Shielding the Flame: An Intimate Conversation With Dr. Marek Edelman, the Last Surviving Leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising [Hardcover]

Hanna Krall (Author), Joanna Stasinska (Translator), Lawrence Weschler (Translator)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

Krall, a prominent Polish journalist, awakened Polish consciousness of a common Polish-Jewish heritage through publication in the 1970s of this interview with Marek Edelman, a leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Germans. This is the work's first English edition. Through anecdotes and reflections these discussions explore not the events but the memory of them and provoke thought concerning the nature and meaning of the individual and the manner in which we judge human conduct. After the war Edelman became a cardiologist and he comments that, "when one knows death so well, one has more responsibility for life." Fine reading for the thoughtful as well as the student of the era. Rena Fowler, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Language Notes

Text: English, Polish (translation)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 124 pages
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company (August 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0030060028
• ISBN-13: 978-0030060021
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,440,425 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars First class account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising during WWII, April 14, 2008

By 

Eugene Tenenbaum "reluctant reader" (Bronx, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Shielding the Flame: An Intimate Conversation With Dr. Marek Edelman, the Last Surviving Leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Hardcover)

This book is the same as "To Outwit God" (accurate translation of the original) included in volumes with ISBN-10: 0810110504 and ISBN-10: 081011075X. It is a first class account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - a very small Jewish resistance during the Holocaust of World War II - from its only surviving leader. There is no better information on the subject. It was well written and reads smoothly, but the subject is... death.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Uncompromising, December 31, 2001

By 

Michael Eberstadt (New York, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Shielding the Flame: An Intimate Conversation With Dr. Marek Edelman, the Last Surviving Leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Hardcover)

This is a beautiful book that must be read over and over during different times in one's life. It is uncompromising and honest. It is about people, not characters. It will deliver as much as the reader is willing to receive.

5 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Informative Reflections on the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Aftermath, July 19, 2009

By 

Jan Peczkis "Scholar and Thinker" (Chicago IL, USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Shielding the Flame: An Intimate Conversation With Dr. Marek Edelman, the Last Surviving Leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Hardcover)

Krall's interview with Marek Edelman begins with how Poles and Jews have ignored each other's situation since WWII. However, she creates a symmetry that never existed. Polish books were never as strongly Polonocentric as Jewish books are Judeocentric. For example, history books written under Communism did individualize the Jews as victims, not merely "Polish citizens". On the other hand, Polish suffering is invisible in the vast majority of educational and popular Holocaust materials. [Perhaps the real objection is the fact that Polish books did not promote the notion that Jewish suffering was special, and above that of other peoples.]

The mother of ZOB leader Mordechai Anielewicz was a peddler who sold fish. She, or her son, would paint the gills of leftover fish with red coloring so that the fish would look fresh. (p. 4, 11, 14). This practice is also mentioned in other books, and one cannot help but wonder if it did not contribute to the notion of Jewish merchants being swindlers.

A large part of the reason for the Polish Underground being unwilling to support the ZOB more substantially owed to its taint of Communism. Though some ZOB leaders have tried to deny this, it does come through. Marek Edelman mentioned singing the Internationale on May Day during the Uprising. (pp. 71-72, 92). Jurek Wilner, another prominent ZOB member, tried to teach a nun about Marx while she was trying to teach him about God. (pp. 98-99).

Seldom-told details of the Uprising are told. For instance, the planners of the Uprising had not foreseen that the Germans would start massive fires as part of their strategy for quelling the Uprising. (p. 66). This, of course, greatly reduced the effectiveness of the elaborate shelters and hideouts that had been constructed. Furthermore, the Germans had sound-detection equipment to help locate hiding Jews. (p. 92).

AK (Polish Home Army) Zbigniew Mlynarski "Kret" and his group tried to aid the Uprising externally by exploding a hole in the ghetto wall so that the Jews could flee the ghetto en masse. (pp. 96-97). Unfortunately, they could not get close enough to the wall before they were thrown back with heavy casualties. Earlier, the BBC had delayed its reporting about the daily deportation of Jews to Treblinka not out of malevolence towards Jews, but because it would at first not believe the reports, and wanted confirmation from other sources. (p. 195).

After the war, Edelman became a cardiologist, and part of his conversation with Krall focuses on medical issues. Observations in the ghetto had included the course of starvation in humans. Interestingly, most of the organs shrank during the process, but the brain did not. The need to treat penetrating chest wounds during the war eventually led to the development of open-heart surgery after the war.