Marek Edelman was a prominent Polish cardiologist, human rights activist, and the last surviving commander of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Born in Homel (in present-day Belarus), he grew up in Warsaw, where he joined the General Jewish Labour Bund, a secular socialist movement that rejected Zionism and maintained that Jewish political and cultural life belonged in the European diaspora (Doykeit, or “hereness”).
During World War II, Edelman operated within the underground movement in the Warsaw Ghetto, helping form the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB). Following the death of commander Mordechai Anielewicz, Edelman served as deputy commander during the 1943 uprising against Nazi forces. He later escaped through the city’s sewer system and took part in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising.
After the war, Edelman refused to emigrate to the newly formed state of Israel or western nations, choosing instead to remain in Poland. Settling in Łódź, he trained as a cardiologist and became a senior physician, pioneering techniques in treating acute heart disease alongside surgeon Jan Moll. In his political life, Edelman aligned with the anti-communist opposition, joining the Workers’ Defense Committee (KOR) in the 1970s and serving as a delegate for the Solidarity (Solidarność) movement. Following the fall of communism in 1989, he served as a member of the Polish parliament (Sejm) from 1989 to 1993 and was awarded Poland’s highest civilian honor, the Order of the White Eagle.
Throughout his later life, Edelman frequently commented on international conflicts, drawing on his anti-fascist background to criticize state violence. In 2002, during the Second Intifada, he addressed an open letter to “Palestinian partisans and resistance fighters,” calling for peace while acknowledging the armed struggle against occupation. By referring to the fighters as “partisans”—a term historically reserved for the heroes who fought Nazis—he triggered a global diplomatic firestorm. Until his death, Edelman remained critical of Israeli government policies toward Palestinians, maintaining that his universalist ethics required opposing oppression regardless of the perpetrator. Explaining his decision to live in Poland rather than Israel, he noted that Poland remained his home and the burial site of the people he had fought beside.