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Ex-Leader Recalls Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

[AP/Washington Post] Monika Scislowska - Marek Edelman, 89, a commander of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazi army, will lay a wreath in honor of the Jewish fighters on Saturday, the 65th anniversary of the uprising. On April 19, 1943, German troops started to liquidate the 400,000 Jews in the ghetto by sending tens of thousands to death camps. Several hundred young Jews took up arms - the first act of large-scale armed civilian resistance against the Germans in occupied Poland during World War II. Edelman said, "we fought to protect the people in the ghetto, to extend their life by a day or two or five." "There weren't enough guns, ammunition. There was not enough food, but we were not starving. You can live for three weeks just on water and sugar," which they found in the homes of those deported to death camps, he said. "It lasted for three weeks, so this great German army could not cope so easily with those 220 boys and girls," he said with a grain of pride. "No one believed he would be saved," Edelman said. "We knew that the struggle was doomed, but it showed the world that there is resistance against the Nazis, that you can fight the Nazis."
2008-04-18 01:00:00
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