Photograph of a Multiple Wedding in Lodz
The multiple wedding depicted took place in the Lodz Ghetto on 27 December 1942. The couples pictured include John and Ada Lipski, third and fourth from the left in the second row. According to Ada, there were twenty couples in all. Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, seated in the centre, was a Polish Jew appointed head of the Judenrat (Elder of the Jews) in 1939, reporting directly to the Nazi Ghetto Administration. Amongst other duties he also performed marriages in the Ghetto starting in 1942.
Ada stated that their marriage was not legal according to Jewish law, so they got married again by a Rabbi. All the women were sent on honeymoon for a week. Rumkowski gave the couples a loaf of bread as a gift. “That was something! Bread in the ghetto! You cannot imagine how it was.”
Donated by John and Ada Lipski
M2010/008
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