews who live in the “Jewish quarter” are to remain there or face
reprisals for living illegally. In Announcement No. 4 (March 1940) he further informed “the
Jewish population of Lodsch” that he had been instructed by the authorities to “regulate the
transfer of Jews to the new quarter.” In April 1940, the ghetto area was enclosed with a wire fence,
and on April 19, 1940, Rumkowski was ordered by the German police to have the Ordungsdienst
(the Jewish police) guard the fence inside the ghetto. On April 30, 1940, Schäffer ordered the
closing of the ghetto. On May 1, 1940, the ghetto was sealed off from the outside world.
May 1, 1940 – January 5, 1942
This period is characterized by the consolidation of Rumkowski’s power over the ghetto and the
development of the internal ghetto administration. Rumkowski’s tasks and prerogatives as the
Eldest of the ghetto were outlined in a letter from the Oberbürgmeister (signed by city
commissioner Schiffer) on April 30, 1940. Rumkowski was to organize and maintain “orderly
community life” with respect to economy, provisioning, labor, health and welfare; to submit to the
German administration weekly statistics of all ghetto inhabitants; to list and secure all Jewish
assets for the purpose of confiscation except for vitally needed clothes, food and dwellings. In
return, he was authorized to organize his own police, to confiscate and distribute all food and to
enforce work without pay. All ghetto contacts with the German authorities were to be maintained
exclusively by Rumkowski or his deputy.
The ghetto, which Rumkowski took over, was confined to an area of 4.3 square kilometers (in
February 1941, after the Germans cut off several blocks of the ghetto, the diminished area equaled
3.8 square kilometers). The ghetto was located in the poorest neighborhood of prewar Lodz, the
Baluty and Old Town (Stare Miasto), where basic accommodations were generally lacking and
sanitary conditions were dismal. In this enclosed and tightly guarded place there lived 160,423
Jews according to a census taken on June 6, 1940. In the overcrowded dwellings there were an
average of 3.5 persons per room. Most of the ghetto inhabitants lost all or most of their property
when they left their city homes in panic. The economy was nonexistent. The community welfare
system, heavily burdened even before the creation of the ghetto, was in shambles.
Rumkowski entered the ghetto with an ideology of survival, which entailed making the ghetto
productive and thus useful to the Nazis, especially to the German war industry. On April 5, 1940,
he submitted to the Oberbürgmeister a plan to organize industries in the ghetto that would serve
the economic needs of the Nazis. Later he would allude in his speeches to this plan as giving the
Nazis a virtual “gold mine” – meaning thousands of cheap Jewish laborers. The first tailoring
workshop with 300 workers opened on April 20 and on May 13 Rumkowski reported to the
Oberbürgmeister that 14,850 tailors and seamstresses registered for work, and he asked for
production orders. From these beginning, an industrial complex developed in the ghetto with 117
enterprises and 73,782 workers by the end of 1943.
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Meanwhile, a ruthless campaign to confiscate work tools and raw materials was conducted in order
to open other workshops and force people to work in ghetto industries rather than on their own. In
time, private enterprise in the ghetto was completely eradicated, and Rumkowski became the sole
employer for the entire ghetto population.
The system of food rationing (except for the bread) was introduced in the ghetto on June 2, 1940
and from this day ration cards regulated life in the ghetto. In 1940, the population tried to resist.
Hunger demonstration and disturbances marked the first year of the ghetto. Demonstrators took
the streets on August 10 and 11 and again during the first week of October. The last known
disturbance occurred on January 11 and 12, 1941. They were put down by the Jewish
Ordungsdienst and German police.
Trying to stabilize the situation in the ghetto, Rumkowski appealed to the German administration,
and on September 19 received a loan on 2,000,000 Reichsmarks. He used the loan for relief
payments to over 70,000 destitute ghetto inmates. At the same time he was moving fast towards
the total rationing of provisions. This was announced on December 15, 1940, with rationing of
bread as well. On December 27, 1940, Rumkowski announced the takeover of all private food
stores, restaurants and home kitchens and assigned the distribution of food to his own stores. By
1941, the rationing system was firmly in place, and provisioning was fully regulated.
