Peoples Archive is delighted to launch it's Politics section with the stories of Marek Edelman. Speaking in his native Polish he talks in detail about his time in the Warsaw Ghetto and his work as a cardiologist. These stories are available to view with or without English subtitles.
Marek Edelman was born in Homel, Belarus on 31 December 1921 but moved to Warsaw when he was young. By the time he was 13 years old, the influence of his mother?s involvement in the Jewish socialist and Bund parties made an impact on Edelman?s civic views. Even before the outbreak of the war, he was involved in organisations rallying Jewish youth and children, organising activities and classes for them, partly as a distraction from the grinding poverty in which they lived.
In 1942, he helped found the Jewish Militant Organisation which resisted the German occupation from within the walls of the Warsaw ghetto, culminating in the uprising of April 1943. Edelman was the deputy commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and was one of the few people who survived and escaped by taking to the sewers. He returned to Warsaw and fought against the occupying German army once more in the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944.
In 1946, Edelman moved to Lodz. Having qualified as a medical doctor, he specialised in cardiology. In 1971, he initiated a revolutionary method for the treatment of heart disease. The arterio-venous fistula, which was unheard of in Poland, proved a highly successful life-saving procedure.
Marek Edelman is used to taking principled stands, and so in the mid-1970s he joined Poland?s anti-communist opposition. From 1976-1980 he was active in the Worker?s Defence Committee (KOR) and then in Solidarnosc. Following the imposition of martial law in December 1981, Edelman was interned for several days until the intervention of Western intellectuals secured his release. Edelman continued his involvement with Solidarnosc until the fall of communism in 1989, taking part in the Round Table talks held in the same year. From 1989-93, Marek Edelman was a member of the Polish parliament.
On 17 April 1998, the President of Poland awarded the highest state medal, the Order of the White Eagle, to Marek Edelman. The following year, he was honoured as citizen of the year by Lodz, the city that has been Marek Edelman?s home for over 50 years. A man of great courage, Edelman has always been guided by his moral convinction. Here is the response he gave when asked what he thought was most important in life: ?Basically, it is life itself that is most important. And if there is life, then most important is freedom. And then one gives one?s life for freedom.?
