A Doctor of the World and a Human without Frontiers

Alina Margolis-Edelman

EMPOWERING CHILDREN

“She battled poverty, injustice, diseases, and death. She never gave up, and she was never disheartened by failures”. Agnieszka Holland

After 1989, Alina Margolis-Edelman started to visit Poland regularly. She established the Office of Social Initiatives in Warsaw and the Polish bureau of Doctors of the World. In 1991, together with a group of social activists, she founded the Nobody’s Children foundation, which addressed the issue of violence against children – at that time, this problem was largely neglected in Poland. The foundation has since changed its name to Empowering Children and provides medical care, psychological assistance, and legal counsel to children suffering from abuse and maltreatment, and to their caregivers. Alina Margolis’ associates recall that she always planned ahead and thought big, her approach being strategic, rather than emotional. She preferred long-term solutions over spontaneous bursts of enthusiasm. She always managed to find people who bought into her ideas, and these have grabbed traction in Poland: the foundation is still run by some of the people who co-founded it with Alina, including Monika Sajkowska, chairwoman of the board, and Maria Keller-Hamela, vice-chairwoman of the board. Between 1991 and 1994, Alina traveled to Russia, with a view to establishing a similar foundation in Sankt-Petersburg, which would be helping street children. Unfortunately, the idea did not catch on. In the mid-1990s, Alina wrote an autobiography, entitled Ala from the Reading Primer, which has since had multiple editions and translations. Around that time, she started to hold regular meetings with youngsters to share with them her wartime experiences, and she spent more and more time in Poland. In 1999, she received the Order of the Smile, an international distinction awarded for efforts toward raising children’s smiles. She was full of ideas to keep changing the world.

Alina Margolis-Edelman died in Paris on 23 March 2008. Three years later, her memorial prize was founded, which is annually awarded to people who help children. None of those close to Alina have any doubts as to where she would be today: she would be helping the defenders of Ukraine, and she would be most definitely working at the Polish-Belarusian border, saving refugees.

Photo caption: Alina Margolis loved hiking in the mountains… and she loved children

Photo caption: With her closest associates from the Nobody’s Children Foundation: Monika Sajkowska and Maria Keller

Photo caption: Alina drinking lemon juice at the Order of the Smile award ceremony

Photo caption: Alina and Marek Edelman with their grandson Tomek, France

Photo caption: Alina with her daughter Anna and granddaughter Liza, Paris, 1990s

Photo caption: The Edelmans at the airport

Photo caption: Anna Edelman, Zofia Lipecka, and Aleksander Edelman during an anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 2005

Photo caption: For some time, the Edelman family would meet every year on 19 April during official commemorations of the Warsaw ghetto events

Photo caption: Alina giving students of the Gliwice "School Full of Character" a tour of the area of the former Warsaw ghetto during an annual commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 2006

Photo caption: Alina Margolis-Edelman and Marek Edelman’s daughter Anna with her son Tomasz, daughter Liza, and grandchildren: Nina, Mateusz, and Mareczek, Paris 2018

“I never did anything alone. I was always surrounded by people devoted to the cause, who were additionally very modest”.

“When Łódź suffered from a diarrhea epidemic and newborn children were dropping like flies, IV treatment was introduced, and I was with them around the clock. This was my mission: to save children’s lives whatever the cost. Marek, too, only fully focuses on those patients who are already knocking on heaven’s door. Whether we got this kind of sensitivity from the ghetto, I don’t know”.

“Here, in France, they call me Polonaise, but do I feel Polish? I don’t know. What I do know for sure is that I’m not French. I have many Polish friends and I speak to my children in Polish only. When I’m in Poland, I feel like I had never left. Warsaw is more of my home than Paris is. Julian Tuwim once wrote this letter, We, the Polish Jews, in which he explains why he is Jewish and Polish at the same time. His explanation is poetic and beautiful. There is no contradiction here, the two are not at odds. If it wasn’t for my grandchildren, I would perhaps go back. Now, I am nowhere – not here, not there”.

