Jews of Lódz, Rumkowski believed, could find salvation through work that made them useful, if not essential, to the Germans. Jews in many ghettos held this belief. For some Jews it bought time, although the terms were set by the Germans, not the Jews. "Salvation through work" did not last for long, however, because the perverse "logic" of Nazi Germany's antisemitic racism contradicted that hope. That logic meant that racial threats to German purity and power could not be tolerated and must be removed.

On April 30 Rumkowski got a reply to his April 5 memorandum. Far from responding to his suggestions, it contained a series of orders. These orders gave Rumkowski nearly dictatorial authority in the ghetto, although he had to exercise them as instructed and required. First and foremost, Rumkowski was told that "all residents of the ghetto are forbidden to leave the ghetto, as of April 30, 1940." He would be accountable for "the strict enforcement of this prohibition" and also for the ghetto's "orderly economic life."

In spite of the latter order's virtual impossibility, Rumkowski took it as his mandate and organized the ghetto's labor force. Nevertheless, the fate of most of the 164,000 Lódz Jews was sealed when the ghetto--its area was only 1.54 square miles--was enclosed by barbed wire. That action indicated that the Lódz Jews, valuable though their work might be for a time, were fundamentally unwanted creatures whose place in the Nazi racial hierarchy made them unfit to live where German interests prevailed. As it continued to unfold, that logic would spell mass murder for European Jewry.