In 1940 and in 1941, the ghetto communal, cultural and social institutions and organizations were
still active. The school system was fully operative, childcare was provided by a network of
children’s homes, orphanages, summer camps and a free meals program, religion and religious
institutions enjoyed a temporary reprieve from Nazi persecutions. There were important social
programs for ghetto youth such as haksharas and kibbutzim in Marysin. Theater performances,
literary and musical events were arranged in the Culture House and in halls and kitchens
maintained by various political groups.
For a while the Nazis seemed content with this situation and interfered little in the ghetto’s internal
affairs. Reckless killing did not stop altogether, to be sure and many took place at the ghetto fence
where the Schutzolizei (Protective Police) guards would open fire at anyone who came to close.
An insane asylum in the ghetto was liquidated and over one hundred of its patients were killed. A
sedative, Scopolamin, was administered to them before execution.
The general situation in the ghetto changed radically in the fall of 1941, when a mass of almost
20,000 Jews from Bohemia, Moravia, Austria, Germany and Luxemburg (including the district of
Leslau-Leszno in the Wartheland) – generally called “Western Jews” – was deported and resettled
in the ghetto.
In order to accommodate them, Rumkowski ordered the closing of ghetto schools and the
conversion of school building into reception centers. The schools were never to open again. For
the deportees the reality of the Lodz ghetto was a shattering experience from which most never
recovered. They felt foreign among the Lodz Jews, they could not adapt to the horrid living
conditions and could not comprehend the purpose of this resettlement. Many of them readily went
to their final deportation in 1942 to the death camp in Chelmno, convinced that nothing worse than
their life in the ghetto could happen to them.
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On December 7, 1941, the first Nazi death camp located in Chelmno, some seventy kilometers
from Lodz, began its experimental run. Several Jewish communities from the neighboring towns
were annihilated there between December 7 and January 14, 1942 – altogether some 6,400 people.
The killing vans in which the victims were suffocated by means of exhaust fumes replaced the
execution squads of the Einsatzgruppen as both more efficient and less “disturbing”. Even when
supplanted by the gas chambers of other death camps, the vans remained in use until July 1944.
Over 250,000 Jews from Wartheland were annihilated in Chelmno. Of this number over 70,000
came from the Lodz ghetto.
January 5, 1941 – September 12, 1942
Deportation to and from the Lodz ghetto in 1942 were in step with the Nazi policy of disposing of
all unproductive groups including children and old people. The Lodz ghetto was to become a labor
camp where nothing mattered but work. Those few survivors of the destroyed communities who
were deported to the Lodz ghetto in 1942 had been spared because they were skilled workers.
The first hint of impeding deportation came in a speech by Rumkowski on December 20, 1941,
when he announced that a contingent of 10,000 persons had been requested by the Germans for
deportation. He further stated that this contingent would be filled with criminal elements, welfare
recipients who did not participate in the public works program and black marketeers. On December
30, 1941, an announcement was issued that until further notice all ghetto residents were strictly
forbidden to shelter strangers or relatives not registered as members of the household. Finally, on
January 5, 1942, the Resettlement Commission nominated by Rumkowski began compiling lists
of deportees.
The first transport left Lodz for Chelmno on January 16, 1942. From this day the ghetto was
obliged to deliver a contingent of 1,000 persons daily until the quota set by the Nazis was filled.
The deportations were halted on January 29 after 10,103 people had left the ghetto.
The process resumed with an even greater intensity on February 22, 1942 and lasted until April 2,
1942. During this phase of deportations, 34,073 lives were extinguished.
Finally, on May 4 the deportation of the “Western” Jews was announced, notwithstanding the fact
that they had come to the ghetto only six months earlier. Excluded from this deportation were the
former recipients of German or Austrian military awards earned during the First World War and a
number of professionals employed in the ghetto administration. By May 15, 1942, 10,161 persons
had been deported from the ghetto.
The total number of deportees between January and May 1942 was 54,990 persons, more than onethird of the ghetto population.
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To force deportees to come to the transport point the Nazis used the weapon of hunger, curtailing
deliveries of food to the ghetto and at the same time providing meals for those who came to the
train. This tactic was repeated in all subsequent deportations.
In the middle of it all Rumkowski urged prospective deportees time and again to sell furniture and
other property to his “purchasing agencies,” to deposit their belonging until they returned. Nor did
he forget to demand that the families of the deported surrender their ration cards.
