numerous departments and institutions that dealt with all of the ghetto's internal affairs, from housing tens of thousands of people, to distributing food rations. Welfare and health systems were also set up. For a time, his administration maintained seven hospitals, seven pharmacies, and five clinics employing hundreds of doctors and nurses. Despite their effort, many people could not be helped due to the shortage of medical supplies allowed in by the Germans. Rumkowski helped maintain school facilities. 47 schools remained in operation schooling 63% of school-age children. There was no education in any other ghetto as advanced as in Łódź. He helped set up a "Culture House" where cultural gatherings including plays, orchestra and other performances could take place. He was very involved in the particulars of these events, including hiring and firing performers and editing the content of the shows. He became integrated in religious life. This integration deeply bothered the religious public. For example, since the Germans disbanded the rabbinate in September 1942, Rumkowski began conducting wedding ceremonies, and altering the marriage contract (ketubah). "He treated the ghetto Jews like personal belongings. He spoke to them arrogantly and rudely and sometime beat them". Due to Rumkowski's harsh treatment, and stern, arrogant personality, the Jews began to blame him for their predicament, and unleashed their frustration on him instead of the Germans, who were beyond their reach. The most significant display of this frustration and resistance was a series of strikes and demonstrations between August 1940 and spring of 1941. Led by activists and leftist parties against Rumkowski, the workers abandoned their stations and went to the streets handing out fliers: Death at the hands of the Sonderkommando There are conflicting accounts regarding Rumkowski's final moments. According to one contemporary source he was murdered upon his arrival at Auschwitz by the Jews of Łódź who preceded him there. This version of events, however, has been challenged by historians. Another report, submitted by a Sonderkommando member from Hungary, , states that the Jews of Łódź approached the Sonderkommando Jews in secrecy, and asked them to kill Rumkowski for the crimes he committed in the Łódź Ghetto, so they beat him to death at the gate of the Crematorium No. 2 and disposed of his corpse. Debate over Rumkowski's role in the Holocaust In his memoirs, Yehuda Leib Gerst described Rumkowski as a complex person: "This man had sickly leanings that