“Ala always gave all she had to everyone else, but the world rarely responded in kind. That’s how she was, she never expected anything in return. It’s brilliant that her students and friends came up with the idea of founding her memorial award, and it is as brilliant that there are people worthy of the honor.”

Joanna Muszkowska-Penson

“We can only wish we could be like Ala. To leave such a mark in people’s hearts and minds, to have such an effect on the lives of so many – that means changing the world for the better”.

Agnieszka Holland

Read carefully what Alina Margolis-Edelman said about herself. Who was she? Who did she feel she was? In your opinion, why did neither Poland nor France ever feel fully like home to her? What is your reaction to how people who knew Alina speak about her life and work? Look for information about the Empowering Children Foundation and the people who have so far received the Alina Margolis-Edelman memorial award.

A Doctor of the World and a Human without Frontiers

Alina Margolis-Edelman

The Doctors Of The World

 “If bestialities should be covered up, I promise to bear witness to them. If barbarity should be reborn, I vow to fight it”

Doctors of the World European Declaration

In the mid-1970s, Alina Margolis-Edelman joined an international organization called Doctors without Frontiers, and in 1980, she co-founded a sister charity organization in France, called Doctors of the World. In order to help other people, especially children, she traveled to different corners of the globe: she worked on hospital ships, which rescued refugees from communist Vietnam in the South China Sea (the so-called boat people), she helped set up a pediatric hospital during the civil war in Chad, and saved the children of victims of the war in Lebanon. For five years, she was in charge of a Doctors of the World mission in war-torn El Salvador, where she established clinics for mothers and their children. Years later, it turned out that some of the girls born around that time were named Alina. Since her command of Spanish was now decent, she was sent to Guatemala and Mexico, where she helped set up a hospital for Native Americans in the Chiapas state. During the civil war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, she co-founded a support center for victims of rapes, built a field hospital in mountain caves, and helped both the Hutu and the Tutsi in Rwanda. As she explained, “We are always on the victims’ side”.

In 1980, during the period of the so-called “Solidarity” carnival, and then after the imposition of the martial law in Poland, Alina focused on her homeland. Since the borders were closed, Polish hospitals suffered from shortages of wound care products, medications, as well as ingredients necessary for their manufacture. Very often, hospitals were only operational thanks to handouts sent from France. Alina Margolis-Edelman helped organize transports of medications and medical equipment, as well as those of clothes and food. During the martial law, printing equipment for the “Solidarity” movement was smuggled among the medications. She arranged courses of treatment in France for those patients who required medical procedures unavailable in Poland. She co-founded a French-Polish association called SOS Aide aux Malades Polonais (Aiding the Sick in Poland), which facilitated the treatment of Polish patients abroad. Her associates recall that she never gave up. She would send the necessary medication to Poland following individual requests. She convinced Danielle Mitterand, wife of the French president, to join in the effort to help Polish children. In the 1980, Alina was active in the émigré circles of former “Solidarity” members, and her Paris flat was a transit hotel for Polish émigrés, whom she helped to pull themselves together. Her commitment and determination were extraordinary and commanded great respect.

*Doctors without Borders, an international organization providing medical relief all over the world, was founded in 1971. In 1980, some of its doctors branched off and founded Doctors of the World. Both organizations provide medical assistance during humanitarian crises, to victims of natural and man-disasters, and to victims of military conflicts. They help all the needy, regardless of their race, religion, or political beliefs. Additionally, Doctors of the World place emphasis on fighting exclusion and human rights violation.

