MAREK
EDELMAN (January 1, 1919-October 2, 2009)
He was born in Warsaw, Poland. His mother Tsipora was an active leader in
the Bund. Marek Edelman studied in a
secular Jewish school and for a time received his education at the Medem
Sanatorium in Miedzeszyn. In his youth
he joined the Bundist children’s organization SKIF (Sotsyalistishe kinder farband, or Socialist
children’s union) and later the youth organization “Tsukunft”
(Future). After the Nazis seized Warsaw,
Edelman actively worked in the Bundist underground. In the Warsaw Ghetto he continued his socialist
educational work in SKIF and Tsukunft and contributed to the Bundist youth
press, to relief and rescue work, and later for preparations for the uprising. He was delegated by the central committee of
the Bund to the united Jewish
Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, Ż.O.B.) command. He organized the military intelligence unit,
which informed the ghetto of Germans plans and actions; he organized the delivery
of weapons for the ghetto and led the defense of the Brush District at the time
of the ghetto uprising. He was both a
leader in the fighting and a heroic soldier, who inspired and transported by
his personal example his fellow combatants.
He was mentioned on many occasions in the reports of the fighting for
April-May 1943. When the ammunition ran
out and the ghetto was set on fire, Edelman and other surviving comrades left
along the edges of the sewer system to the Aryan side of the city. Later, at the time of the general Polish
uprising in Warsaw (August 1944), Edelman organized a Jewish division which fought
at the side of the Armia Ludowa (People’s army) in Żoliborz and
the Old City, and with his relentless fighting he earned the admiration of his
Polish comrades. In November 1944 he
miraculous survived in a bunker in Żoliborz, where he lay for several
days under the rubble. When the Red Army
subsequently occupied Warsaw, Edelman went right back to Bundist party
work. He brought the first aid to
comrades who were returning from the camps and forests. Edelman later entered the medical school of Warsaw
University, became a doctor, and practiced medicine. In 1957 he visited the state of Israel and
was a guest of Loḥame hagetaot (Fighters
of the Ghetto) Kibbutz, where he met his fellow combatants from the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising; he also had a meeting with the Bundist organization at the
Franz Kurski Library, among other sites, in Tel Aviv, and a farewell evening
with the surviving ghetto fighters who were in Tel Aviv. In 1963 he paid a visit to the United
States. He lived in Lodz and worked as a
doctor [cardiologist] in a Lodz hospital.
After WWII he published articles in the Bundist youth press. He wrote under such pen names as K. Malin and
E. D. Tsipkin. In book form: Di geto kemft (The ghetto fights), originally
written in Polish, dedicated to the memory of the Bundist ghetto leader Abrasha
Blum, with a foreword by
the well-known Polish writer Zofia Nałkowska
(Warsaw, 1945). This pamphlet can be
found in Yiddish in the collection In di
yorn fun yidishn khurbn, di shtim fun untererdishn bund (In the years of
the Jewish destruction, the voice of the underground Bund) (New York: Unzer
tsayt, 1948), pp. 153-210; and in the anthology In heldishn gerangl (In a heroic struggle) (New York: Unzer tsayt,
1949), pp. 7-64. He died in Warsaw.
Around the time of the April
2009
Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising
Sources:
Z. Likhtenshteyn, in Shikager forverts
(Chicago) (April 20, 1946); Y. Pat, Ash
un fayer (Ash and fire) (New York: Tsiko, 1946), p. 389; B. Goldshteyn, Finf yor in varshever geto (Five years
in the Warsaw Ghetto) (New York: Unzer tsayt, 1947), pp. 315-19ff; editorial, in Yugnt-veker (Warsaw-Lodz) (April 1947); B. Mark, Dos bukh fun gvure (The book of
valor) (Lodz: Dos naye lebn, 1947), pp. 287ff;
Vladke (Feigele Peltel Miedzyrzecki), Fun
beyde zaytn geto-moyer (From both sides of the ghetto wall) (New
York: Arbeter-ring, 1948), p. 179; M. Noy-Nayshtadt, Khurbn
un oyfshtand fun di yidn in varshe (Destruction and resistance of the Jews in
Warsaw), 2 vols. (Tel Aviv, 1948), see index to second volume; Shmuel
Niger, ed., Kidesh hashem (Sanctification of the name) (New York: Tsiko,
1946), see index; T. Bazhikovski, Tsvishn
falndike vent (Amid falling walls) (Warsaw: Hakhaluts, 1949), pp. 100ff; Pinkes
varshe (Records of Warsaw), vol. 2 (Buenos Aires: Argentiner IKUF, 1955),
pp. 958ff; Y. Kermish, in Di goldene keyt (Tel Aviv) 27 (1957); Męczeństwo, walka, zagłada,
żydów w Polsce, 1939-1945 (Martyrdom, struggle and death of the Jews in Poland,
1939-1945) (Warsaw, 1959), see index; Y. Tselemenski, Mitn farshnitenem folk (With the
annihilated people) (New York, 1963), see index.
Leyb Vaserman
