Marek Edelman, Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Leader

grunion · 3rd October 2009, 12:54 PM

The last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance movement (he preferred not to have it known as an "uprising," because he thought that word implied that there was at least a little hope of victory, which he knew there was not) died yesterday at the age of 87.

Because of his contacts with the Polish Underground, he knew that the Nazi story of "resettlement" was just a lie, a pretext to get Warsaw's Jews to passively board a train to their death. As a worker in a ghetto hospital, he was able to use that pretext to help save lives - bringing documentation to the boarding sites that one resident or another was sick and thus was not fit enough to survive resettlement. The Nazis kept up the charade by giving him a certain number of exemptions for sick people, which he used, heartwrenchingly, to select those which would be most useful for the resistance movement, denying the pleas of mothers begging him to save their children.

Having been a resident of Warsaw for several years leading up to its ghettoization by the Nazis, Edelman was aware of the escape routes and secret passageways which he put to good use, allowing his team of 220 to keep the Nazis at bay for 45 days in their attempt at final liquidation of the ghetto. It permitted him and his unit to escape encirclement at the end and survive the war.

He remained in Poland where he became a renown cardiologist, and authored a cardiology textbook, until official anti-Semitism drove him out of his practice in the 1960s. Subsequently he became active in the Solidarity movement.

In one account of his life that I read, he shunned the description of the resistance movement as "heroes." "These people went quietly and with dignity,” he told his biographer, speaking of the millions killed in the Nazi gas chambers. “It is an awesome thing, when one is going so quietly to one’s death. It is definitely more difficult than to go out shooting.”

Quote:

“God is trying to blow out the candle, and I’m quickly trying to shield the flame, taking advantage of his brief inattention,” he said. “To keep the flame flickering, even if only for a little while longer than he would wish.”

Simon39759 · 3rd October 2009, 03:17 PM

I never heard of his name before, but it sounds like, regardless of his own opinion, he was a true hero.
I will have to dig up a biography.

grunion · 3rd October 2009, 07:02 PM

Edelman became politically conscious as a member of the Jewish Labor Federation (The "Bund") before the war. Yet his frequent clashes with party authorities in Poland after the war caused him much personal strife, as he became a devout anti-Stalinist, spent some time in prison, and later, was a leader in the Solidarity movement.

Edelman had an ongoing antipathy with Zionists who resented him for remaining in Poland, where they considered the Jewish community dead, rather than emigrating to Israel. Though he criticized the terrorist tactics of some Palestinian organizations, he condemned the Israeli treatment of Palestinians up until his death. He resented the Zionist tendency to brand the Warsaw Ghetto resistance as a model of Jewish liberation that led to the creation of the Jewish State, and declared that the model of ghetto fighters in Warsaw more closely resembled the Palestinians than the Israelis.

parky76 · 3rd October 2009, 07:06 PM

Originally Posted by grunion

He resented the Zionist tendency to brand the Warsaw Ghetto resistance as a model of Jewish liberation that led to the creation of the Jewish State, and declared that the model of ghetto fighters in Warsaw more closely resembled the Palestinians than the Israelis.

well, then I'm sure many Zionists wish the Nazis hadn't missed one.

gtc · 3rd October 2009, 08:38 PM

I very much doubt that but I guess there are crazies everywhere.

UnrepentantSinner · 3rd October 2009, 10:13 PM

I hadn't heard of him before but after hearing his story was saddened by his passing. That was tempered by being glad he passed away in 2009 rather than killed in 1943.

Skeptic · 4th October 2009, 03:32 PM

Originally Posted by parky76

well, then I'm sure many Zionists wish the Nazis hadn't missed one.

Take me, for example. I, naturally, wish a cruel death on everybody on this forum who disagrees with me.

(What's wrong with you?)

parky76 · 4th October 2009, 03:43 PM

Originally Posted by Skeptic

Take me, for example. I, naturally, wish a cruel death on everybody on this forum who disagrees with me.

you're a Truther????