Photo caption: Margolis-Edelman on a Doctors of the World mission in Guatemala, 1985 or 1986

Photo caption: A Doctors of the World ID card, in which Alina Margolis misrepresented her age by 10 years, so she would be eligible for another mission

Photo caption: Alina Margolis wearing a sweater with a “Solidarity” sign, on a ship in the South China Sea during a rescue mission to help the boat people, 1982

– Humanitarian aid efforts in Vietnam, 1982

Photo caption: Alina Margolis, a Doctor of the World, in El Salvador, where she was in charge of a mission between 1983 and 1988

Photo caption: In the mountains of Afghanistan, where Doctors of the World set up a field hospital for the local people, 1987

Photo caption: Alina on a mission in Chad, 1983

Photo caption:  Providing first aid to the locals, Mexico

Photo caption: With a group of volunteers in El Salvador, 1987

In France, she committed herself to work on behalf of the community, first in Doctors without Borders, and then in Doctors of the World. When her children were older, she would travel to places where military conflicts were in progress – such as El Salvador, Vietnam, or former Yugoslavia – to save people’s lives in Samaritan fashion. Then, she could work as a doctor, because this was outside France. Joanna Muszkowska-Penson

In Łódź, I was a rising star of pediatrics, and suddenly, I found myself miles behind junior doctors. Subjects such as biology or biochemistry were not yet on the curriculum back home, so I had to roll up my sleeves and study hard. Whenever a student asked me a difficult question, I replied, ‘Perhaps one of you would like to answer that?’, and there was always some student who knew what I did not. Finally, they gave me my own ward: hemodialysis. But my colleagues from Łódź, who took their first steps when I did, were already professors. Career-wise, it was a complete disaster. Doctors without Borders helped me stay sane. I took all the vacations I was entitled to, and I would leave for 6 or 7 weeks.

After the war, when I worked at the hospital in Łódź, I could feel that I was needed, and I felt it again when I worked for Doctors of the World. Now, people are lining up to join a humanitarian mission abroad. This is not a matter of vocation, like in the case of mother Theresa – this is a matter of helping yourself. I remember our conversations in Chad – each of my colleagues had just gone through a trauma, either work-related, or someone’s wife had dumped him. If I hadn’t traveled with them, emigration would have sucked me in.

In the second half of the 1980s, I was in Afghanistan. We set up an underground hospital. Each province was ruled by a leader who was in conflict with everyone else. It was not uncommon that the tables turned, and yesterday’s victims were today’s butchers, and then, we faced a dilemma. We had agreed that we would always be on the victims’ side. In Rwanda, we helped the Hutu when they were being butchered by the Tutsi, and when the situation had reversed, we aided the Tutsi.

My mother joined Doctors without Borders and traveled around the world, saving children. She went through horrors, but because she was very modest, she never complained to me or  my sister. It was only in her twilight years that she opened up about it. She sailed the South China Sea on a ship called “L’ Ile Lumiere” – “The Island of Light”. They rescued the Vietnamese who were fleeing their communist homeland on rafts. Terrible stuff happened there – pirates raped women and threw newborns overboard. When my mother returned from Chad, which was torn by a civil war, she said it had been as bad as the ghetto, meaning that newborn babies were dying, and they didn’t have enough medications. So the man in charge of the mission would say, “Let go, this one is not making it. Go help those who still can”. Some terrible choices, these.

Aleksander Edelman

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Would you have it in you to go on a humanitarian mission to a war-torn country? What character traits would it take? What is your interpretation of Alina Margolis-Edelman’s words that helping others is a way of helping yourself?

