photo #5846451

Mendel Grossman - Secretly photographing the Holocaust Mendel Grossman (1913-1945) was born in in Staszów, Poland to Shmuel Dawid and Chana Ruchla Grossman. He grew up in Łódź, Poland with three sisters, Rut, Rozka and Feiga; and one brother, Jakub. His sister Rut immigrated to the United States in 1919, and his brother Jakub died of appendicitis before the war. Prior to the war, Mendel was a prolific artist and photographer. In 1939, Mendel and his family were sent to the Łódź ghetto. He got a job working for the Statistics Department taking photographs for identity cards. His position allowed him to secretly photograph and document the daily lives of ghetto inhabitants, including starving families, deportations, Zionist youth movements, executions, and the overall worsening conditions of the camp. He printed and distributed as many prints as he could. Shortly before the ghetto was liquidated in 1944, Mendel and his friends Nachman Zonabend and Arie Ben-Menachem hid approximately 10,000 negatives and some prints in several locations. Mendel was then sent to the Sachsenhausen work camp in Berlin. He perished in 1945 on the forced march after the Nazis evacuated the camp. L: Corpse of a Jewish Man Murdered during Deportation, 1942. R: Tattooed Child, 1940—1944. After the war, Nachman, Arie, and Mendel’s sister Rozka recovered the negatives and prints. Rozka and her husband Moshe Zylbersztajn took the negatives and prints with them when they immigrated to Israel in 1948, and have been instrumental in honoring Mendel’s work.