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Marek Edelman: a Physician,
Social Activist, Commander
Life is most Important
JACEK KUROŃ
Tygodnik Powszechny No. 46 of
14 November 1999
Translated from Polish by Hanna Husak
From the Web editor
I’ve just received an interesting
opinion about Marek Edelman. Although it was published
four years ago, I’m sure many readers will be interested
in this article, as it has not been widely known .
It is possible to have two, seemingly
contradictory, opinions about Marek Edelman. Both are
true. On the one hand Marek is an individual deeply
involved in the contemporary here and now. That applies
both to his medical practice and social work. On the
other hand, he is still a commander in the Warsaw getto
uprising. For him that uprising continues.
First and foremost Marek Edelman is a physician. A great
physician. And not only a cardiologist -- he is able
to heal the entire human being. There are absolutely
fantastic, even unbelievable stories. An example closely
related to me: my wife’s daughter had a lump on her
neck. She went to a local physician who asked her to
come back in two weeks. When the Marek had a look at
the lump he said, “we must go to ŁódĽ immediately”.
It was established that the lump was cancerous. Thanks
to the early diagnosis the girl was cured. But that
is not the end of the story; the girl’s twin sister
had an identical lump. Marek looked at her and did not
recommend any therapy. He was right; in her case that
was nothing serious. I know hundreds of such cases from
Marek’s practice.
Another example; it was him who publicised in ŁódĽ regular
examination of women threatened by breast cancer. He
thought of it already in the 80s when there was little
talk of such preventive efforts. He secured financing
from the “Solidarity” Foundation. Moreover, he structured
the programme in a then innovative manner; when any
lump was found a biopsy was immediately performed, a
sample collected and the results were available on the
next day. When suspicions were confirmed the patient
was immediately sent to hospital. In those times such
procedure was revolutionary.
Marek Edelman’s ground-breaking project was the creation,
jointly with Prof. Jan Moll - a pioneer of cardiac arrest
treatment in Poland - of a method for performing cardiological
operations in acute condition (i.e. during an extensive
collapse) by reverting the bloodstream. When Marek was
persuading the professor for them - as first in the
world - to try to perform an operation using this method
he said, “we must do this, because it is all about exploiting
even the smallest chance for life”. And he added, “the
patient was not brought to us to die, but to live”.
Marek has introduced many similar innovative therapy
and operation methods.
It is not surprising then that on every anniversary
of him becoming the head of the Intensive Care Ward
in the ŁódĽ Pirogow hospital everyone whose life he
saved comes to that hospital. There also come those
whose loved ones were helped by him to die peacefully.
It is not always that therapy is successful… Marek says
that in those situations the physician must take the
patient to the other side. I’ve seen how he does it,
because my wife, Gaja, was dying at his ward.
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I met Marek in the middle of
the 70s. Naturally, I’ve heard about him before as of
the leader of the getto uprising. I knew that he will
not refuse to sign the protest against inclusion in
the constitution of a declaration about alliance with
the SSSR and about the communist party’s leading role.
However, when we were creating Komitet Obroty Robotników
(the Workers’ Protection Committee) (KOR) we did not
dare ask him to joint us. But Marek came by himself.
He said that he knew how to help us. In June 1976 one
of the problems we faced was how to provide medical
assistance to the workers repressed in Radom and Ursus
and their families. KOR was able to give them money
or provide legal assistance, but we had no idea what
to do when they got sick. All of them were extremely
poor.
Marek said, “everyone in need would be accepted for
treatment at my ward. When the Secret Service (SB) asked
why there were people from outside of ŁódĽ at his ward,
he replied that he looked at the human being and not
at the papers. And until today if anyone in real need
comes to him, he will- without observing the bureaucratic
procedures - welcome and treat him at his ward.
Marek has never been only a physician. He was also actively
involved in the democratic opposition movement and then
in “Solidarity”. He was a delegate to the Ist Convention
in 1981, during the martial law years he worked for
the underground - in the Regional Executive Committee
and later in the Committee for Cooperation with the
National Minorities of the Civic Committee by Lech Wałęsa.
He participated in the Health Sub-Team of the Round
Table. In 1993 he went with an aid convoy to Sarajevo.
It was not a coincidence that in April, at the Washington
NATO summit - the one celebrating the Pact’s 50th anniversary
and admittance of new members, including Poland - President
Clinton quoted Marek’s appeal for intervention of the
allied forces in Kosovo, by which he justified the United
States policy. When a few months ago Medicines sans
Frontieres received the Nobel Peace Prize, one of the
founders of this organisation, today the High Representative
of the United Nations in Kosovo, Bernard Kouchner, said
again that Dr. Edelman was his example.
Marek, through his constant involvement, forces us again
and again to think about ourselves - our indifference,
laziness, fears.