The next wave of deportation from Lodz was directed against children, the aged and the infirm.
This time the ghetto Jews had information of what was to happen and an attempt was made to hide
some of the children among the ghetto work force in the summer months of 1942. By July 20 there
were about 13,000 children and adolescents employed in the workshops and factories. However,
younger children and old people left defenseless.
The deportation began on September 1, 1942 with the removal of the sick from five ghetto
hospitals and two preventoriums. On this day, 374 adult and 320 children were deported to the
death camp.
On September 5, 1942, a general curfew (Gesperre in German, sphere in Yiddish) was announced
until further notice. The residents of old age homes and orphanages were the first to be taken to
the train. After that, the Ordnungsienst (Jewish police) had to make house searches in order to find
children and take them away from their parents. The results of the first day’s searches were so
meager that the German ghetto administration and the Gestapo decided to take matters into their
own hands, and the ghetto became the scene of a vicious manhunt. By September 12, it was all
over. There were 600 dead in ghetto streets and homes. 15,859 victims had been taken to transports.
On September 12, 1942, the curfew was lifted. Rumkowski announced the opening of all kitchens
on September 13 and promised an improvement in the food situation.
September 13, 1942 – June 14, 1944
After the deportation of 1942 there were almost two years of relative stability in the Lodz ghetto.
At a time when there were no more ghettos in the Wartheland and all the ghettos in the General
Government were being liquidated one after another, the Lodz ghetto continued to exist as a giant
labor camp. During 1942 and 1943 its usefulness to the Nazi war machine was beyond doubt, so
much so that all attempts by Himmler and the SS to liquidate the ghetto were successfully
frustrated by the manpower-starved Nazi armament authorities. Himmler’s plan to convert the
ghetto into a concentration camp (which would bring it under the control of the SS) and transfer
its much diminished population to the Lublin district, where they would become part of the slave
labor complex under Odilo Globocnik, was never materialized.
This situation inside the ghetto was different from previous years. By 1943 there were 87,000 Jews
in the ghetto, and eighty-five percent of this total number were working in the ghetto plants of
offices. Many communal services were discontinued. There were no schools, orphanages or
summer camps. Relief activities were discontinued. The Rabbinate and all religious institutions
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were liquidated. The Sabbath and religious holidays were abolished. There were few children and
almost no old people in the ghetto.
Nazi supervision of the ghetto was now even more evident than ever. Many of Rumkowski’s
prerogatives were gradually taken from him. The most important instrument of his power, the
distribution of food, was personally taken over by Hans Biebow, the chief of the German ghetto
administration, in October 1943. The administration offices were reduced or altogether liquidated
and their employees transferred to the ghetto plants. The Sonderkommando – a special unit of the
Ordnungsdienst that was in charge of expropriations, operations against the black market and
political espionage – now gained strength because of their close ties to the Germans. Rumkowski
now had to share much of his power with the managers of labor workshops and plants, whose role
in the ghetto increased immensely.
June 15, 1944 – January 19, 1945
On June 10, 1944, Himmler ordered the Nazi chief of the Wartheland, Arthur Greiser to begin
liquidation of the ghetto without further delay. In view of the Allies’ continuing military offensives
and victories, the usefulness of this labor force became debatable and thus the fate of the ghetto
was sealed. On June 15, the Gestapo chief in Lodz, Bradfisch, informed Rumkowski that workers
were needed inside Germany to repair the damages inflicted by the Allied bombings. He demanded
a weekly contingent of 3,000 persons. The next day Rumkowski announced the new deportations
and appealed for voluntary sign-ups. The Inter-Division Commission, which included top ghetto
officials, was to draft the deportation lists. The deportees were allowed to take along 15 kg of
luggage and were to receive food rations for three days.
The first transport in this wave of deportations left ghetto on June 23, 1944. By July 15, 1944,
7,196 people were deported. The destination was, as before, Chelmno.
On July 15, the deportations were suddenly halted. At that time, the Soviet Red Army was already
advancing through ethnic Polish territories in an offensive, which eventually brought it the banks
of Vistula. The Nazis had decided to liquidate the death camp in Chelmno and obliterated its traces.
After two weeks the deportations from the ghetto were resumed. This much time had been needed
to re-direct the transport traffic to Auschwitz where the remaining Jewish population of Lodz was
to perish during the month of August. The Soviet offensive was halted some 130 km east of Lodz
and was not resumed until January 1945.
