The Story of Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Łódź is a 1982 documentary that uses archival film footage and photographs to narrate the story of one of the Holocaust's most controversial figures. Rumkowski was a Jew that was put in charge of the Łódź ghetto during World War II.
"I must stretch out my hands and beg," Rumkowski declared to the Łódź ghetto inhabitants, "Brothers and sisters—Hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers—Give me your child...
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The Story of Chaim Rumkowski and the Jews of Łódź is a 1982 documentary that uses archival film footage and photographs to narrate the story of one of the Holocaust's most controversial figures. Rumkowski was a Jew that was put in charge of the Łódź ghetto during World War II.
"I must stretch out my hands and beg," Rumkowski declared to the Łódź ghetto inhabitants, "Brothers and sisters—Hand them over to me! Fathers and mothers—Give me your children!" With these words, a man who once directed an orphanage pleaded for Jewish parents to peacefully surrender their children to extermination camps.
Rumkowski, a childless sixty-two-year-old man with billowy white hair and black circular glasses, was appointed Elder of the 230,000 Polish Jews in the Łódź Ghetto. He created an industry within which Jews could work and make themselves useful to the Nazis to avoid the slaughter of the Holocaust. But his record of establishing an oasis for Jews is overwhelmed by the fact that to appease the...
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