Mendel Grossman

From the US Holocaust Memorial Museum’s Facebook:

Photographer Mendel Grossman risked his life to capture thousands of images of the Łódź ghetto.

Mendel and his family were forced into the ghetto in 1940. He began working for the ghetto administration’s Department of Statistics taking “official” photographs, such as identification photos and sanctioned photos of major events. While personal photography was banned in the ghetto, Mendel secretly captured ghetto life in addition to his official work duties.

"Documenting was his passion and obsession in the ghetto from the very beginning,” remembered fellow ghetto resident Pinchas Shaar.

Mendel recorded the starvation, disease, and unsanitary conditions of the ghetto. He also captured heartbreaking scenes of residents’ last moments before deportation to the Chełmno killing center. In one of these photos, a woman crouches on the ground while she writes what is likely her final letter before deportation.

One of Mendel’s favorite subjects was his family. His intimate, emotional portraits of family members reflect the toll of the brutal conditions of the ghetto. In one photo, his father, Shmuel, wears a prayer shawl and phylacteries while saying his morning prayers in bed. It is one of numerous photos Mendel would take of his father before Shmuel died in the ghetto.

Before the ghetto’s final liquidation, Mendel and his friends, Nachman Zonabend and Arie Ben-Menachem, buried approximately 10,000 negatives and some prints in several locations. Mendel was later deported to Königs Wusterhausen, a subcamp of the Sachsenhausen concentration camp. He likely died on a death march during the camp's evacuation in 1945.

After the war, Mendel’s friends and his sister, Rozka, retrieved Mendel’s hidden negatives. Today, his photographs are vitally important to our understanding of day-to-day life in the ghetto.

“To him it was imperative that a record be made to teach future generations about the horrors that had taken place in the ghetto," reflected Pinchas.