On August 2, 1944, Rumkowski made public, in Announcement No. 417, that “on the instructions
of the Mayor of Litzmannstadt” the ghetto would be evacuated to an undisclosed location. “The
plant crews will go together as units and the families of workers will join them.” Five thousand
ghetto residents were to show up daily at the processing centers.
During this month of the Lodz ghetto, Rumkowski wrote a total of twenty-six announcements and
warnings in order to ensure an orderly deportation. As his appeals for voluntary submission fell on
deaf ears, he resorted to threats of reprisal, should the Germans “take the course of the deportation
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into their own hands.” After a week of almost futile efforts of persuading the ghetto Jews to come
to the trains, several German police units entered the ghetto on August 8, 1944 and began to drag
people to the railroad station. On August 9, 1944, all plants in the ghetto were ordered closed. That
same day the western part of the ghetto was closed off and all residents were ordered to move to
the eastern part. Such a reduction of the ghetto area was an effective method to speed the
deportation, because residents lost their homes and food rations. They were thus an easy target for
police once they entered the smaller ghetto. By August 24, 1944, after two reductions, the area of
the ghetto had been diminished to four streets and eighty-three houses.
By the end of August 1944 over 68,500 Jews from the Lodz ghetto had been deported to
Auschwitz. Rumkowski and his family boarded the train on August 28, 1944. The Lodz ghetto
ceased to exist. When the Soviet and Polish army units entered Lodz on January 19, 1945, they
found only 877 Jews who had been left in the former ghetto by the Nazis to carry out clean-up
operations.
CHAIM MORDECHAJ RUMKOWSKI
THE ELDEST OF THE JEWS IN LODZ GHETTO
A multifaceted personality
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Unser einziger Weg ist Arbeit
‘Our only way out of here is work’
The image and activities of Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski, Eldest of the Jews, in the Lodz ghetto,
is still invariably controversial. Considering the nature of the man and plethora of moral problems
and dilemmas that this activity bring to mind, this ambivalence of qualities will remain a subject
of discussions for many more years.
Chaim Rumkowski’s personality and activities were controversial even before the Second World
War. He is described, on one hand, as an aggressive, domineering person thirsty for honor and
power. On the other hand, he is portrayed as a man of exceptional organizational prowess, quick,
very energetic and true to task that he set for himself.
Lodz was occupied on September 8, 1939. Most Jewish community leaders, prominent figures in
political parties and member of the Jewish intelligentsia left town as did members of these groups
in other German-occupied cities. Most members of the Jewish Council of Lodz and its executive
board left as well. On September 12, 1939, the Germans ordered the remaining members of the
Council to convene and elect one of their members as a chairman. Leizer Plywacki was named to
this post and Rumkowski was chosen to be his deputy. Thus, in Lodz, within a week of the city’s
occupation, the Germans appointed a Jewish leadership. Shortly afterwards Plywacki also left
Lodz, leaving Rumkowski as the highest official representative of the Jewish community.
In meantime Lodz was in total chaos and the members and staff of the Jewish Council executive
board made desperate efforts to cope with the increasing needs, organizing extensive relief
operation; helping Jews who had lost their property, jobs and sources of livelihood; and helping
the many refugees who had reached the city. In those days, Rumkowski and a group of public
activists worked tirelessly. In later years Rumkowski often fiercely criticized the Jewish leadership
for having fled at that fateful time, leaving the heavy task to a handful of public activists who
considered it their duty to stay and continue serving the public. In the second half of 1942, in
response to rumors that he was considering escaping from the ghetto, he declared,
I will be the last man here; I am a loyal soldier who has been defending the interests of the Jews
of Lodz for thirty-nine years. Just as I did not flee two and a half years ago, as many did, so will I
not flee now.
On October 13, 1939, Rumkowski was informed by Leister, the city commissioner, that he had
been named Eldest of the Jews. The letter of appointment stated among other things, the following,
The Eldest of the Jews in the city of Lodz, Rumkowski, has been commissioned to carry out all
measures concerning the members of the Jewish race ordered by the German civil administration
of the city of Lodz. He is personally responsible to me. In order to perform his duties, he is
authorized to select a group of associates (council of eldest) and meet with them. Every member
of the Jewish race is required to obey unconditionally all instructions given by the Eldest of the
Jews. I will punish any opposition to him.
