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Marek Edelman
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The Ghetto Fights: Warsaw 1943-45 Paperback – April 2, 2014

by Marek Edelman (Author)
4.9 out of 5 stars 12 ratings
This remarkable memoir by Marek Edelman, member of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance five-person command team, tells first-hand of the struggle of Warsaw's Jews against the Nazis in the spring of 1943. 70th Anniversary edition, with a new introduction by John Rose. Marek Edelman. Bookmarks, 2013.
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  1. Print length
    100 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Bookmarks Publications
  4. Publication date
    April 2, 2014
  5. Dimensions
    5.08 x 0.35 x 7.83 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1909026395
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1909026391
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Bookmarks Publications; UK ed. edition (April 2, 2014)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 100 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1909026395
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1909026391
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.1 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.08 x 0.35 x 7.83 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.9 out of 5 stars 12 ratings

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Marek Edelman

Marek Edelman

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4.9 out of 5 stars
12 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

  • Camy
    5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible Story of Courage
    Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2024
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    We are so fortunate to have an eyewitness account from one of the leaders of the greatest-- and incredible--uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. This amazing account along with the uprising in Treblinka and Sobibor camps eliminate any doubt that the Jewish people went to their death without a fight. And what a fight!
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  • Edward M. Janes
    5.0 out of 5 stars A short yet searing account of the experiences of the ...
    Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2015
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    A short yet searing account of the experiences of the resistance of the Bund and ZOB, et al in the Warsaw Ghetto. Edelman gives the reader a detailed and heart wrenching account of what happened at the "Umschlagplatz" where hundreds of thousands of Jews were loaded onto cattle cars and then transported to the gas chambers to certain death. The book provides us with rare insights into the desperate conditions (mostly after Jan 1943) of the Ghetto but also documents heroic accounts (many barely adults) to resist an army that had to that point, defeated the armies of most of Europe.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • N. Larkin
    5.0 out of 5 stars Not all went quietly to their deaths
    Reviewed in the United States on February 23, 2022
    “Now it is the turn of France. The victory of fascism in this country would signify a vast strengthening of reaction, and a monstrous growth of violent anti-Semitism in all the world, above all in the United States. The number of countries that expel the Jews grows without cease. The number of countries able to accept them decreases. At the same time the exacerbation of the struggle intensifies. It is possible to imagine without difficulty what awaits the Jews at the mere outbreak of the future world war. But even without war the next development of world reaction signifies with certainty the physical extermination of the Jews.”—Leon Trotsky “Appeal to American Jews menaced by fascism and anti-Semitism,” December 1938 in ‘On the Jewish Question.’

    “The high percentage of Jews in the proletarian movement is only a reflection of the tragic situation of the Jewish people in our time. The intellectual faculties of the Jews, fruit of the historic past of Judaism, are thus an important support for the proletarian movement.

    “In this latter fact lies a final—and not the least important—reason for modern anti-Semitism. The ruling classes persecute with special sadism the Jewish intellectuals and workers, who have supplied a host of fighters to the revolutionary movement. To isolate the Jews completely from the sources of culture and science has become a vital necessity for the decaying system that persecutes them. The ridiculous legend of “Jewish Marxism” is nothing but a caricature of the bonds that actually exist between socialism and the Jewish masses.” --Abram Leon in ‘The Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation.’

    This gem is a short book by Marek Edelman, a militant of the General Jewish Labor Bund; one of the few surviving central leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He also took part in the citywide 1944 Warsaw Uprising with the other surviving members of the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization). (After the war he stayed in Poland, went to medical school, becoming a cardiologist. He was a member of Solidarity).

    The Nazis had already deported most of the Jews from the ghetto to the death camps before it was possible to start resistance. For one thing they had no weapons, but more importantly most Jews refused to believe that the German soldiers were sending them to their deaths. The majority followed the Judenrat (Jewish Administration) which carried out the orders of the German occupiers through the Jewish Police, who helped the Nazis loading the cattle cars to Auschwitz and elsewhere. Israel Gutman, the author of ‘Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising’ writes that “The behavior of the Judenrat in Warsaw during the Holocaust has always been a matter of considerable controversy.” To me, it’s not an academic question, but a class question. When resistance started, the Jewish Police were the first targets, and rightly so.

    By 1942, the Jewish Bund had been able to prove to people what was actually happening, and to obtain from their comrades in the left-wing of the Polish Socialist Party and other sources their first weapons, mostly pistols. Later they got larger pistols, a few rifles, one machine gun, and they manufactured grenades and Molotov cocktails. In the fight they captured some German weapons. Armed Polish resistance hadn’t started yet. Together with other groups, mostly left-Zionists, they formed the ZOB—at a time when there were only 60,000 Jews (down from 300,000). Those Jews left in the Warsaw Ghetto were mostly working class. Full-scale rebellion didn’t start until April 1943. Despite their limited weaponry and lack of experience, the Jewish socialist partisans fought fiercely. The German troops in desperation tried to burn the entire ghetto, but resistance continued. Edelman writes,

    “On May Day the Command decided to carry out a ‘holiday’ action. Several battle groups were sent out to ‘hunt down’ the greatest number of Germans possible. In the evening, a May Day roll-call was held. The partisans were briefly addressed by a few people and the ‘Internationale’ was sung. The entire world, we knew, was celebrating May Day on that day and everywhere forceful, meaningful words were being spoken. But never yet had the ‘Internationale’ been sung in conditions so different, so tragic, in a place where an entire nation had been and still was perishing. The words and the song echoed from the charred ruins and were, at that particular time, an indication that Socialist youth was still fighting in the Ghetto, and that even in the face of death they were not abandoning their ideals.”

    Essential to understanding what fascism is and how it could have been prevented by the Communist Party if it had had a leadership like in the days of Lenin is Trotsky’s ‘The Struggle against Fascism in Germany.’ But I recommend for starters a book by Daniel Guerin, in part based on Trotsky’s writings, but a research work rather than a book of polemics, ‘Fascism and Big Business.’
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Top reviews from other countries

  • H. Roche
    5.0 out of 5 stars Factual, essential
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 16, 2017
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    A cool telling of the facts. Edelman doesn't give much of himself away, and this is not a very personal memoir; but essential reading for anyone with a particular interest in the Warsaw Ghetto.
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  • eastern barbarian
    5.0 out of 5 stars Small but really good book. Marek Edelman has a really interesting way ...
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 10, 2017
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    Small but really good book. Marek Edelman has a really interesting way of writing, the story is incredibly moving and an important part of history to learn.
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