10 Mark Jewish Ghetto Coinage Al

The Łódź ghetto — renamed Litzmannstadt by the Nazi administration — operated under Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, the controversial "Elder of the Jews" whose name and authority appear on this coinage. The scrip series was introduced in 1942–43 to create a closed economic loop, preventing any value from leaving the ghetto and binding its 200,000 inhabitants more completely to the forced-labor economy. Aluminium was the only metal available by this stage of the war; earlier issues used more durable materials.

Rumkowski was deported to Auschwitz in August 1944 following the ghetto's liquidation and died there within days of arrival.