Page 65 - Centrum Dialogu im. Marka Edelmana. Edelman. The Man

Thanks to Kazik Ratajzer’s help a group of insurgents led by
Marek Edelman managed to get out of the burning ghetto
through sewage canals. On 10 May, after 48 hours under
ground, they got out through a manhole at Prosta Street,
where a lorry was waiting to take them to the forests in
Łomianki. Edelman used to say that it was the beginning of
a new life.

Marek Edelman spent his first night on the Aryan side in
Stasia Rozensztajn’s apartment in Noakowskiego Street;
later he and his friends changed their hiding places and
finally, in the spring of 1944, the group, which included
Cywia, Stasia, Antek and others, found a shelter in an
apartment ‘covered for’ by Maria Sawicka. She was a Polish
liaison for the Jewish Combat Organization; she met Marek
Edelman before the war, as an active member of the ‘Skra’
sports club, which cooperated with the ‘Makabi’ club run by
Bund. After the war, she was awarded the Righteous among
the Nations title along with her sister Anna Wąchalska
and her nephew Stefan Siewierski (who was shot after the
operation to rescue the JCO combatants from the canals).