A Doctor of the World and a Human without Frontiers

Alina Margolis-Edelman

EMIGRATING TO FRANCE

In 1968, an antisemitic campaign began in Poland. History books recorded it as the “March events”. With the consent of the communist authorities, supported by the state-controlled media, every effort was made to discourage the citizens of Jewish origins from living in Poland. Ethnicity became grounds for dismissal at work or expulsion from the university, as well as for receiving nasty treatment from neighbors and acquaintances. Marek Edelman’s university habilitation was rejected, and Alina Margolis was not even cleared for applying. Edelman lost his job at the hospital and was killing time at home. At his wife’s request, he started writing his ghetto memoirs, which he dedicated to Alina (the book was only released in 2017). Many of their friends decided to leave Poland*, and the Edelmans were considering their options. Alina wanted to go – she knew France and the French language and was sure they would manage. Marek was of the opinion that they should stay, and Alina’s mother was on his side – she knew from experience how difficult emigration was. Aleksander – who had already come of age – did not want to leave, either. Alina stuck to her guns. “It was all about the children”, she later explained. When she went to work abroad for the first time, at the invitation of a professor specializing in diabetes, she only took Ania. They returned a few months later. However, Aleksander recalls that soon afterward, hell broke loose at home again. Apparently, someone at school asked Ania, ‘Why have you returned?’ Alina emigrated with the children in 1971. Marek Edelman stayed in Poland. As he explained in an interview, “We never divorced. Ala wanted to go, so she did. She was afraid. She had nothing to do here, and she was mentally broke”. Alina was bitter about it, saying, “This was convenient for him”. She had to fend for herself abroad and found it very challenging. She was already 50: as an eminent doctor back in Poland, she was not even cleared for practice in France, because at that time, diplomas issued by Polish universities were not recognized abroad. Aleksander began studies and Ania went to school. Her friend Zosia visited them for their first Easter abroad and stayed, and many years later, she married Aleksander. They lived in difficult conditions, in a tiny flat, but they pulled together. Their place was always busy, as they were frequently visited by guests from Poland. Alina found a job at a laboratory, worked night shifts, and had to take extra exams, which was frustrating. She sought refuge in charity work for the Doctors without Frontiers foundation, established in France in 1971. Now, she could help children at different corners of the globe.

Between 1968 and 1971, following the antisemitic smear campaign, around 15,000 citizens of Jewish origins left Poland, including 1,300 from Łódź. Many of them were specialists in their respective fields, such as medicine, academia, movie industry, or art. Most of them never returned to Poland.

What was my biggest regret? A broken home, mostly, and the work I couldn’t continue. I haven’t fully gotten over it since.

They didn’t fire me, they just didn’t let me complete my habilitation, but it’s something you can do without. Children were the problem. Ania was crying at night, because they told her at school that we had black blood and would go to hell. Once, she screamed, ‘Everything is better than being called Edelman’, and it wasn’t even close to, say, Rosenkranz. And then, there was psychosis all around. We would go for a walk with Marek and we kept talking about it all the time, and then mom would come and sit at my bedside and hold me, because I was shaking so much.

Kids at the kindergarten called my daughter, ‘Jaw, jaw’, because they couldn’t even pronounce the word ‘Jew’ properly, but they already knew it was an insult. She would stand on the hill on a playground all alone, because the parents of the other children didn’t let them play with her. What was I supposed to tell her? Or my son? That he wouldn’t be admitted to the university because he was a Jew? And then, there was my wife, who was victimized at work. They had no other way out. And under the circumstances, it was actually easier for me to have a family on the other side of the wall. Marek Edelman

The first years in exile were a nightmare comparable to the ghetto. I got a job as a lab assistant: I cut rats’ heads off. That was so not my thing. I had to work shifts and I was never at home. When I came back, Ania would stand on a staircase, crying, and I had to face it alone. I would tell Marek, ‘I bit more than I can chew’, but his reply was, ‘It’s too late for second thoughts now, you can’t just mess with the children’s heads like this’.

France was the worst country you could emigrate to. Back then, they wouldn’t validate our diplomas. But thanks to my upbringing, I could speak French, so I had something to build on. Plus, the French were very kind to me: one girl from the lab gave me plates, some doctor got me two armchairs. On the other hand, not one of my many friends from the Łódź clinic sent me a single letter.

