Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski (February 27, 1877 – August 28, 1944) was the head of the Jewish Council of Elders in the Łódź Ghetto appointed by Nazi Germany during the German occupation of Poland.
Rumkowski accrued much power by transforming the ghetto into an industrial base manufacturing war supplies for the in the mistaken belief that productivity was the key to Jewish survival beyond the Holocaust. The Germans liquidated the ghetto in 1944. All remaining prisoners were sent to death camps in the wake of military defeats on the Eastern Front.
As the head of the Judenrat, Rumkowski is remembered for his speech Give Me Your Children, delivered at a time when the Germans demanded his compliance with the deportation of 20,000 children to Chełmno extermination camp. In August 1944, Rumkowski and his family joined the last transport to Auschwitz, and he was murdered there on August 28, 1944, by Jewish inmates who beat him to death as revenge for his role in the Holocaust. This account of his final moments is confirmed by witness testimonies of the Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. © MMX, World Media Rights Limited
Background
Chaim Rumkowski was born on February 27, 1877, to Jewish parents in Ilyino, a shtetl in Vitebsk Governorate, Russian Empire. ("Lord of the Ghetto"), by , series "Forbidden Histories" In 1892, Rumkowski moved to Congress Poland. He became a Polish citizen after the establishment of the Second Polish Republic in 1918. Rumkowski became an activist of the Zionist movement and was involved in the Łódź Zionist Committee.
Before the German invasion of Poland, Rumkowski was an insurance agent in Łódź, a member of Qahal, and the head of a Jewish orphanage at 15 Krajowa Street between 1925 and 1939. According to Dr Edward Reicher, a Holocaust survivor from Łódź, Rumkowski had an unhealthy interest in children. Łódź was annexed by the invading Germans into Nazi Germany and became part of the territory of new , separate from the established in most of the German-occupied Poland. Smaller Jewish communities were dissolved and forcibly relocated to metropolitan ghettos. The occupation authority ordered the creation of the new Jewish Councils known as the which acted as bridges between the Nazis and the prisoner population of the ghettos. In addition to managing basic services such as communal kitchens, infirmaries, post offices and vocational schools, common tasks of the included providing the Nazi regime with slave labor, and rounding up quotas of Jews for "resettlement in the East," a euphemism for deportations to extermination camps in the deadliest phase of the Holocaust.
On October 13, 1939, the Nazi in Łódź appointed Rumkowski the ('Chief Elder of the Jews'), head of the ('Council of Elders'). In this position, Rumkowski reported directly to the Nazi ghetto administration, headed by Hans Biebow."Rumkowski, Mordechai Chaim". Yad Vashem School for Holocaust Studies. Retrieved: 1 October 2011. When the rabbinate was dissolved, Rumkowski performed weddings. The ghetto's money or scrip, the so-called Rumki (sometimes Chaimki), was derived from his name, as it had been his idea. His face was put on the ghetto postage stamps and currency, which led to his sarcastic nickname "King Chaim".
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 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. Although Rumkowski and other "Jewish elders" of the Nazi era came to be regarded as collaborators and traitors, historians have reassessed this judgment since the late 20th century in light of the terrible conditions of the time. A survivor of the Łódź ghetto, Arnold Mostowicz, noted in his memoir that Rumkowski gave a percentage of his people a chance to survive two years longer than the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto, destroyed in the Uprising.Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 11. However, as noted by Lucjan Dobroszycki, the ultimate decision on the future was not his to make.Dobroszycki 1984, The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, page 61.
Ghetto history prior to the "Final Solution" The ghettoization of Łódź was decided on September 8, 1939, by an order of Friedrich Uebelhoer. His top secret document stated that the ghetto was only a temporary solution to "the Jewish question" in the city of Łódź. Uebelhoer never implied the long-term survival of its inhabitants.Documents, p. 194 The ghetto was sealed on April 30, 1940, with 164,000 people inside.Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 22. On October 16, 1939, Rumkowski selected 31 public figures to form the council. However, less than three weeks later, on November 11, twenty of them were executed and the rest disappeared, because he denounced them to the German authorities "for refusing to rubber-stamp his policies". Although a new was officially appointed a few weeks later, the men were not as distinguished, and remained far less effective than its original leaders. This change conceded more power to Rumkowski, and left no one to contest or restrain his decisions. Rumkowski had the Jewish Ghetto Police under his control also.Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 19.
