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?