Was there love in the ghetto?

Franciszek Bojańczyk will talk about the relationships of Marek Edelman and Alina Margolis-Edelman, Pola Lifszyc, Gela Seksztajn and Izrael Lichtensztajn.

• 19 April (Tuesday), 10 AM
• POLIN Museum Facebook profile, and YouTube channel >>
• Original idea and narration: Franciszek Bojańczyk, Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw
• The event is in Polish with English subtitles. Adjust your CC.

Love is the leitmotif of this year’s edition of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Campaign. At the most difficult moments, it was love that helped retain dignity, humanity, and sometimes even saved lives. During wartime, and especially at the time of the Uprising, while the ghetto was burning, the power of interpersonal relations was being tested. It was love—the word we often take with a wink of an eye as naïve—that drove people to perform heroic deeds, charging them with determination and energy to act.

This year we want to focus precisely on the emotional motivation which made people perform these acts of heroism. We will talk about the relation between Marek Edelman and Alina Margolis-Edelman, and about Alina’s devotion to children for whom fate was all but kind. We will also talk about Pola Lifszyc, the one who ran after her mother being led to Umschlagplatz so that they could die together.