Alina Margolis-Edelman
Alina Margolis-Edelman | |
---|---|
Born | Alina Margolis 18 April 1922 Łódź, Poland |
Died | 23 March 2008 Paris, France | (aged 85)
Nationality | Polish / French |
Occupation | physician |
Years active | 1945-2008 |
Known for | humanitarianism |
Alina Margolis-Edelman (18 April 1922 – 23 March 2008) was a Polish physician,
Early life
Alina Margolis was born on 18 April 1922 in Łódź, Poland, to the Jewish physician
Margolis hid with a Polish family who were anti-Semitic and who believed that she was the daughter of a Polish officer who was a prisoner of war.[6] She worked as a courier for the Resistance and continued nursing in ghetto, becoming an integral part of the rescue efforts following the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.[5] The insurgency lasted three weeks, and consisted mostly of Jewish youth, led by a five-person command. One of the commanders, Marek Edelman, was the sole survivor of the leadership. When German troops burned the ghetto, Edelman attempted escape by way of the sewer system. Underground members, disguising themselves as Polish Red Cross workers, carried him out of the ghetto on a stretcher. One of the stretcher-bearers was Margolis. To ensure that no one would investigate too closely, the underground posted a sign on Edelman's body declaring him to have typhus, easily passing armed checkpoints.[7]
Before the war ended, Margolis and Edelman returned to Łódź, and were joined, when the war ended, by her mother and brother, John.[2][5] In mid-1945, Margolis and Edelman married, moved to the house which her family had occupied before the war, and she began her medical studies.[2]
Career
Completing her education, Margolis-Edelman became a
After five years of study, Margolis-Edelman re-earned her ability to practice medicine and became head of the chemistry department where she worked
During the 1981-1983 period of martial law in Poland, Margolis-Edelman supported the pro-democracy opposition. She organized internships abroad for Polish doctors, helped those who could not obtain treatment in Poland, and sent drugs and supplies to Polish hospitals, which were unable to obtain them at the time.[8] She helped found the Franco-Polish association "SOS Aide aux Malades Polonais", to assist Poles in obtaining treatment in France.[2] Around the same time, she served as president of the Literary Notebook Association (French: Les Cahiers Littéraires) and established the quarterly magazine Zeszyty Literackie in Paris.[2] In 1990, she returned to Poland and established an organization called Nobody's Children to care for victims of child abuse[1] and lobby for their protection.[8] During the Bosnian War, she co-founded a rape victim support center and a center in Saint Petersburg to care for street children.[2]
In 1994, Margolis-Edelman wrote a memoir about her pre-war and World War II experiences, Ala z Elementarza (later translated to English in 1998, as Ala from the Primer). The title was a reference of an earlier work by Marian Falski. As children, Margolis and her brother inspired Falski to write a widely-read early reading primer about two children, Ala and Olek. The title of Margolis-Edelman's memoir, referred to the earlier work's characters.[2][11] In 1997, Margolis-Edelman published another memoir, entitled Je ne le répéterai pas, je ne veux pas le répéter (I will not repeat it, I do not want to repeat it).[1] She was awarded the Cross of Valor for her humanitarian work and a knighthood by the Order of the Smile.[2]
Death and legacy
Margolis-Edelman died on 23 March 2008 in Paris,[1] and was buried in the Cimetière parisien de Bagneux. A symbolic gravesite was placed as a memorial to her at the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw.[2] In 2010, a documentary, The Girl From A Reading Primer, directed by Edyta Wróblewska and produced by Studio Filmowe Kalejdoskop, detailing Margolis-Edelman's life was released.[12] In 2011, an award named in her honor was established to recognize those who work to protect children.[2]
References
Citations
- ^ a b c d e f g Benkimoun 2008.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p Natorski 2016.
- ^ Rylko-Bauer 2014, p. 81.
- ^ Rylko-Bauer 2014, pp. 82–83.
- ^ a b c d Rylko-Bauer 2014, p. 83.
- ^ Kopp & Nizynska 2012, p. 144.
- ^ Hedges 2016, p. 100.
- ^ a b c d e f g Kamińska-Buzałek 2008.
- ^ van Pelt 2015, p. 95.
- ^ Rzeczycka 2008.
- ^ Rylko-Bauer 2014, p. 347.
- ^ Watch Docs International Film Festival 2010.
Bibliography
- Benkimoun, Paul (7 April 2008). "Alina Margolis-Edelman, docteur" [Alina Margolis-Edelman, Doctor] (in French). Paris, France: Le Monde. Retrieved 4 April 2017.
- Hedges, Chris (2016). Wages of Rebellion. New York, New York: Nation Books. ISBN 978-1-56858-542-0.
- Kamińska-Buzałek, Ewa (2008). "Alina Margolis-Edelman". Herstorie Poland (in Polish). Kraków, Poland: Women's History Archive. Archived from the original on 4 November 2016. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
- Kopp, Kristin; Nizynska, Joanna, eds. (2012). Germany, Poland and Postmemorial Relations: In Search of a Livable Past. New York, New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-1-137-05205-6.
- Natorski, Rafał (24 March 2016). "Alina Margolis-Edelman: misyjność miała w naturze" [Alina Margolis-Edelman: Was a Missionary by Nature]. Wirtualna Polska (in Polish). Warsaw, Poland. Archived from the original on 11 June 2016.
- Rzeczycka, Anna (4 April 2008). "Alina Margolis-Edelman, Wspomnienie pośmiertne" [Alina Margolis-Edelman, Posthumous Memorial]. RFI (in Polish). Paris, France: Radio France Internationale. Archived from the original on 8 June 2008. Retrieved 5 April 2017.
- Rylko-Bauer, Barbara (2014). A Polish Doctor in the Nazi Camps: My Mother's Memories of Imprisonment, Immigration, and a Life Remade. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press. ISBN 978-0-8061-4586-0.
- van Pelt, Robert Jan (2015). Lodz and Getto Litzmannstadt : promised land and croaking hole of Europe. Toronto, Ontario, Canada: Art Gallery of Ontario. ISBN 978-1-329-19527-1.
- "The Girl From A Reading Primer". Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights (in Polish and English). Warsaw, Poland: Watch Docs International Film Festival. 2010. Archived from the original on 5 April 2017.