For the execution of these tasks, he has permission
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1.
2.
3.
4.
To move about on the street freely at all times of day and night;
To enlist a circle of coworkers and to hold meetings with them;
To announce by wall posters the measures he has taken;
To supervise the Jewish deployment of labor.
The next day Rumkowski received additional directives. All existing Jewish community
institutions were to be disbanded and replaced with institutions subordinated to him and he was
authorized to impose taxes on the Jews in order to cover community expenses. This was one of the
first letters of appointment given to a Judenrat chairman in Poland and it gave Rumkowski rather
broad powers from the very beginning.
For the carrying out of the written commission granted to you on the 13th of this month, according
to which you are personally responsible to me for all measures to be carried out, I order that,
All existing institutions of the Israelite Religious Community of Lodz are placed under you or
officially named by you.
Heretofore existing boards, councils, councilors or similar so-called administrative offices are to
be dissolved, as well as their offices. They are to be reconstructed by you in your sole
responsibility.
Persons of your community who evade such tasks are to be reported to me. I will immediately
place them in custody.
You have the right to levy a fee to cover all costs arising in the execution of the measures imposed
on you
Signed Leister
City Commissioner
German authorities resolved to establish a ghetto in Lodz in February 1940. Then they issued a
series of ordinances provisioning administrative framework for the separate Jewish district in
Lodz. In April – May 1940, practical implementation of their previous directive regarding the
Jewish ghetto began. At that point, Rumkowski assumed full responsibility for the functioning of
the ghetto, the German administration also vested in him even greater authority vis-à-vis Jewish
population in the ghetto.
In the beginning of April 1941, Rumkowski boldly introduced his conception of making the ghetto
a productive entity for the German authorities. It was a plan of re-industrialization of the ghetto.
Latter, Rumkowski in one of his speeches to the ghetto inhabitants would call his proposal “a gold
mine for Germans.”
On April 5, 1940, he wrote a letter to the Mayor of Lodz, outlining his plan of creating “a working
ghetto.”
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I hereby permit myself to submit to you the following proposal about my plan regarding the
question of life in the ghetto:
There are in the ghetto ca. 8,000 – 10,000 experts of various branches: shoe- and bootmakers
(manual and mechanized), saddlers, leather galanterie-makers, tailors, sewers of linen, hat and cap
makers, tinsmiths, locksmiths cabinetmakers, masons, painters, bookbinders, upholsters.
I could arrange for these skilled artisans to work for the authorities, with the authorities supplying
the raw materials and fixing the pay rate. The jobs will be performed in the ghetto and I would
allocate the work among the experts through a department named by me.
Further, I respectively request the right to house, to issue business certificates, whereby I would
also have a benefit. Moreover, I would also levy an assessment, to which I am already authorized.
I would request that, if necessary, an ordinance be issued that no one is authorized to come into
the ghetto and take people away from the street to work, for that would signify an exceptional
disruption.
I hope that I and my associates in all this will succeed in obtaining a suitable subvention from the
authority in order to carry out the budget in the ghetto; to properly support the Order Service
(Jewish police), to keep the poor and needy viable and to protect the population against diseases,
as well as to do justice to all the other needs of the Jewish population in the ghetto.
The Lodz Mayor issued on April 30, 1940 an ordinance authorizing Rumkowski to organize life
in the ghetto,
…I task you with carrying out all measures that are necessary and will be necessary for the
maintenance of an orderly social life in the Jews’ residential area. In particular, you have to secure
the order of economic life, nutrition, labor employment, public health and welfare. You are thereby
entitled to undertake all necessary measures and directives and to enforce these with help of the
Order Service placed under you.
I authorize you immediately to set up registry office in which all of the inhabitants of the ghetto
are to be compiled in lists. Religious and ethnic affiliation must also be shown in this list. Carbon
copies of this list are to be submitted to me weekly in five sets – starting from 13 May 1940.
All dealings with the German authorities take place only and solely through you or a deputy to be
nominated to me by you, in the administration office that is going to be set up on Baluty
Marketplace.
To secure the nourishment of the ghetto’s population, you are authorized to confiscate all the
collected stockpiles and to see to distribution. You are further authorized to engage all Jews for
unpaid labor duty.
