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Post by pieter on Aug 27, 2006 10:46:41 GMT -7
Marek Edelman (b. December 31, 1922) is a Jewish-Polish political and social activist, cardiologist, and the last living leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Born in 1922 in Homel (now Belarus), he soon moved with his parents to Warsaw. In 1942, as a youth leader in the Bund, Edelman was among the founders of the underground Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organization). In the Warsaw ghetto uprising of April-May 1943, Edelman became one of its leaders following the death of ZOB commander Mordechai Anielewicz. Edelman survived the uprising's suppression and the ghetto's liquidation, and managed to escape aided by underground activists of the Armia Ludowa (People's Army). He joined the Polish underground Armia Krajowa (Home Army), and in the summer of 1944 participated in the Warsaw Uprising. After the Second World War, Edelman studied at the Medical University in ?ód?. In 1976 he became an activist with the Komitet Obrony Robotników (Workers' Defense Committee) and later of the Solidarity movement. During the period of martial law in 1981, he was interned. He took part in the Round Table Talks and served as a member of the Sejm (Polish parliament) from 1989 until 1993. On April 17, 1998, Marek Edelman was awarded with Poland's highest decoration, the Order of the White Eagle. In Hanna Krall's book "Zdazyc przed Panem Bogiem" ("Be There Before God") Edelman retells in detail the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
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Post by pieter on Aug 27, 2006 10:53:03 GMT -7
Mordechai Anielewicz (1919 – May 8, 1943) was the commander of the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (English: Jewish Fighting Organization), also known as ZOB, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Born to a poor family in Wyszków near Warsaw, he joined and became a leader of the Zionist-socialist youth movement "Hashomer Hatzair" after he completed his high school studies. On September 7, 1939, a week after war with Germany started, Anielewicz escaped with his members of the group from Warsaw to the eastern regions in the hopes that the Polish would slow down the German advance. When the Red Army finally occupied Eastern Poland, Anielewicz attempted to pass the Romanian border in order to open a route for young Jews to get to Israel (Then Palestine) ; however, he was caught and thrown into a Soviet jail. He was released a short time later and returned to the Warsaw Ghetto. When he heard that Jewish refugees, other youth movement members and political groups flocked to Vilna, Lithuania, which was then under Soviet control, he went there too and convinced his colleagues to send people back to Poland to continue the fight against the Nazis. He returned to Warsaw in January, 1940 with his girlfriend, Mira Fuchrer, where he organized cells and youngsters groups, instructed, participated in underground publications, organized meetings and seminars and visited other groups in different cities. In the summer of 1942, Anielewicz was visiting the south-west region of Poland – annexed to Germany – trying to organize armed defense. Upon his return he found that a major deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp occurred and only 60,000 of the 350,000 Jews remained. He joined the ZOB, and in November he was elected as chief commander. In early 1943, a connection with the Polish government in exile in London was made and the group received weapons from the Polish side of the city. In January 18, 1943, he was instrumental in preventing the majority of a second wave of Jews from being deported to extermination camps, starting the revolt that lasted until May 16, 1943. Anielewicz committed suicide, along with his girlfriend and many of his staff, in the ZOB bunker at 18 Mila Street on May 8, once their capture by the Nazis was inevitable. His body was never found, and it's generally believed that his body was carried off to nearby crematoriums along with all the other Jewish dead. In early 1944 he had been posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari, the Polish military cross, by the Polish government in exile. The Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in Israel is named after him and a monument was erected in his memory. The story in Polish: pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mordechaj_Anielewicz
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Post by pieter on Aug 27, 2006 11:04:21 GMT -7
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