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We may try to search for reasons
for Marek’s constant involvement. It is because he is
still the Commander of the getto uprising - among others
because he has his own definition of a Jew. For him
a Jew is anyone who is subject to repression, regardless
of where and when it happens. He perceives the present
times from that perspective: protection of the repressed
and the weak. He describes himself as the sentinel of
the graves of his dead comrades from the getto. But
that is not the entire truth - he is also a sentinel
of the living: the Bosnia and Kosovo refugees, the Romes
divided by a wall from the Czechs in Ustia, and, which
he stressed, the Palestinians in Israel - something
that the Israeli Jews cannot forgive him until today.
I am proud that when in the 80s I was again in prison,
Marek has publicly said that the contemporary Jews are
Zbyszek Bujak, Seweryn Jaworski and Jacek Kuroń.
As a commander in the getto Marek had to be responsible
for the lives of his subordinates. Today he feels responsible
for the contemporary “Jews” - now his boys and girls
are all those who are weak and oppressed. He told me
that during the war with Miloąevich, he was repeatedly
woken up by a dream in which his boys from the uprising
were in Kosovo. This identification of the boys and
girls from the getto with the individuals who are oppressed
today - with the contemporary “Jews” - is the sense
of his life.
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Marek does demand a lot. Because, can one really,
for example, request that people behave like heroes?
He, however, although he understands human weakness,
demands heroism; he claims that in extreme circumstances
even fear is not any justification - passivity becomes
a crime.
It is the journalists from “Tygodnik
Powszechny” who asked him once if it was really so simple
to send Polish soldiers to Kosovo? It is easy to speak
theoretically of the necessity to fight Evil, but what
are we to say to the mothers whose children are to go
to the war and may die there? His response was straightforward,
“So if it is for yourself it is alright, but for others
no? That would be your method of survival? Stop it.
When someone assaults you, you will look for help. And
you will be really hurt when someone denies you such
help.” He reminded that during the Warsaw Uprising the
same mothers were begging for parachutists from the
allied forces. They did not ask then why the British
or the Canadians were to fight for Warsaw and to die
at Miodowa [street]? He then added that each individual
has the right to look for and to expect assistance.
Regardless of the above, many
will deliberate if there is any place for Edelman’s
morality in the contemporary world. Because it is true
to say that heroism exceeds human dimension. Myself,
I would be afraid to demand it. But he does and what
is more, people prove themselves to him.
Marek says that when you want
to really get to know someone then you must, in difficult
circumstances, “give him or her you own head to a basket”.
When he or she agrees, regardless of this or that danger,
to carry your head, then you may rely on such person.
And Marek was able to gather around him many such boys
and girls - people he trusts. It may be then that when
a man like him expects heroism from people, they do
become heroes?
And although Marek has high expectations,
he has the right to do so. Who, if not such individuals
who have lived through so much and have proven themselves,
would remind of the need of heroism? There are not may
of them. What is crucial they may speak only when they
continue to be an example. And Marek is a living example
- the latest proof may be his protest against the strike
of his colleagues, the physicians. Marek believed that
physicians cannot strike for money, because in their
profession it is saving patients which matters the most.
When Marek is asked what is most
important in life, he responds that it is life itself.
He adds sometimes that the next after life is freedom.
And then that one should never allow anyone to put him
or her on a barrel - as happened to an old Jew who,
was put on a barrel by two German soldiers at Żelazna
[street] and his hair was cut with huge scissors in
front of a cheering crowd. Such loss of beard had to
be the worst humiliation, worse than a whipping. Marek
knows also that sometimes life is given up for freedom
or dignity. And then it is not clear what is most important.
But it is life that is the most
important thing, he repeats. He says that as the commander
in the getto uprising where everyone was destined to
die and as a physician who deals with death everyday.
I sometimes argue with him and claim that if people
sacrifice their life for various values then it is not
life that is most important. But it is he who is right.
We must always save life. The idea is to distinguish
between two circumstances. I, myself, may choose death
for the sake of values. But my obligation towards others,
those who are oppressed, is different. I must save them.
Marek’s history comes down to risking his life to save
others.
We have often deliberated together
if one may sacrifice others for an idea? This is an
issue of responsibility for those who trust you, for
your boys and girls. I had this problem when many young
people perceived me as an opposition leader. I wrote
about it in the essay “The Evil that I do”. Marek has
also asked himself that question - he was only 20 and
the people, in such extreme conditions as was the getto
uprising, expected him to lead them. It was from him
that I learned that once you decide to accept the responsibility
for others you must trust them. You must give them your
“head to be carried in a basket”.
One other thing, Marek says that
opposition against terror does not come from terror
but from solidarity and brotherhood. That is true. When
you face such a challenge as they had in the getto,
where death was your destiny, opposition may be created
only from brotherhood. They practically had no choice
there, but they made a choice. They chose to fight.
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Marek’s beliefs are evidenced also by his words repeated
over and over again that it is only a man created convention
that death in battle is more dignified than death in
a gas chamber. He always stresses that if people went
to Umschlagplatz in silence that means that they wanted
to die with dignity. He chose to fight, but he does
not look down on those who chose to die in silence.
Translated by Hanna Husak
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