Skeptic · 5th October 2009, 12:38 AM

You say "many zionists" think "The Nazis missed one" because he wasn't a zionist.

Go ahead. Find one such zionist.

P.S.

You do know that, a year or two ago, Israel's largest newspaper had a four-page, very considerate abd polite (from both sides), interview with him?

So I guess we scratched the workers in that newspaper as being some of the "many" zionists who wish he were killed by the Nazis.

But that still leaves a few million Israelies, some of them with nasty zionist tendencies; who knows what evil lurks in their heart?

pakeha · 5th October 2009, 12:53 AM

Thank you, Marc Edelman (what an apt sirname) for a life dedicated to human dignity.

Eddie Dane · 5th October 2009, 01:56 AM

Respect.

Cleon · 5th October 2009, 01:25 PM

*sigh* Sad news indeed. My grandfather knew Edelman, as part of a documentation project he was working on. As someone interested in the Warsaw resistance and the Bund, I'd read a lot about him myself. The world has lost someone very special.

(parky and Skeptic - take it somewhere else, FFS.)

dropzone · 5th October 2009, 08:17 PM

There's a helluva movie in the Warsaw Ghetto resistance.

UnrepentantSinner · 6th October 2009, 11:06 PM

Originally Posted by dropzone

There's a helluva movie in the Warsaw Ghetto resistance.

I didn't watch all of it, but the parts of Uprising I caught were well done and well acted.

grunion · 7th October 2009, 05:57 AM

As a child I watched the movie Ulica Graniczna (Border Street) which told the story of the Warsaw Ghetto through the eyes of children growing up in Warsaw. It was made shortly after the war, so suffers from some dated production values, but I recall being deeply affected by it. Not a documentary by any means but a good story.

dropzone · 8th October 2009, 08:57 PM

I've heard of a couple of sisters who played on their blonde, blue-eyed, kinda-stupid looks to gather intel from the Germans who thought they were Polack bimbos one could speak in front of with impunity. They gave a LOT to the cause, but I don't know their names nor their fates. Anyone know who I'm talking about?

Cleon · 9th October 2009, 10:06 AM

Originally Posted by UnrepentantSinner

I didn't watch all of it, but the parts of Uprising I caught were well done and well acted.

It wasn't bad, really, but it was a bit difficult to take it seriously; those ghetto-confined Jews looked awfully healthy and well-fed.

Having Hank Azaria play Mordechai Anielewicz was like having Danny Devito play George Washington. It just did not compute.

At the same time, though, I thought David Schwimmer was pretty good. I was surprised by his ability to act.

fleabeetle · 11th October 2009, 03:13 AM

Originally Posted by dropzone

I've heard of a couple of sisters who played on their blonde, blue-eyed, kinda-stupid looks to gather intel from the Germans who thought they were Polack bimbos one could speak in front of with impunity. They gave a LOT to the cause, but I don't know their names nor their fates. Anyone know who I'm talking about?

There comes to mind the novel "Mila 18" by Leon Uris (who I find an embarassingly bad and heavy-handed writer; but he dealt with some stirring themes, enough for me to have read a few of his books). Novel concerned tells in fiction form, of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. I recall two sisters, fitting the above description, as minor characters in the book; wouldn't know, though, whether this matter was Uris's invention, or whether he was making-over into fiction, people who factually existed and took part in these events.

dropzone · 11th October 2009, 08:34 PM

Yeah, I heard about them through my wife, who has read "Mila 18."

ETA: OTOH, Hedy Lamarr was dismissed by her husband and his Nazi friends as a pretty face who could not possibly understand what they were talking about.

ETAA: Not that she did not have an EXCEPTIONALLY pretty face.

fleabeetle · 11th October 2009, 10:48 PM

I seem to recall that in the novel anyway, the girls' luck runs out, and they come to an unpleasant end at the hands of the SS.

