The Emperor of Lies

By Steve Sem-Sandberg

Fiction : Literary

House of Anansi Press
Publication date: May 2011

ISBN: 9781770890411

Digital Book format: ePub (Adobe DRM)

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In February 1940, the Nazis established what would become the second-largest Jewish ghetto in the Polish city of Lodz. Its chosen leader: Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, is a Jewish businessman and orphanage director -- and the elusive, authoritarian power sustaining the ghetto’s very existence.From one of Sweden’s most critically acclaimed and bestselling authors, The Emperor of Lies chronicles the tale of Rumkowski’s monarchical rule over a quarter-million Jews for the next four years. Driven by a titanic ambition, he sought to transform the ghetto into a productive industrial complex and strove to make it -- and himself -- indispensable to the Nazi regime.Drawing on the detailed records of life in the Lodz ghetto, Steve Sem-Sandberg asks the most difficult questions: Was Rumkowski a ruthless opportunist, an accessory to the Nazi regime driven by a lust for power? Or was he a pragmatic strategist who saved Jewish lives through his collaboration policies?