[To Marek Edelman "never again" meant "never again for
anyone." It was a statement of human solidarity, not a license to
commit mass murder of those you fear or wish to dispossess.]
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NEVER AGAIN MEANS NEVER AGAIN – FOR ANYONE – JEWISH VOICE FOR
PEACE  
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Damon Silvers
October 13, 2023
Friday's Labor Folklore
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_ To Marek Edelman "never again" meant "never again for anyone." It
was a statement of human solidarity, not a license to commit mass
murder of those you fear or wish to dispossess. _

,

 

On October 13, 2023 I posted the above message on my FaceBook page. I
received this comment from Damon Silvers:

I once had lunch with Marek Edelman. He was the Labor Military
Commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. A few hundred young Jews with
pistols and gasoline bombs against the entire German army. And they
held them off for a month.

The 50,000 starving people who remained after months of deportation
and mass murder tried to hide in bunkers. The Germans decided they
would rather not fight it out in the maze of buildings and tunnels and
bunkers that the Jewish resistance had created and they simply ringed
the ghetto with artillery and flattened it. Twenty-eight (28) fighters
survived by crawling out through the sewers. Edelman was one. He
escaped to the forests, joined the partisans there, and kept fighting.

In the 1980's, after a career as a heart surgeon, he became
a labor activist again, in the Polish trade union
movement Solidarnosc. A young Polish journalist asked him, "what
does it mean to be a Jew?"  He answered "To be a Jew is to be on the
side of the weak."

In 2002, when Hamas was organizing suicide bombings in Israel and
Israel was bombing apartment buildings in Gaza, Edelman wrote to the
leadership of Hamas. Here is the full letter
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He wrote--

"To all leaders of Palestinian military, paramilitary and guerrilla
organizations; to all soldiers of Palestinian militant groups:

My name is Marek Edelman. I am a former Deputy Commander of the Jewish
Military Organization in Poland and one of the leaders of the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising. In the memorable year of 1943 we fought for the
survival of the Jewish community in Warsaw. We fought for mere life,
not for territory, nor for a national identity. We fought with
hopeless determination, but our weapons were never directed against
the defenseless civilian population, we never killed women and
children. In the world devoid of principles and values, despite a
constant danger of death, we did remain faithful to these values and
moral principles.

We were isolated in our fight, and yet the powerful opposing army was
not able to destroy these barely armed boys and girls. Our fight in
Warsaw lasted several weeks, and later we fought in the partisan
groups and in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944.

Yet nowhere in the world can urban guerrilla force bring a conclusive
victory, but it cannot be defeated by well-armed armies either. And
this war will not bring any resolution. Blood will be spilled in vain
and lives will be lost on both sides."

He was trashed in the Israeli press for addressing the Palestinians
armed groups respectfully, as people engaged in the same kind of
struggle he had been. And yet he wrote to them to point out that NO
CIRCUMSTANCE justified the mass murder of civilians.

To Marek Edelman "never again" meant "never again for anyone." It was
a statement of human solidarity, not a license to commit mass murder
of those you fear or wish to dispossess.

Marek Edelman remained in Poland all his life. He refused to leave the
country of his birth and at his death the Polish military high command
carried his coffin. I have read that the Israeli ambassador did not
attend. I don't know if that is true or not but I do know that Marek
Edelman would recognize what it means to cut 2 million people, most
civilians and half under 18, off from food and water and bombard them
with jets and artillery. 

That is not how you be on the side of the weak.

And if you are young and Jewish and you don't feel right about what is
being done in your name, but feel like you are all alone, you are not.
Marek Edelman, the best of us, the bravest, he is with you.

-- Damon Silvers was formerly Policy Director of the AFL-CIO and is
now a Visiting Professor of Practice at University College London and
a Senior Advisor to labor unions in the US and the UK. The views
expressed herein are his personal views alone.

Zog Nit Keyn Mol
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(Never Say)

Lyrics by Hirsh Glick (1943)
Inspired by the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Friday's Labor Folklore
Saul Schniderman, Editor

Photos: Wikipedia

* Warsaw Ghetto uprising
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* Israel
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* Palestine
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