All measures of a fundamental nature require my prior written consent. If measures that cannot be
postponed are concerned and must be undertaken to avert an immediately impending threat, my
consent is to be sought immediately by telephone or in writing according to the regulation.
The powers of the police-president of Litzmannstadt remain infringed by this regulation.
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The German documents in the form of ordinances, decrees and orders testify that they vested
Rumkowski with a dictatorial power over the Jewish population of Lodz.
Until the end of 1940, Rumkowski had not been under the pressure of imminent deportation of the
native Lodz ghetto population. Perhaps, it was his utmost fruitful time in organizing welfare and
education and social network in the ghetto. He issues an Announcement No. 123 from September
20, 1940, in fact introducing a relief system in the ghetto.
In order to introduce calm and order in the ghetto and not have any hungry people here, I have
decided to reconstruct the social aid on new foundations, until I receive sufficient work for my
Labor Department and there will be work.
According to my information and registrations, there are around a hundred thousand people who
have been left without work in the ghetto.
I must have around one million marks a month in order to satisfy the hungry and to be able to
conduct a just and fair relief campaigns.
My plan is that the grants will be issued only in cash money according to the following
arrangement:
Money relief grants will be received by
About 60,000 adults at 9 marks a month
540,000 marks
About 15,000 children up to age 14 at 7 marks a month
105,000 marks
About 7,000 persons over age 60 at 10 marks a month
70,000 marks
The camps, orphanages, homes for infants and the elderly
in the homes for the aged
230,000 marks
Special Relief Fund
50,000 marks
________________
995,000 marks
Workers with families who earn less than 9 marks a month are reckoned as unemployed and
receive the full sum of the aid grant.
I note that I also have the following expenses monthly,
Health department
250,000 marks
Administration
360,000 marks
Public works
40,000 marks
Building repairs and construction of kitchens
20,000 marks
Unforeseen
10,000 marks
___________________
665,000 marks
According to the plan, all Jews in the ghetto are considered working people. Until today, I have
managed by my own efforts without aid from outside to cover my budget, which until now
amounted to about 700,000 marks. Now, when the ghetto is uniformly sealed and dependent on
self-government, the expense of which amount to 1,650,000 marks, and the revenues amount to
only 600 – 700 thousand marks, I have had resource to a loan that was approved for me. In this
way, I can cover my current budget and carry out my plan.
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I now appeal to you to support me in my work for the public good and not to hinder me in it.
Period from May 1940 to the beginning of January 1942 was Rumkowski’s dazzling time. He is
rising as a leader more and more assuming the role of a guarding of the law and protector of the
human rights. This notion is reflected in his announcement concerning measures against corruption
in the ghetto. It was issued on May 30, 1941 under the No. 275.
In recent days, I have been heavily burdened by unceasing reports about various thefts, abuses and
frauds that are being committed by a portion of my officials, employed in various offices,
departments, divisions, distribution points, bakeries, etc. This takes away a lot of my time from
my more productive work, which ought to serve the benefit of the ghetto public.
In order to remove from myself in large measure the work of receiving the mentioned reports,
hearing out the guilty, summoning witnesses and so forth, I have decided to turn over this part of
the work to the attorney, Mr. Henryk Neftalin.
Everyone who uncovers whatever theft or abuse to the detriment of the ghetto or knows about any
sort of activity harmful to the ghetto must unconditionally report this immediately to Attn. Henryk
Neftalin who will investigate the matter and later present me with an exact report. On the basis of
these reports, I will measure out the level of administrative punishment. In urgent cases, the verdict
will be issued even more swiftly than in the Summary Court.
In order to carry out this task, I entrusted to Attn. Henryk Neftalin the broad powers in connection
with the relevant matters like ordering arrests, conducting searches, etc.
All community offices including the court and the prosecutor must give him the necessary help.
The Order Servicemen (Jewish police) must absolutely carry out his orders and commands even
when they are not on duty.
It would be as early as the beginning of November 1941, when Rumkowski had to submit to the
German deportation order of the foreign Jews that had been resettled in Lodz in the first half of
1941. Those were Jews from Bohemia and Moravia, Austria, Germany and Luxemburg.
Altogether, there were around 20,000 Jewish deportees from Central Europe. In order to
accommodate them, Rumkowski ordered the closing of ghetto schools and conversion of school
building into reception centers.
