Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski (February 27, 1877 - August 28, 1944) was a Polish Jew and functioned as the German Nazi-nominated head of the Ältestenrat ("Council of Elders"), or Jewish authorities in the Łódź Ghetto. Before the Nazi German invasion of Poland, Rumkowski was a businessman and director of an orphanage. On October 13, 1939, the Nazi occupation authorities appointed him the Judenälteste ("Elder of the Jews"), or head of the Ältestenrat, in Łódź. In all other ghettos, the head of the Jewish council was known as the Judenrat. In this position he reported directly to the Nazi ghetto administration headed by Hans Biebow and had direct responsibility for providing heat, work, food, housing, and health and welfare services to the ghetto population. He performed marriages when rabbis had to stop working, his name came to serve in the nickname of the ghetto's money, the Rumki, sometimes Chaimki, and his face appeared on the ghetto postage stamps.
Some remember him for his haunting and tragic speech, Give Me Your Children.
Rumkowski and his family voluntarily joined the last transport to Auschwitz, and were murdered there August 28, 1944. A family friend (in 1944 a teenaged resident of Łódź ghetto) suggests the possibility that Jewish inmates murdered him.
Read more about Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski: Background and History, Prior To The "Final Solution", Debate Over Rumkowski's Role in The Holocaust, Give Me Your Children