Page 44 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana. Edelman

THE NOTHINGNESS

IS BEHIND ME

Marek Edelman in the German camp The year of Marek Edelman poses an opportunity to
in Treblinka. not only tell the story of his extraordinary life, worthy
Photo by Paula Sawicka
to be put on film, but to also listen to his words in the
present context.

Marek Edelman was born in January 1919 in Homel
(today Belarus), although one can find different dates
of his birth: 1921, and 1921 with Warsaw as his birth
place. He was raised with the Bundists – Jewish socialists
who opted for the autonomy of Jews, social justice
and equal rights in the pre- Second World War Poland.
His father, Natan Feliks Edelman, died when Marek
was a child, his mother Cecylia, née Percowska,
when he was a teenager. His parents’ friends became
his guardians, but it was various communities Marek
joined that really raised him: summer camps, youth
organizations, sanatoriums, Medem hospital. “You could
have thought that this world of ours, the Medem
sanatorium, is the future of the world. Children:
Jewish, Polish, German were playing together, studying,

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