The Germans authorized Rumkowski as the "sole figure of authority in managing and organizing internal life in the ghetto".Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 22. Rumkowski gained power by his domineering personality as much as by his words and deeds. Biebow from the first gave Rumkowski full power in organizing the ghetto, as long as it did not interfere with his main objectives: absolute order, confiscation of Jewish property and assets, coerced labor, and Biebow's own personal gain.Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 23. Their relationship seemed to work effectively. Rumkowski had leeway to organize the ghetto according to his own lights, while Biebow sat back and reaped the rewards. In trying to keep Biebow happy, Rumkowski obeyed every order with little question, and provided him with gifts and personal favors. Rumkowski is said to have boasted of his willingness to cooperate with the German authorities: "My motto is to be always at least ten minutes ahead of every German demand." He believed that by staying ahead of the Germans' thinking, he could keep them satisfied and preserve the Jews. Łódź was the last ghetto in Central Europe to be liquidated. However, only 877 inhabitants survived in the city until liberation, by hiding with Polish rescuers, and it is claimed that Rumkowski had nothing to do with it.
Administration
Because of the confiscation of cash and other belongings, Rumkowski proposed a currency to be used specifically in the ghetto – the . This new currency would be used as money, and by this alone, a person could buy food rations and other necessities.Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 27. This proposal was considered arrogant and illustrated Rumkowski's lust for power. The currency was, therefore, nicknamed by ghetto inhabitants as the "Rumkin".Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 28. It dissuaded smugglers from endangering their lives to get in and out of the ghetto with goods, as people could not pay for them with regular currency. Rumkowski believed that smuggling of food would "destabilize the ghetto with regard to the prices of basic commodities" and prevented it from taking place.
Rumkowski did not allow public protests expressing dissent. With the help of the Jewish Ghetto Police, he violently broke up demonstrations. On occasion, he would request the Nazis to come and break up the commotion, which usually resulted in protesters being killed. The leaders of these groups were punished by not being allowed to earn a living, which in effect meant that they and their families were doomed to starvation. Sometimes the strikers and demonstrators were arrested, imprisoned, or shipped off to labor camps.Unger 2004, Reassessment, pp. 34-35. By the spring of 1941, almost all opposition to Rumkowski had dissipated. In the beginning, the Germans were unclear of their own plans for the ghetto, as arrangements for the "Final Solution" were still being developed. They realized that the original plan of liquidating the ghetto by October 1940 could not take place, so they began to take Rumkowski's labor agenda seriously.Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 36. Forced labor became a staple of ghetto life, with Rumkowski running the effort. "In another three years – he said – the ghetto will be working like a clock."Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 38. This sort of "optimism" however, was met with a damning assessment by Max Horn from , who said that the ghetto was badly managed, not profitable, and had the wrong products.Lucjan Dobroszycki (1984), The Chronicle of the Lodz Ghetto, page lxi. Google Books.
Deportations In January 1942, some 10,000 Jews were sent aboard Holocaust trains to Chełmno based on selections made by the . An additional 34,000 victims were sent to Chelmno by 2 April, with 11,000 more in May, and over 15,000 in September 1942, for a total of 71,000 for 1942 as a whole. The children and the elderly as well as anyone deemed "unfit for work" in the eyes of the would follow them.
Rumkowski actively cooperated with German demands, hoping to save the majority of the ghetto inmates. Such behaviour set him at odds with the Orthodox observant Jews, because there could be no justification for delivering anyone to certain death. Following the creation of the extermination camp at Chełmno in 1941, the Nazis ordered Rumkowski to organize several waves of deportations. Rumkowski claimed that he tried to convince the Germans to reduce the number of Jews required for deportation and failed.
Give Me Your Children
On German orders Rumkowski delivered a speech on September 4, 1942, pleading with the Jews in the ghetto to give up children 10 years of age and younger, as well as the elderly over 65, so that others might survive. "Horrible, terrifying wailing among the assembled crowd" could be heard, reads the transcriber's note to his parlance often referred to as: "Give Me Your Children"."Transcript for "Give Me Your Children"". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, D.C., 6 January 2011. Retrieved: 1 October 2011. Some commentators see this speech as exemplifying aspects of the Holocaust.
Personality
Rumkowski was ruthless, using his position as head of the to confiscate property and businesses that were still being run by their rightful Jewish owners in the ghetto. He established numerous departments and institutions that dealt with all of the ghetto's internal affairs, from housing tens of thousands of people, to distributing food rations.Unger 2004, Reassessment, p. 30. Welfare and health systems were also set up. For a time, his administration maintained seven hospitals, seven pharmacies, and five clinics employing hundreds of doctors and nurses. Despite their effort, many people could not be helped due to the shortage of medical supplies allowed in by the Germans.