Mendel Grossman

Mendel Grossman was born in 1913. He was a Jew, and a Hasid in Lodz during the Holocaust. The Nazis put him in the Łódź Ghetto in 1939; there 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 that these photographs would convince the Nazis to treat them better because they were diligent. Grossman also hid a camera in his coat during the day and took photographs of the living conditions of the ghetto. He took these photographs at great risk to his life, not only because the Gestapo suspected him, but also because of his weak heart. Some of his photographs assisted people to identify the graves of their loved ones. Others are now well known^{[according to whom?]} documentation of the Holocaust. Grossman distributed many of his photographs; those he was unable to distribute, he hid. He was eventually deported to a labor camp in Koenigs Wusterhausen; he later died during a forced death march, still holding on to his camera.^[1]

Grossman's sister found some of his hidden photographs and took them to Israel, but they were mostly lost in the Israeli war of Independence. Other photos taken by Grossman were found by one of his friends, Nahman 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 in Jerusalem.

References

1. ^ Sierakowiak, Dawid; Adelson, Alan; Turowski, Kamil (1998). The Diary of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto. Oxford University Press. pp. 269–270. ISBN 9780195122855. http://books.google.com/books?id=Yo3fhWdqX18C&pg=PA269&dq=%22Mendel+Grossman%22+died&hl=en&ei=3BwcTeS7KML6lweWlPXPCw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=5&ved=0CDkQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=grossman&f=false. 

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

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Name	Grossman, Mendel
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Date of birth	1913
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