Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski - Background and History

Background and History

The well-known Judenrat member Chaim Rumkowski was a controversial figure due to his leadership role in the Łódź ghetto during the Holocaust. During World War II, the Germans forced the Jewish community to form Judenräte, or "Jewish Councils", in each ghetto in the incorporated territory and the General Government regions of occupied Poland. The Judenräte acted as the local government of the ghetto; these leaders stood as the bridges between the Nazis and the caged population of each ghetto. In addition to running basic government services such as hospitals, post offices, and vocational schools, common tasks of the Judenräte included providing the Nazi regime with Jewish residents for slave labor, and the hardest task of all, rounding up quotas of Jews for "resettlement in the East", a euphemism for deportation to concentration and death camps.

Rumkowski dealt with the difficult task of being Judenrat leader in a very disputable way. Upon learning of the "Final Solution" and the real meaning of "resettlement", Adam Czerniaków, the head of the Judenrat of Warsaw, took his own life. Rumkowski, on the other hand, had a different approach. He was swayed by the slogan "Arbeit macht frei - Work sets you free" that appeared on the gates of several concentration camps. By industrializing the Łódź ghetto, he hoped to make the community indispensable to the Germans and save the people of Łódź. On April 5, 1940, Rumkowski petitioned the Germans for materials for the Jews to manufacture in exchange for desperately needed food and money. By the end of the month, the Germans had acquiesced in part, agreeing to provide food, but not money, in exchange for the labor.

Rumkowski's plan also included making the ghetto more community-like, flourishing with work, schools, hospitals, mail delivery system, and other communal necessities. He believed in creating a ghetto which embodied a community of Jewish culture and nationalism. However, although these goals seemed lofty and benevolent, many people remember him very differently. For example, Yehuda Leib Gerst's memoirs observe: "This man had sickly leanings that clashed. Toward his fellow Jews, he was an incomparable tyrant who behaved just like a Führer and cast deathly terror to anyone who dared to oppose his lowly ways. Toward the perpetrators, however, he was as tender as a lamb and there was no limit to his base submission to all their demands, even if their purpose was to wipe us out totally. Either way, he did not properly understand his situation and positing and their limits."

Whether or not Rumkowski succeeded in saving the Łódź ghetto is open to debate. Łódź was the last ghetto in Eastern Europe to be liquidated. While only 877 inhabitants survived in the city until liberation, about 7,000 ghetto residents lived to see the end of the war. Rumkowski's methods are still debated by scholars and historians, who disagree on whether he was a Nazi collaborator or sincerely trying to help the Jews of Łódź.

Research done by Isaiah Trunk on the Jewish Councils under Nazi occupation in his work Judenrat revises the view of the Judenräte, and specifically of Rumkowski, as traitors. Arnold Mostowicz, who once lived in the Łódź ghetto, justifies Rumkowski’s policies in his memoirs, saying that Rumkowski prolonged the ghetto's existence by two years, allowing more people to have survived from Łódź than from Warsaw. He concludes, "This is a horrific reckoning, but it gives Rumkowski a posthumous victory". He is described in two very different lights:

...aggressive, domineering (person), thirsty for honor and power, raucous, vulgar and ignorant, impatient (and) intolerant, impulsive and lustful. On the other hand, he is portrayed as a man of exceptional organizational prowess, quick, very energetic, and true to tasks that he set for himself.

SS Brigadier General Friedrich Uebelhoer, on September 8, 1939, began the ghettoization of Łódź. The top secret report stated clearly that the ghetto was only a temporary solution to "the Jewish question in the city of Lodz..." "I reserve to myself the decision concerning the times and the means by which the ghetto and with it the city of Łódź will be cleansed of Jews". Uebelhoer made the condition that they would provide for the Jews as long as suitable trade could be made, but never implied long-term survival. The Germans immediately replaced the local Jewish Community Council with the Nazis' official Judenrat, or Council of Elders. Rumkowski was appointed head of the Łódź ghetto on October 13, 1939. The ghetto was sealed on April 30, 1940 with 164,000 people inside. He reported directly to the Nazi ghetto administration headed by Hans Biebow, who had the responsibility of overall living conditions of the ghetto, including housing, heating, work, and food (Yad Vashem). Franz Schiffer, the mayor, in a letter to Rumkowski wrote:

I further charge you with the execution of all measures...necessary for the maintenance of an orderly community life in the residential district of the Jews. In particular you have to safeguard order in economic life, food supply, utilization of manpower, public health, and public welfare. You are authorized to take all measures and issue all directives necessary to reach this objective, and to enforce them by means of the Jewish police under your control...

On October 16, 1939, Rumkowski appointed thirty-one public figures to create the council, however, less than three weeks later, on November 11, twenty of them were murdered and the rest were arrested. Some claim that Rumkowski was indirectly responsible for these murders, claiming he complained about them to German authorities "for refusing to rubber-stamp his policies." This accusation, although never proven, shows the discontent and mistrust they had for Rumkowski, at such an early stage of the war. Because of the events that had transpired with the first round of Judenrat, many people feared such public positions. Although a new council was officially appointed a few weeks later, they were not as distinguished and less effective than the previous leaders. This gave Rumkowski full leadership and power, and left few to contest or restrain his decisions

The Emperor of Lies by Steve Sem-Sandberg suggests Rumkowski was a pedophile, possibly sexually abusing some of the children in custody.