Seeming not very bright, can indeed be a valuable accomplishment as regards intelligence-gathering. One thinks of the Tom Clancy novel in which the US's leading spy in Moscow, is a guy who is in fact brilliant; but cultivates the persona of a very dull, rather intellectually-challenged twerp. Most people on both sides take it for granted that someone so outright thick, can't possibly have anything to do with espionage -- so they ignore him, and are not at all on their guard in his company.

3rd October 2009, 12:54 PM	#1
grunion Master Poster Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: The ice planet Posts: 2,540	Marek Edelman, Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Leader The last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance movement (he preferred not to have it known as an "uprising," because he thought that word implied that there was at least a little hope of victory, which he knew there was not) died yesterday at the age of 87. Because of his contacts with the Polish Underground, he knew that the Nazi story of "resettlement" was just a lie, a pretext to get Warsaw's Jews to passively board a train to their death. As a worker in a ghetto hospital, he was able to use that pretext to help save lives - bringing documentation to the boarding sites that one resident or another was sick and thus was not fit enough to survive resettlement. The Nazis kept up the charade by giving him a certain number of exemptions for sick people, which he used, heartwrenchingly, to select those which would be most useful for the resistance movement, denying the pleas of mothers begging him to save their children. Having been a resident of Warsaw for several years leading up to its ghettoization by the Nazis, Edelman was aware of the escape routes and secret passageways which he put to good use, allowing his team of 220 to keep the Nazis at bay for 45 days in their attempt at final liquidation of the ghetto. It permitted him and his unit to escape encirclement at the end and survive the war. He remained in Poland where he became a renown cardiologist, and authored a cardiology textbook, until official anti-Semitism drove him out of his practice in the 1960s. Subsequently he became active in the Solidarity movement. In one account of his life that I read, he shunned the description of the resistance movement as "heroes." "These people went quietly and with dignity,” he told his biographer, speaking of the millions killed in the Nazi gas chambers. “It is an awesome thing, when one is going so quietly to one’s death. It is definitely more difficult than to go out shooting.” Quote: “God is trying to blow out the candle, and I’m quickly trying to shield the flame, taking advantage of his brief inattention,” he said. “To keep the flame flickering, even if only for a little while longer than he would wish.”

3rd October 2009, 07:02 PM	#3
grunion Master Poster Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: The ice planet Posts: 2,540	Edelman became politically conscious as a member of the Jewish Labor Federation (The "Bund") before the war. Yet his frequent clashes with party authorities in Poland after the war caused him much personal strife, as he became a devout anti-Stalinist, spent some time in prison, and later, was a leader in the Solidarity movement. Edelman had an ongoing antipathy with Zionists who resented him for remaining in Poland, where they considered the Jewish community dead, rather than emigrating to Israel. Though he criticized the terrorist tactics of some Palestinian organizations, he condemned the Israeli treatment of Palestinians up until his death. He resented the Zionist tendency to brand the Warsaw Ghetto resistance as a model of Jewish liberation that led to the creation of the Jewish State, and declared that the model of ghetto fighters in Warsaw more closely resembled the Palestinians than the Israelis.
	__________________ Curious about Sylvia Browne? Last edited by grunion; 3rd October 2009 at 07:05 PM.

3rd October 2009, 07:06 PM	#4
parky76 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 15,493	Originally Posted by grunion He resented the Zionist tendency to brand the Warsaw Ghetto resistance as a model of Jewish liberation that led to the creation of the Jewish State, and declared that the model of ghetto fighters in Warsaw more closely resembled the Palestinians than the Israelis. well, then I'm sure many Zionists wish the Nazis hadn't missed one.
	__________________ 9-11 Truther: "We don't need facts. We only need doubt."

