Mordka Mendel Grossman was born on 27 June 1913 in

Gorzkowice Gorzkowice is a village in Piotrków County, Łódź Voivodeship, in central Poland. It is the seat of the gmina (administrative district) called Gmina Gorzkowice. It lies approximately south of Piotrków Trybunalski and south of the regional ca ...

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

(today

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

). He died on 30 April 1945, during the death marches. He was a photographer and worker in the Statistical Department of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto.

Youth and job in Łódź (1918-1939)

He was born in

to a

Jew Jews (, , ), or the Jewish people, are an ethnoreligious group and nation, originating from the Israelites of ancient Israel and Judah. They also traditionally adhere to Judaism. Jewish ethnicity, religion, and community are highly inte ...

ish Hasidic family as a son of Szmul Dawid Grossman and Hanna. After the

First World War World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

his family settled in

Łódź Łódź is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located south-west of Warsaw. Łódź has a population of 655,279, making it the country's List of cities and towns in Polan ...

to Wschodnia street 58. In early youth he (as a child) began to draw portraits, as well as scenes from Jewish life. He started to take photographs, at first as an amateur, then as a professional. He himself colored pictures using aniline paints. In the 1930s he connected with the Jewish Theater in

, picturing scenes of all the performed plays, as well as actors and actresses. He also knew numerous writers, poets, musicians and painters. Just before war's onset,

Habima Theatre The Habima Theatre ( ''Te'atron HaBima'', lit. "The Stage Theatre") is the List of national theatres, national theatre of Israel and one of the first Hebrew language theatres. It is located in Habima Square in the center of Tel Aviv. History ...

visited

. Mendel was back stage, photographing the performances on his own initiative and directive. The results were the wonderfully inspired forerunner for all of his work in the ghettos and camps ~ Man in Motion ~ leading to the reverent archive of photos more aptly named as a collection ~ Motion Towards Death.

The Litzmannstadt Ghetto (1939-1944)

The

Nazi Nazism (), formally named National Socialism (NS; , ), is the far-right politics, far-right Totalitarianism, totalitarian socio-political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Germany. During H ...

s put him and his family in the

Łódź Ghetto The Łódź Ghetto or Litzmannstadt Ghetto (after the Nazi German name for Łódź) was a Nazi ghetto established by the German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the Invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of ...

in 1939, where he found work as a photographer, making identification cards and documenting the work that his fellow inmates did in the ghetto. The Ghetto Government thought these photographs would convince the Nazis to treat them better because they were industrious. Grossman also hid a camera in his coat during the day, taking photographs of the living conditions in the ghetto. He took these photographs at great risk to his life, not only because the

Gestapo The (, ), Syllabic abbreviation, abbreviated Gestapo (), was the official secret police of Nazi Germany and in German-occupied Europe. The force was created by Hermann Göring in 1933 by combining the various political police agencies of F ...

suspected him, but also because of his weak heart. Some of his photographs assisted people in identifying the graves of their loved ones. M. Grossman's negatives are now the prepared documentation of the Holocaust. Grossman distributed many of his photographs; those he was unable to distribute, he tried to hide. In August 1944, shortly before the final liquidation of the Litzmannstadt Ghetto, he hid ca. 10,000 negatives showing scenes from the Ghetto. In the ghetto, he lived together with his family at 55 Marynarskiej street.

Death

Deported to a labor camp in Koenigs Wusterhausen, he stayed there until 16 April 1945. Ill and exhausted, he was shot by Nazis during a forced death march, still holding on to his camera.

M. M. Grossman's pictures from the Litzmannstadt Ghetto

Grossman's sister found some of his hidden photographs and took them to Israel, but they were mostly lost in the

1948 Arab–Israeli War The 1948 Arab–Israeli War, also known as the First Arab–Israeli War, followed the 1947–1948 civil war in Mandatory Palestine, civil war in Mandatory Palestine as the second and final stage of the 1948 Palestine war. The civil war becam ...

. Other photos taken by Grossman were found by one of his friends, Nachman (Natek) Zonabend; these photographs are now located in the Museum of Holocaust and Resistance at the Ghetto Fighters House in Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot, Israel, as well as

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

in Jerusalem.

Editions of Grossman's photos

* M. Grossman, ''With the Camera in the Ghetto'', Tel-Aviv 1970: Ghetto Fighters' House and Hakibutz Hameuchad Publishing House (published in English, French and Hebrew). Second Edition 1972 * H. Loewy, "Fotogeschichte" 1991, Heft 38. * ''My Secret Camera: Life in the Lodz Ghetto'', photographs by Mendel Grossman, text by Frank Dabba Smith, introduction by Howard Jacobson, , Great Britain 2000: Frances Lincoln Ltd.

References

Bibliography

* Arie ben-Menachem, ''Grossman Mordka Mendel'', n:''Encyclopedia of the Holocaust'', vol. 2, New York 1990 (phot.). * Andrzej Kempa, Marek Szukalak, ''Żydzi dawnej Łodzi. Słownik biograficzny'', vol. IV, Łódź 2004, pp. 62–63 (phot.; bibliography) * Andrzej Kempa, Marek Szukalak, ''The Biographical Dictionary of the Jews from Lodz'', Lodz 2006: Oficyna Bibliofilów, , p. 86 (Mordka Mendel Grossman's biographical note). * ''Unsere einziger Weg is Arbeit. Das Getto in Łódź 1940-1944'', Frankfurt a. Main 1990 (here M. Grossman's death-date: 30 April 1945).

External links

* Smith Frank Dabba (Author), Grossman Mendel (Photographer) (2008)
''My Secret Camera: Life in the Lodz Ghetto''
Frances Lincoln Children's Books. * http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%206319.pdf {{DEFAULTSORT:Grossman, Mendel 1913 births Photographers from Łódź Łódź Ghetto inmates 1945 deaths People from Staszów County Polish people executed by Nazi Germany Executed Polish people People executed by Nazi Germany by firearm Executed people from Świętokrzyskie Voivodeship Holocaust photographers Polish Jews who died in the Holocaust Polish civilians killed in World War II