Marek Edelman (born January 1, 1919, died October 2, 2009) – cardiologist, member of the Jewish Combat Organization and the Bund, participant in two Warsaw Uprisings, Knight of the Order of the White Eagle.
He is believed to have been born on January 1, 1919, in Gomel. His parents, Natan Feliks and Cecylia (née Percowska), were associated with the socialist community and the Bund party. After Natan Feliks's death in the late 20s, the family moved to Warsaw, where Cecylia served as secretary of the Bund's women's organization, JAF (Yidisze Arbeter Froj, Yiddish for Jewish Working Woman). Her son belonged to the Socjalistiszer Kinder Farband, a children's organization affiliated with the same party. After losing his mother in 1934, young Edelman was taken under the wing of her party comrades, a process that shaped his attitude and value system for life.
In 1939, he passed his secondary school leaving exams and joined the Cukunft Youth Union, and then the Bund. After the outbreak of World War II, he headed east with friends, but before Brest, Edelman returned to the capital. He was involved in the resistance, editing the Cukunft underground press. He found work as a messenger at the Bersohn and Bauman Hospital. His leave to leave the ghetto—to carry blood samples and medical records from the station to the Hygiene Office on Nowogrodzka Street—allowed him to deliver messages beyond the wall and contact Bundists hiding on the so-called Aryan side. He himself never chose to go into hiding.
In 1942, he joined the Jewish Combat Organization. During the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, he commanded five ŻOB combat groups in the so-called brushmakers' workshop in the area of Świętojerska, Bonifraterska, Franciszkańska, and Wałowa Streets. On May 9, Edelman and a group of insurgents escaped through the sewers to the so-called Aryan side through a manhole on Prosta Street, from where they were transported by truck to the Łomża forests. He fought in the Warsaw Uprising in the ranks of the People's Army, in a ŻOB platoon, in the Old Town and Żoliborz districts.
After the war, he settled in Łódź and began medical studies. In 1945, the Bund Central Committee published his account, "The Ghetto Fights."
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