Editing Chaim Rumkowski (section)

== Debate over Rumkowski's role in the Holocaust ==
[[File:1940 getto.jpg|200px|thumb|Token money in the ghetto with Rumkowski's signature]]

In his memoirs, Yehuda Leib Gerst described Rumkowski as a complex person: "This man had sickly leanings that clashed. Toward his fellow Jews, he was an incomparable tyrant who behaved just like a Führer and cast deathly terror to anyone who dared to oppose his lowly ways. Toward the perpetrators, however, he was as tender as a lamb and there was no limit to his base submission to all their demands, even if their purpose was to wipe us out totally. Either way, he did not properly understand his situation and position and their limits."<ref name="Unger2004">{{cite book |last=Unger |first=Michael |title=Reassessment of the Image of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski |location=Jerusalem |publisher=Keterpress Enterprises |year=2004 |at=8, 57 (note 127) |isbn=978-3-8353-0293-8 |id=For the Dov Paisikovic testimony ''[[:de:Dov Paisikovic|(de)]]'' on gas chambers see transcripts from the [[Frankfurt Auschwitz trials]] of 1965. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ajeULi_Te3gC&q=%22How+Rumkowski+Died%22}}</ref>

Historian Michal Unger, in her ''Reassessment of the Image of Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski'' (2004) explored the materials leading to his reputation. Rumkowski is described "on the one hand, an aggressive, domineering person, thirsty for honor and power, raucous, vulgar and ignorant, impatient (and) intolerant, impulsive and lustful. On the other hand, he is portrayed as a man of exceptional organizational prowess, quick, very energetic, and true to tasks that he set for himself."<ref>Unger (2004), "Reassessment," p. 13.</ref> Research performed by Isaiah Trunk for the book {{lang|de|Judenrat}} attempted to revise the prevailing view of Rumkowski as traitor and collaborationist.<ref>Unger (2004), "Reassessment", p. 9.</ref>

Rumkowski took an active role in the deportations of Jews. Some historians and writers describe him as a [[treason|traitor]] and as a Nazi collaborator; Rumkowski aimed at fulfilling the Nazi demands with the help of their own Orpo Security Police if necessary.<ref name="Trunk52">Isaiah Trunk (2008), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=ugVsNrbMSx4C&q=%22we+did+not+believe%22 Łódź Ghetto: A History],'' page 52. {{ISBN|0253347556}}.</ref> His rule, unlike the leaders of other ghettos, was marked with abuse of his own people coupled with physical liquidation of political opponents. He and his council had a comfortable food ration and their own special shops. He was known to get rid of those he personally disliked by sending them to the camps. Additionally, he sexually abused vulnerable girls under his charge.<ref>[[Laurence Rees|Rees, Laurence]], ''Auschwitz: The Nazis and the "Final Solution"'', especially the testimony of [[Lucille Eichengreen]], pp. 105–131. BBC Books. {{ISBN|978-0-563-52296-6}}.</ref><ref name=originsandinitiatives>Rees, Laurence.[https://www.pbs.org/auschwitz/about/transcripts_2.html "Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi state"]. ''[[BBC]]/[[KCET]]'', 2005. Retrieved: 1 October 2011.</ref> Failure to submit to him meant death to the girl. Holocaust survivor [[Lucille Eichengreen]], who claimed to have been abused by him for months as a young woman working in his office, said, "I felt disgusted and I felt angry, I ah, but if I would have run away he would have had me deported, I mean that was very clear."<ref name=originsandinitiatives />

[[Primo Levi]], an Auschwitz survivor, in his book ''[[The Drowned and the Saved]]'', concludes: "Had he survived his own tragedy...no tribunal would have absolved him, nor, certainly, can we absolve him on the moral plane. But there are extenuating circumstances: an infernal order such as National Socialism exercises a frightful power of corruption against which it is difficult to guard oneself. To resist it requires a truly solid moral armature, and the one available to Chaim Rumkowski...was fragile." At best, Levi viewed Rumkowski as morally ambiguous and self deluded. [[Hannah Arendt]], in her book ''[[Eichmann in Jerusalem]]'', placed Rumkowski's [[egotism]] at the low end of the spectrum of wartime ghetto leadership examples.<ref name="Arendt119">{{cite book |title=Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil |author=Hannah Arendt |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=yGoxZEdw36oC&q=rumkowski&pg=PA119 |page=119|isbn=978-1-101-00716-7 |date=2006-09-22 |publisher=Penguin }}</ref>

Professor [[Yehuda Bauer]] points out that if the Russians had continued their summer offensive in 1944, Lodz would have been the only ghetto to be liberated with a significant number of its inhabitants still alive, and Rumkowski might be remembered in a very different light.{{sfn|Bauer |2002|pp=137-142}}