On Jan. 18, 1943, an organized insurgency of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto lead by Bundists (Socialists), Zionists, and Communists engaged Nazi troops send to organize a mass deportation in armed combat. The two main Jewish military groups ultimately numbered between 400 to 1000 fighters, women and men, armed with smuggled pistols, grenades, Molotov cocktails and what we today call IEDs. They had a handful of rifles as well. To their credit the rising received the support of the gentile Polish Nationalist Home Army outside the Ghetto as well. The insurgents managed to hold out until April 29, almost _four_ months, against 2000 (freshly relieved and well fed) Nazi troops a day, including 6 SS battalions under the command of SS Brigadefuehrer (Major General) Juergen Stroop ("Operation Reinhard," documented in Stroop's horrific report, available in English as The Stroop Report' he was hanged at Nuremberg.) Fires set by the Nazis or starting in the fighting
finally drove the last surviving few fighters outside the Ghetto walls.
Edelman, a cofounder of the Jewish Conbat Organization, one of two chief units to lead the battle, was a Bundist. He also participated in the disastrous Warsaw Uprising of 1944 as a member of the People's Army. (No fear of death he!) He was a cardiologist and remained in Poland until his death. In 1980 he joined Solidarnosc in opposition to the Communist military coup
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091002/ap_on_re_eu/eu_poland_edelman_obit
Honor his memory. A great man is gone.
Andie