3rd October 2009, 08:38 PM	#5
gtc Philosopher Join Date: Feb 2005 Location: the downunderverse Posts: 7,109	I very much doubt that but I guess there are crazies everywhere.
	__________________

3rd October 2009, 10:13 PM	#6
UnrepentantSinner A post by Alan Smithee Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: USAian is not a word Posts: 23,209	I hadn't heard of him before but after hearing his story was saddened by his passing. That was tempered by being glad he passed away in 2009 rather than killed in 1943.
	__________________ "The permanence of the stars was questioned, the justice of slavery was not" - Carl Sagan in Cosmos discussing the content of the Library of Alexandria. a post by Alan Smithee explained. Blutoski's taxonomy of woo Join my The Not Cool Kids Club

3rd October 2009, 03:17 PM	#2
Simon39759 Graduate Poster Join Date: Mar 2009 Posts: 1,064	I never heard of his name before, but it sounds like, regardless of his own opinion, he was a true hero. I will have to dig up a biography.

4th October 2009, 03:32 PM	#7
Skeptic Sum, ergo cogito Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Behind the chessboard Posts: 13,322	Originally Posted by parky76 well, then I'm sure many Zionists wish the Nazis hadn't missed one. Take me, for example. I, naturally, wish a cruel death on everybody on this forum who disagrees with me. (What's wrong with you?)
	__________________ CNN, Fox, MSNBC are all terrible, all do the exact same thing: take news wire reports, add a bunch of unnecessary opinion, and then re-brand it as "infotainment" as if this were some sort of useful service. It is akin to paying me to read a newspaper to you, while interrupting frequently with my own opinion. -- Zaphod2016

4th October 2009, 03:43 PM	#8
parky76 Penultimate Amazing Join Date: Nov 2006 Posts: 15,493	Originally Posted by Skeptic Take me, for example. I, naturally, wish a cruel death on everybody on this forum who disagrees with me. you're a Truther????
	__________________ 9-11 Truther: "We don't need facts. We only need doubt."

5th October 2009, 12:38 AM	#9
Skeptic Sum, ergo cogito Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Behind the chessboard Posts: 13,322	You say "many zionists" think "The Nazis missed one" because he wasn't a zionist. Go ahead. Find one such zionist. P.S. You do know that, a year or two ago, Israel's largest newspaper had a four-page, very considerate abd polite (from both sides), interview with him? So I guess we scratched the workers in that newspaper as being some of the "many" zionists who wish he were killed by the Nazis. But that still leaves a few million Israelies, some of them with nasty zionist tendencies; who knows what evil lurks in their heart?
	__________________ CNN, Fox, MSNBC are all terrible, all do the exact same thing: take news wire reports, add a bunch of unnecessary opinion, and then re-brand it as "infotainment" as if this were some sort of useful service. It is akin to paying me to read a newspaper to you, while interrupting frequently with my own opinion. -- Zaphod2016

5th October 2009, 12:53 AM	#10
pakeha Illuminator Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 3,099	Thank you, Marc Edelman (what an apt sirname) for a life dedicated to human dignity.
pakeha Illuminator Join Date: Jul 2009 Posts: 3,099

5th October 2009, 01:56 AM	#11
Eddie Dane Graduate Poster Join Date: Aug 2007 Location: The Netherlands Posts: 1,244	Respect.

5th October 2009, 01:25 PM	#12
Cleon King of the Pod People Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Atlanta, GA Posts: 14,360	sigh Sad news indeed. My grandfather knew Edelman, as part of a documentation project he was working on. As someone interested in the Warsaw resistance and the Bund, I'd read a lot about him myself. The world has lost someone very special. (parky and Skeptic - take it somewhere else, FFS.)
	__________________ "Intolerance does not flourish without ignorance to feed it." - kittynh "A jerk who is right is still a jerk." - Ducky My blog

5th October 2009, 08:17 PM	#13
dropzone Muse Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 683	There's a helluva movie in the Warsaw Ghetto resistance.
dropzone Muse Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 683

