Last leader of Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising dies at 87

Reuters ^ | Oct 3, 2009 | Gabriela Baczynska

[kingattax]

WARSAW (Reuters) - The last leader of the wartime Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, Marek Edelman, died in Warsaw on Friday at the age of 87, friends said. Edelman was the last surviving leader of small Jewish militant groups which fought against the Nazis in 1943 when the occupiers moved to liquidate the ghetto.

Jewish fighters were poorly armed and the uprising was crushed in a few weeks of fighting.

"It's a very said day. He was a man of great character," said Szewach Weiss, former Isreali ambassador to Poland.

[SolidWood]

Marek Edelman was a truely great man. His comments on the war against Saddam Hussein are a must read:

.....

Edelman: Now, now. Who started killing people? Americans didn’t invade a wonderful democratic Iraq. There was a dictatorship there, torture, terror.

Interviewer: But there are people who say it’s not our business.

Edelman: And whose business is it? Every war with fascism is our business. In 1939 there were also many people who said that the war in Poland was not their war, and what happened? Great nations fell because politicians listened to those who were saying that it’s not worth dying for Gdansk [Danzig]. If only we’d intervened militarily after Hitler re-entered Rhineland we probably would not have had the war and the Holocaust.

Interviewer: Many people do understand that, but they don’t understand why the Americans have to go to the other side of the world and fight over Iraq now.

Edelman: And why did they go to Europe then? Who defeated Hitler and saved Europe from fascism? The French? No, the Americans did. We thanked them then because they saved us. Today we criticise them because they’re saving somebody else.

.....

http://chrenkoff.blogspot.com/2004_05_30_chrenkoff_archive.html#108604826777232870

[Carley]

RIP

Well deserved peace.

[Gay State Conservative]

If the ghetto scenes in Schindler’s List were at all historically accurate (and I suspect they were) it was a breathtakingly ugly place to be.It had to take enormous courage (and/or a sense of fatalism) for a relative handful of Poles to take on the German Army.

[Gay State Conservative]

Edelman: And why did they go to Europe then? Who defeated Hitler and saved Europe from fascism? The French? No, the Americans did. We thanked them then because they saved us. Today we criticise them because they’re saving somebody else.

And today,Western and Central Europe couldn't care less what Edelman thought about oppression and liberation.

[QBFimi]

Meanwhile, most of his fellow members of The Tribe stand in lock step with anti- second amendment socialists. Go figure.

May this great man have a special place in heaven. RIP

[AnalogReigns]

[fieldmarshaldj]

RIP.

[LucyT]

Interviewer: But there are people who say it’s not our business.

Edelman: And whose business is it? Every war with fascism is our business.

I once visited the Warsaw Ghetto.

RIP, Mr. Marek Edelman.

[azishot]

Edelman: Those who say that you don't have to fight for freedom, don't understand what fascism is. I do.

Thanks for the ping, LucyT.

May Mr. Edelman rest in peace.

[IronJack]

That story is truly one of ageless courage, a virtue sadly lacking in today’s world. He and his fellow fighters were heroes of legend.

[Slings and Arrows]

Thanks for the ping!

[Atlas Sneezed]

Jewish fighters were poorly armed and the uprising was crushed in a few weeks of fighting.

---

Faint praise. With next to nothing but courage, these heroes tied up the Nazi war machine for longer than it took them to take the rest of Poland.

[Verdelet]

It was 1943, Germans were already at war with Soviets. When Nazis attacked Poland they did it hand to hand with Russians. Compare the numbers...
Polish Warsaw Insurgency of 1944, lasted longer then Nazi "French Campaign" of 1939, although in 1939 French had third largest army after SU and Nazis.

[Grzegorz 246]

LOL !

[Matt_Rel]

?