I paid a visit to Ala. They lived in terrible conditions. The three children slept on the floor, side by side, and she was still trying to take care of her mother, who had stayed in Łódź and lived off her pension. Ala managed to help her because whatever she sent in the foreign currency represented a decent amount when converted to Polish zlotys. But she couldn’t tell her this was a handout, because her mother would have refused it. So, she convinced her that some journal in pediatrics wanted to publish her articles. Her mother would write something and got her ostensible compensation, which Alina apportioned from her own modest resources. Joanna Muszkowska-Penson

• Photo caption: Before leaving for France, Alina Margolis-Edelman was a top Polish doctor, here pictured taking a moment’s rest during a shift at the Janusz Korczak hospital in Łódź, 1960s.
• Photo caption: Ania and Aleksander were gradually getting used to Paris and France, early 1970s.
• Photo caption: Alina Margolis-Edelman with Ania and her friend Zosią, Aleksander’s future wife, Paris, early 1970s.
• Photo caption: Marek Edelman would sometimes visit his family in Paris, late 1970s.
• Photo caption: A Paris underground family ticket, 1985.
• Photo caption: Tamara Kołakowska and Leszek Kołakowski with the Edelmans in Paris, 1980

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Look for information about the March 1968 events. If you were to find yourself in the Edelmans’ shoes, would you leave your country, or would you stay, despite all the vitriol and adversity? What is the hardest part about being an émigré, in your opinion? How would you characterize Alina based on the decisions she made?

A Doctor of the World and a Human without Frontiers

Alina Margolis-Edelman

ALIVE AGAIN

The war was yet to end when Alina Margolis and her mom returned to Łódź. Soon, she was joined by Marek Edelman. The couple took up residence in Mostowa street (presently Zelwerowicza street) and enrolled in medical studies. Actually, it was Alina who enrolled both of them, but Marek did not oppose. During the first few months, in the evenings, Marek dictated to Alina a report from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which was released in November 1945 in Łódź as Getto walczy [The Ghetto Fights]. At the same time, they were also looking for Elżunia, daughter of the late Zygmunt Frydrych, one of the ghetto fighters. They found her and brought her to Łódź. Her stay was supposed to be brief, but her departure was delayed. The girl started to get used to them and even addressed Alina as “mom”. But in 1946, the couple took Elżunia to Sweden, where she was welcomed by her family, who had come from New York to adopt the orphaned girl saved from the Shoah. Poland suffered from postwar poverty and did not offer a sense of security. Alina and Marek spent two months on a foreign journey: traveling from Sweden, they visited Belgium, France, and Italy. In all those places, people tried to persuade them to stay, but they returned to Poland, where they believed their future was.

In the years immediately after the war, Łódź served as Poland’s capital, because Warsaw was demolished. Political and cultural life in the city was in full swing. The youth wanted to reclaim some of the time which the war had taken from them, so they studied, played politics, partied, and started families. At that time, the Edelmans’ inner circle included Tamara Kołakowska and Leszek Kołakowski. Tamara was a medical student, while Leszek studied philosophy. Soon, he became assistant to Prof. Tadeusz Kotarbiński, the first president of the University of Łódź. Back then, Kołakowski was an ardent Marxist and organized political talks for students. Alina secretly attended them and even planned to join the communist party, but Marek stopped her – he had already seen communism for what it was. He was repeatedly summoned by the public security service and interrogated for long hours. Work was their distraction from communism.

Both graduated and went on to become brilliant doctors: Marek was a cardiologist, and Alina, following in her mother’s footsteps, became a pediatrician. The couple married in 1951 and their son, Aleksander, was born the same year. Five years later, they had a daughter, Ania.

Alina specialized in treating diabetes in children and broke new grounds in that field in Poland. She made a number of trips to France to educate herself still further, and then opened a clinic for diabetic children in Rabka. She also organized camps, during which she taught children how to administer insulin. Her own children were jealous, because she spent more time with her little patients than she did at home, and Aleksander even learned how to inject himself to emulate them. Alina later admitted that she had not been a very good mother, because she had devoted more time to her work than to her children. The only exception was the holiday season: in the summer, the Edelmans would go to the lakeside, and in the winter, they would ski in the mountains. After one of Alina’s visits to France, the family bought a car, a German P70, whose body was made of plywood. By the Polish standards, this was a luxury, but Aleksander recalls that the family was not exactly flush with cash.

