"Self-governed by its Council of Elders, under the leadership of the notorious Chaim Rumkowski, the ghetto administered its own police force, currency and postage stamps. Rumkowski complied with Nazi orders, believing that the value of Lodz labour might secure survival for the majority. History proved him decisively wrong: 95% of the ghetto’s inmates perished. Almost all ghetto prisoners who survived starvation rations, disease and prior deportations were sent to the gas chambers of Auschwitz when the ghetto was liquidated in 1944. Henryk Ross was born in Warsaw, Poland in 1910, and became a sports photographer in Lodz before World War II. As a Jew, he was imprisoned in the ghetto and became one of three photographers employed by its Department of Statistics – the administrative department whose responsibilities ranged from the promotion of the ghetto’s factories to the preparation of its deportation orders. Ross’s job included producing identity card photographs and promotional images of the ghetto’s wares. Outside of his official duties, he used his camera to produce a clandestine diary of the atrocities of the ghetto, sometimes risking his life to document deportations or hangings."
Posted on: Mon, 24 Jun 2013 15:01:03 +0000
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