6th October 2009, 11:06 PM	#14
UnrepentantSinner A post by Alan Smithee Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: USAian is not a word Posts: 23,209	Originally Posted by dropzone There's a helluva movie in the Warsaw Ghetto resistance. I didn't watch all of it, but the parts of Uprising I caught were well done and well acted.
	__________________ "The permanence of the stars was questioned, the justice of slavery was not" - Carl Sagan in Cosmos discussing the content of the Library of Alexandria. a post by Alan Smithee explained. Blutoski's taxonomy of woo Join my The Not Cool Kids Club

7th October 2009, 05:57 AM	#15
grunion Master Poster Join Date: Jul 2003 Location: The ice planet Posts: 2,540	As a child I watched the movie Ulica Graniczna (Border Street) which told the story of the Warsaw Ghetto through the eyes of children growing up in Warsaw. It was made shortly after the war, so suffers from some dated production values, but I recall being deeply affected by it. Not a documentary by any means but a good story.
	__________________ Curious about Sylvia Browne?

8th October 2009, 08:57 PM	#16
dropzone Muse Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 683	I've heard of a couple of sisters who played on their blonde, blue-eyed, kinda-stupid looks to gather intel from the Germans who thought they were Polack bimbos one could speak in front of with impunity. They gave a LOT to the cause, but I don't know their names nor their fates. Anyone know who I'm talking about?
dropzone Muse Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 683

9th October 2009, 10:06 AM	#17
Cleon King of the Pod People Join Date: Aug 2001 Location: Atlanta, GA Posts: 14,360	Originally Posted by UnrepentantSinner I didn't watch all of it, but the parts of Uprising I caught were well done and well acted. It wasn't bad, really, but it was a bit difficult to take it seriously; those ghetto-confined Jews looked awfully healthy and well-fed. Having Hank Azaria play Mordechai Anielewicz was like having Danny Devito play George Washington. It just did not compute. At the same time, though, I thought David Schwimmer was pretty good. I was surprised by his ability to act.
	__________________ "Intolerance does not flourish without ignorance to feed it." - kittynh "A jerk who is right is still a jerk." - Ducky My blog

11th October 2009, 03:13 AM	#18
fleabeetle Scholar Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 103	Originally Posted by dropzone I've heard of a couple of sisters who played on their blonde, blue-eyed, kinda-stupid looks to gather intel from the Germans who thought they were Polack bimbos one could speak in front of with impunity. They gave a LOT to the cause, but I don't know their names nor their fates. Anyone know who I'm talking about? There comes to mind the novel "Mila 18" by Leon Uris (who I find an embarassingly bad and heavy-handed writer; but he dealt with some stirring themes, enough for me to have read a few of his books). Novel concerned tells in fiction form, of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. I recall two sisters, fitting the above description, as minor characters in the book; wouldn't know, though, whether this matter was Uris's invention, or whether he was making-over into fiction, people who factually existed and took part in these events.
fleabeetle Scholar Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 103

11th October 2009, 08:34 PM	#19
dropzone Muse Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 683	Yeah, I heard about them through my wife, who has read "Mila 18." ETA: OTOH, Hedy Lamarr was dismissed by her husband and his Nazi friends as a pretty face who could not possibly understand what they were talking about. ETAA: Not that she did not have an EXCEPTIONALLY pretty face.
dropzone Muse Join Date: May 2009 Posts: 683	Last edited by dropzone; 11th October 2009 at 08:39 PM.

11th October 2009, 10:48 PM	#20
fleabeetle Scholar Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 103	I seem to recall that in the novel anyway, the girls' luck runs out, and they come to an unpleasant end at the hands of the SS. Seeming not very bright, can indeed be a valuable accomplishment as regards intelligence-gathering. One thinks of the Tom Clancy novel in which the US's leading spy in Moscow, is a guy who is in fact brilliant; but cultivates the persona of a very dull, rather intellectually-challenged twerp. Most people on both sides take it for granted that someone so outright thick, can't possibly have anything to do with espionage -- so they ignore him, and are not at all on their guard in his company.
fleabeetle Scholar Join Date: Apr 2009 Posts: 103