Warsaw ghetto resistance fighter Marek Edelman dies at 86

Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the 1943 Jewish ghetto uprising against the Nazis in Warsaw, has died at the age of 86. Edelman was part of Jewish militant groups who fought against the Nazis in 1943 during their final attempt to liquidate the ghetto.

Despite the anti-Semitic policies of Poland's Communist authorities after World War II, Edelman never left his homeland. In contrast with many Jewish Poles who survived the war, Edelman decided to stay and settled in the central Polish city of Lodz, where he became a cardiologist. In an interview, he said his work as a doctor enabled him to save lives, which he was unable to do in the ghetto. His memoirs were translated into six languages, including Hebrew.

Edelman was also a leading member of the Freedom Union, the party of Poland’s first post-Communist prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki. Lech Walesa, the former Solidarity leader and Polish president, called Edelman "an upright, unequalled human being. There are no words to express the loss."

“He fought for his country more than anyone else,” Michael Schudrich, Poland’s chief rabbi, said in an interview. “He wasn’t fighting for himself, but to show that the Jews in the ghetto weren’t passive, that they wouldn’t go like sheep to the slaughter.”