Marek Edelman - The trial of the Nazi criminal Blosche (74/145)

To listen to more of Marek Edelman’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Marek Edelman - Recollecting my parents (1...   Marek Edelman (1919-2009) was the last surviving leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He had remained in Poland following the Nazi defeat and was active in domestic and international politics while at the same time becoming one of Poland’s leading cardiologists. [Listeners: Anka Grupinska, Joanna Klara Agnieszka Zuchowska, Joanna Szczesna; date recoded: 2003] TRANSCRIPT: Blosche was a Nazi crook who's court case was held in Erfurt. I was there, I was meant to travel with him in the same carriage. Maślanko was travelling as well. They found two witnesses - those communists were completely screwed up - Maślanko, one agent and that lawyer, another agent and me. So I went. I didn't know they were going, I met them in the train. They were my companions. I'm not very good with dates so when the judge asked me what year Mr Blosche was there, I said 1941, no, it was 1942, that's a mistake but everything I said was true. So the prosecuting lawyer on the Polish side - a bunch of whores the lot of them - who was sitting in another room because he wasn't allowed to be present in a German court but had a listening device installed in the court, attacked me saying, 'You're compromising us!' He was sentenced to death, he deserved it because he was an awful villain. He could have been killed in the first action but the guy who was meant to kill him was holding a gun for the first time and he hadn't been tested out at all. There were people standing around and he thought if I take out the gun and shoot him then firstly, I don't know if the gun will go off because that sort of thing happened, too, secondly, there's the risk that I might kill one of those other people, thirdly, I don't know how to shoot, and so that's how he survived. But he could have been killed, it's partly my doing that he wasn't. He'd organised an action in the hospital on Gęsia Street and his thugs, his henchmen were going from bed to bed - it was the surgical ward so people there were in plaster, lying in bed and they killed everyone who was bed-ridden. He was downstairs with the hospital director or the administrative director, and they got him drunk by simply drinking vodka with him so he left them alone and buggered off. The action in the hospital was broken off so they only killed those people who were bed-ridden. Then there was Ala giving birth to her baby, and that pillow, you know about that. The baby was born during the first action, she was on duty and put the pillow over the newborn baby and the baby died and its mother, blessed Ala... Yes? Is that how it was? I've got it right.