The Story of Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Lodz

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n order to facilitate the destruction of Poland's three million Jews, the Nazis forced them to establish Jewish Councils responsible for administration of the Polish ghettos. Through the use of terror, manipulation and humiliation, the Germans forced the Jews to perform duties that would have otherwise necessitated large numbers of German personnel. Chaim Rumkowski, appointed by the Nazis as the Chairman of the Lodz Jewish Council, was responsible for establishing a vast bureaucracy that administered all social services within the ghetto. Rumkowski also attempted to turn the Lodz ghetto into an industrial center that would become indispensable to the German war effort, thus enabling the Jews of Lodz to survive the war. Unaware of Hitler's determination to realize his "final solution," Rumkowski's strategy for survival was doomed to failure. Utilizing hundreds of photographs taken by Jewish Council photographers and other ghetto inhabitants, the film depicts the activities of the Jewish Council, the conditions of daily life for ghetto inhabitants, Rumkowski's relationship to the Nazis, the gradual disintegration of the ghetto, and final deportation to the death camps.