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A Hero of the Anti-Totalitarian Resistance Dies

By Doug Bandow on 10.5.09 @ 5:07AM

Marek Edelman, who while confined to the Warsaw ghetto fought the Nazis, has died. Reports the New York Times:

Marek Edelman, a cardiologist who was the last surviving commander of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Germans, died Friday in Warsaw. He was 90.

A friend, Paula Sawicka, told The Associated Press that Dr. Edelman had died "among friends, among his close people," at her home, where he had lived for the past two years. For many years he lived in Lodz, Poland's second largest city.

Dr. Edelman was one of a handful of young leaders who in April 1943 led a force of 220 poorly armed young Jewish men and women in a desperate and hopeless struggle against the Germans.

He was later persecuted by the communists, who launched their own anti-Semitic campaigns. He also worked with Solidarity, which helped bring down the Polish communist regime. May this hero who suffered so much battling totalitarianism rest in peace

View all comments (7) | Leave a comment

WendyG| 10.5.09 @ 9:52AM

Thanks for posting this. A reminder of what a real hero is.

Thunderbottom| 10.5.09 @ 10:51AM

He was lucky to have survived the uprising, much less the war. Many of the Jewish resisters who survived the fighting to surrender to the Nazis either died in the death camps or were summarily executed. That he lived to see his country survive, first, Nazi oppression, then Soviet oppression, marks him as truly blessed.