Marek Edelman

And there was love, too, in the ghetto

Excerpt

"And there was love, too, in the ghetto" was conceived in close collaboration with Paula Sawicka, who listened to the author’s accounts and noted them down. The book includes Edelman’s descriptions of his childhood and schooldays, of his pre-war activities in the Jewish labour union Bund, of the ghetto hospital, of the resistance movement and the Ghetto Uprising in April 1943, and of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944. The events and episodes that comprise the title theme are narrated in a lively though brusque language. The initial motivation for writing the book was Edelman’s wish for a film to be made about love in the ghetto. He approached several directors, but all of them refused, saying that it was too complex a topic. Participants and witnesses of the events themselves have also tended to avoid the subject. “But that isn’t the whole truth – there were people even there who had their moments of happiness. Isn’t that wonderful? In those inhuman conditions, marvellous things happened. It depends entirely on the individual. In those times, people became very attached to each other, because the loneliness was hard to bear. Love overwhelms people; we can’t live without it. That only becomes clear in extreme situations,” said Edelman at a book promotion in Warsaw. Why hadn’t he spoken of it before? Because nobody had ever asked him. That, at least, is what Paula Sawicka says.

Marek Zaleski

“For me, Marek Edelman is the embodiment of all that is best in Poland.”  (Václav Havel )

Marek Edelman (1922-2009), the legendary leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, cardiologist, and political and social activist.