Largely, the newcomers had not been able to accommodate to the ghetto conditions, its hierarchical
structure and compulsory manual labor. Rumkowski equally felt dissatisfaction with them on the
several accounts. He also lacked confidence in them. We can see into explanation to Rumkowski’s
negative stance vis-à-vis the “Western” Jews.
The exiles, consisting mostly of older and physically weak people, who overall had not done any
physical labor. Due to their bartering and trading, the price of foo article rose substantially on the
free market. The illegal trade caused inflation. This conflicted with Rumkowski’s plan to turn the
whole ghetto into a labor barrack, where need would compel people to work. The newcomers
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sabotaged Rumkowski’s decree to sell furs and other valuable items to the ghetto bank that paid
negligible prices. They preferred trading them on the free market for food.
Rumkowski, for whom remaining in power became a mania, feared that one of the Western
Europeans who included a respectable number of capable educated people with extensive
administrative experience might displace him from the office. They stood much closer, particularly
linguistically and culturally to the German administration than he did.
The first deportations from the Lodz ghetto in the winter months of 1942 had an unfortunate
influence on the mutual relations between the expelled and the local population. Distrust of the
German Jews also prevailed among the local population because of their loyal attitude to the
German ghetto administration. It was feared in the ghetto that Gestapo agents and informers would
arise from the Westerners’ ranks.
In the speech, delivered on November 8, 1941, Rumkowski came out with the sharp accusation
directed at the newcomers,
Some of the immigrants do not want to understand what a ghetto is and they exhibit a large measure
of impertinence. It is enough for me to have to conduct wars with my own impertinent people and
troublemakers and I now have to deal with my Western brothers who want to bring order in their
old style. They think they are the smartest, the best and the top of the crop… They are making a
big mistake… I am telling you, watch your steps. In the event that you will not subject yourself to
my orders and decrees, I will have to calm you down… I will not hesitate before the sharpest
means, for that is why I have authority and power.
Rumkowski considered himself a ruler in a sort of “Jewish state.” One encounters this expression
in the report by officials of the ghetto administration. He himself employs a more modest terms –
“autonomy” or “Jewish self-administration.” He liked the external trapping of power. On July 14,
1941, like a governor, he reviewed a parade of 200 trained firefighters. After his public speeches,
he would leave the place, walking between two rows of Order Servicemen (Jewish police in the
ghetto) and firefighters standing at attention. The judges and prosecutors would swear “in
consciousness of their duty toward God, people and the Eldest of Jews.”
In the course of time, Rumkowski worked out a sort of ideology, a tactical program for how to
save the Jews in the ghetto or to save what could be saved. The program was based on three
fundamental concepts. First, the useful work that the ghetto was carrying out for the German war
industry was a firm basis for the existence of the ghetto. Second, to rescue at least some of the
Jews, those who had more chances of holding out (those who were working). He had to agree to
deliver up to the Germans the nonworking and “harmful element,” that anyway had little or no
chances to survive at all. Third, the path of resistance would lead to nothing and could only bring
misfortunes onto the ghetto.
In the speech he delivered on September 4, 1942, during the action against the sick, the young
children and the elderly, he expressed himself in favor of voluntarily surrendering these victims to
the Nazis. Perhaps he was sincere in his despair.
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A grievous blow has struck the ghetto. We are being asked to give up the best we possess – the
children and the elderly… And now in my old age, I must stretch out my hands and beg, Brothers
and Sisters! Hand them over to me! Fathers and Mothers, Give me your children…! Offer them
up into my hands as a sacrifice, so that we can avoid having further victims, so that a population
of 100,000 Jews can be preserved.
Where did Rumkowski draw such inner strength that enabled him to take on himself the fateful
responsibility to carry out all German decrees, even most brutal. As we shall see from his speeches,
Rumkowski believed that he had a great mission to fulfill, to rescue the part of the Lodz ghetto
that let itself be saved in accord with his rescue strategy and perhaps also on the basis of the
hypocritical assurances by certain Nazi officials. That he had in this respect vague assurances by
certain officials in the German ghetto administration is attested by his statement on January 17,
1942 at the opening of the exhibition of underwear and clothing,
I have a firm hope based on authoritative assertions that the fate of the expelled will not be as
tragic as was foreseen in general in the ghetto. They will not be behind wires and to their portion
will fall agriculture… I guarantee with my head that not the least wrong will happen to the working
person and I say this not only in my name, but also based on promises on the part of the
authoritative factors.