Photo caption: Alina Margolis and Marek Edelman in Monte Carlo, 1946

Photo caption: Tamara Kołakowska and Leszek Kołakowski were some of the Edelmans’ closest friends. Photos taken in Wisła in 1950.

Photo caption: Alina Margolis and her colleagues from the children’s hostpital in Łódź

Photo caption: A camp for diabetic children, pictured practicing insulin injections on a teddy bear, Kołobrzeg 1959

Photo caption: Alina and her children on vacation, 1960s

Photo caption: Little Aleksander with his beloved dog, mid-1950s

Photo caption: The Edelmans’ first car, bought with the money Alina had earned in France.

Photo caption: Marek Edelman’s book Getto Walczy [The Ghetto Fights], edited by Alina Margolis, was released by the Bund Central Committee in the fall of 1945. The cover art picture was drawn by Alina’s brother, who retained the name of Jan Kosiński, which he assumed during the war.

We had a very nice flat (in Sienkiewicza street), where a German doctor moved in with his family at the beginning of the war. He was leaving in a tearing hurry, sheet music left open on the piano. Mom moved in there. Germans had also lived at grandma’s place (in Mostowa street), and this is where I moved in with my friend Lusia and Marek. But the German tenants had completely rearranged the place: we found a yellow dotted bedtable and crystal chandeliers. The next day, we removed the crystal droplets. We sold the bedroom furniture for 10,000 zlotys, for which I bought myself high-heeled shoes.

If you could now see the conditions in which we studied in Łódź, you wouldn’t believe that the course actually produced medical doctors. Lectures were held in cinema auditoriums. They taught us mathematics before anatomy, because a mathematician was available before an anatomist was. Very often, we had no place to live, no clothes, and no food. But we were hungry for knowledge and life, and we felt like we could fly! We were quite a collection of people, all of whom had been through a lot: there were guerilla fighters, insurgents, ghetto survivors, and many former prisoners of concentration camps. We studied with Marek Edelman, whom Alina had fallen for, big time. They soon married. After all he’d been through in the ghetto, he was withdrawn and reserved. It took him years to recover his feistiness, for which we would all remember him.

Joanna Muszkowska-Penson

“We had immersed in our work completely. I was taking care of diabetic children and I would go on vacation with these children, not with my own. Children’s diabetes has serious complications affecting your eyes, neurological system, and kidneys, and children die not because of diabetes, but precisely due to these complications. Back then, these kids were my whole world. We managed to open clinics in Rabka and Kołobrzeg. We taught children how to test their urine and blood, and how to administer insulin injections on their own. We told them that from now on, they would live like all the other kids, despite the tests and injections. When I was leaving Poland, the hardest part was to leave them behind, and when I came back much later, it turned out that most of these children had died, and that out course of treatment was not enough to save their lives”.

Alina Margolis

“Back then, children were brought up in a different way. In today’s France, everybody cares a lot, and there is this term enfent roi, ‘child-king’. Our parents – that is, mine and my younger siter Ania’s – did not care about us unless we were sick. Both of them were doctors, idealists working for the cause. They invested their whole time and commitment into treating and saving people. They would not sit us on a lap or hug us. It’s not that they were frigid, it’s just that they paid no attention to us. After all they’d been through, they may have thought that as long as the kids were healthy and fed, they had everything they could ask for. They lived their lives, and we – their children – lived ours. Ania played with other girls, and I played with other boys. We rode a bicycle, went to a park, or to the movies. It was nothing out of the ordinary”.

Aleksander Edelman

WHAT DO YOU THINK? Did you realize how difficult were the conditions in which young people studied in Poland after the war? Find information about Leszek Kołakowski. Think about what Aleksander Edelman said about his parents.