"Marek Edelman. Życie. Po prostu." by Witold Bereś and Krzysztof Burnetko.

I have read this 500 page book in Polish. The English title is "Marek Edelman: Simply A Life". A 30 minute DVD is included with the book. It shows Edelman being interviewed by the authors for the book.

This book is for you if you are looking for a first hand account of what the relations between different groups of Jews and Poles were in pre-war Poland, during the war, and after.

This book tells the story of the first Warsaw uprising - the Ghetto uprising - as it was: without pathos. It is a shocking story, but told without big words or hatred.


This book also tells a more general story. This book is for you if you are looking for inspiration how to live your life. What is important.


A few quotes by Marek Edelman:

"In life, those who let others live, are right."

"In principle, life is most important. And if you live, then the most important thing is freedom. And then you give life for freedom. And then you don't know what is most important."

"I am a Polish Jew, but Ala [wife] and all Jews think that I am a disgusting polonophile, and that I have a character of a Pole. But I think that patriotism is disgusting. I would never say about myself that I am a patriot - I am a patriot of the idea of freedom everywhere."

And finally:

"In life, I like caviar and beautiful girls."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek_Edelman

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2025.05.29 update: 

Marek Edelman is an exemplary person, a hero, but even he had skeletons in his closet. During the interview he said in passing that before the war he too took part in scamming of the farmers coming to Warsaw. The interviewers didn't ask him to explain. 

2025.06.12 update:

Another thing that I remembered in view of the lies that sometimes show up on the internet: Poland did not expel Jews in 1968. The communist party's "anti-Zionist" campaign affected Polish Jews, including Marek Edelman, but it did not forcefully expel them from the country. Instead, many lost their government jobs, including Edelman, and were told they could apply to leave the country. This was completely voluntary. If someone took up that offer, and many people, not only Jews, desperately wanted to leave communist Poland - in 1970 there were 20 attempted hijackings of passenger planes - to escape to the West, they would have to sell their possessions, and they would be given a one-way travel document. Edelman, if I remember correctly, got some other job thanks to a friend, and in less than a year, when the campaign ended, got back his original job at the hospital.