Rumkowski was without doubt infected by the Nazi Führer Prinzip (leader principle) due to his
frequent contacts with the authorities. A contemporary document says about him “that he was
already completely permeated with the mentality and ideology of the Germans.”
On the other hand, Rumkowski untiringly devote himself with all his limitless energy to the
realization of his “rescue” program. He undoubtedly had organizational talent and he managed in
certain measure to realize some parts of his program, like (1) bread, (2) work, (3) care for the sick,
(4) supervision over the child, (5) calm in the ghetto in the very most unfavorable conditions of a
ghetto regime.
He built up a network of factories and workshops where the majority of the population found work.
With the help of the Jewish physicians, he set up the healthcare system in the ghetto on a relatively
high level, establishing hospitals, outpatient clinics, preventoriums, first aid stations and so on.
Until the winter of 1942 when the hunger very much worsened in the ghetto, sick people benefited
from special, better feeding.
Surely it was one of the most tragic moments in Rumkowski’s life when during September Action
of 1942, he himself had to deliver to the Germans the thousands of children for whom he cared
more than for all others. But even here he was true to himself meaning that the principle of the
Germans edicts must be carried out.
There is no doubt that Rumkowski knew as early as spring 1942 about the tragic fate of those sent
out. From the accounts of the remnants of the liquidated provincial ghettos that were sent into the
Lodz ghetto in May 1942, people knew clearly, where the deportees were ending up. Perhaps he,
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like other ghetto leaders in that time, thought that it was better that the victims not know about the
fate awaiting them.
On August 28, 1944, Rumkowski voluntarily left with the final transport to Auschwitz after he
heard his brother’s name called out among the deportees and his request to release him was
rejected. Did he still believe to Hans Biebow’s (Biebow was in charge of German administration
supervising the Lodz ghetto) mendacious public assurances that the liquidation of the ghetto would
be for the good of the ghetto Jews who would thereby be protected from the Soviet bombs, that
work an life was awaiting all of them in Germany. That is hard to believe. He well knew that no
trace remained of the approximately 75,000 Jews who had until then been sent out from the ghetto.
Perhaps this voluntary accompanying of the last remnants of “his” Lodz Jews was an act of despair
after the realization that his entire miserable, bloodstained strategy of “saving” parts of the ghetto
had so loathsomely failed. Or perhaps there was even in this a desire to redeem with his own life
the serious, unforgivable sin that he had committed against his ghetto community, over which he
had reigned with a strong arm for nearly five years. And maybe he really remained until the very
last moment the insensitive bureaucrat a prideful “prince” of the Lodz ghetto who believed that
his identification card as Litzmannstadter Eldest of Jews that he would show to the camp hangmen
in Auschwitz, would save him from death. It is difficult to give an answer today.
15
Source: Tageschronik vom 15.5.1944. Lodz State Archive, PSŻ 1087
OUR ONLY WAY IS WORK
Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski, Chairman of the Lodz ghetto Jewish Council
Chaim Rumkowski unconditionally believed to German orders. Deceived by the Germans or not,
he developed a guiding principle: work and nothing but work may save the Jewish population of
Lodz. He, himself, held it as an ultimate truth and followed to this conception to the very last days
of the ghetto existence. On August 28, 1944, he voluntarily submitted himself to the deportation
to Auschwitz-Birkenau.
16
Source: Fenomen getta łódzkiego, pod redakcją Pawla Samusia, Wieslawa Pusia. Lodz: Lodz University, 2006
17
CHAIM MORDECHAJ RUMKOWSKI
A PROTECTOR, A SOLDIER OR A BUREAUCRAT ON GERMAN SERVICE
Source: State Archive of Lodz, PSŻ 1065, fol. 26
18
.
Source: State Archive of Lodz, PSŻ 1065, fol. 26
Rumkowski in the carriage rides around the ghetto, May 3, 1940
19
20
Source: Announcement signed by Rumkowski, State Archive of Lodz, PSŻ 1067
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