Chaim Rumkowski was born on February 27, 1877, to Jewish parents in Ilyino, a
shtetl in
Vitebsk Governorate,
Russian Empire. 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. 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. However, as noted by
Lucjan Dobroszycki, the ultimate decision on the future was not his to make.
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. The ghetto was sealed on April 30, 1940, with 164,000 people inside. 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. The Germans authorized Rumkowski as the "sole figure of authority in managing and organizing internal life in the
ghetto". Rumkowski gained power by his domineering personality as much as by his words and deeds. 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. 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 , tasting soup. 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. This proposal was considered arrogant and illustrated Rumkowski's lust for power. The currency was, therefore, nicknamed by ghetto inhabitants as the "Rumkin". 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. 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. 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." 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. == Deportations ==