Page 54 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana. Edelman. The Man

Sonia Nowogródzka
(1893-1942)
‘Sonia was terribly nervous, Hela was trying to calm her
down. It made me furious, but I didn’t say anything. Hela
went away, I was left alone with Sonia. She was all shook
up and trembling. I came closer to her and put my hand on
her back, and I calmly said: Easy, easy, perhaps one day it
may still get better. I kept standing like that for a while, then
I handed her a hat with a long mourning veil and I walked
her to the street. We were going to another apartment.
On the way, she said to me: ‘Marek, do you really believe
that?’ — ‘I do’, I answered. I was lying. Sonia had changed
something in me. I took on a different attitude to people -
not in my behaviour, definitely not – but in my actions and
interest […]’.
Marek
Edelman

Before the war, Sonia Nowogródzka and her husband were
Bund activists. Sonia’s son, Majus Nowogródzki, was one
of Marek Edelman’s best school friends. After the war,
he wrote a book about the history of Bund. Sonia died in
Treblinka in 1942.