Warsaw Ghetto

LODZ, Poland - Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the 1943 uprising in the Warsaw ghetto by a handful of scrappy, poorly armed Jews against the Nazi army, becomes emotional when he speaks of the fighters he led. "I remember them all - boys and girls - 220 altogether, not too many to remember their faces, their names," says the 89-year-old doctor, who still works in a Lodz hospital. Edelman will lay a wreath in their honor at the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto on Saturday, the 65th anniversary of the uprising.

WHO Marian Marzynski WHAT Marzynski, 74, is a Brookline documentary filmmaker and Emmy winner who contributes to such PBS series as "Frontline," "Nova," and "The American Experience. " Born in Poland, he survived the Holocaust as a Jewish child, first in the Warsaw Ghetto, later by living with Christians. In his new autobiographical film, "Never Forget to Lie," he returns to the ghetto with other child survivors. WHEN The film's North American premiere will be Wednesday at 6:15 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts as part of Jewishfilm.2012, the...

CONCORD -- Headlong Dance Theater's "Shosha" is ostensibly about the Isaac Bashevis Singer novel of the same name, set in the Warsaw ghetto of the 1930s. The Philadelphia-based company introduces us to the innocent childlike title character (Nichole Canuso), her strapping young suitor, Aaron (David Brick), and the two sirens who seduce him (Niki Cousineau and Amy Smith). But just as we start to buy into the sense of drama suggested by the opening tableau, Andrew Simonet, acting as a kind of narrator/director, steps in officiously, saying "OK, now we can put this away as a story.

THE EMPEROR OF LIES By Steve Sem-Sandberg Translated, from the Swedish, by Sarah Death Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 664 pp., $30 Most novelists would be happy to have Steve Sem-Sandberg's problem - too much great material - but it is a real problem. Three thousand pages of "The Ghetto Chronicle," compiled by Lodz ghetto archivists, and a vast amount of other material from the community were available for Sem-Sandberg to re-create the life of residents from 1942 to 1944.

WARSAW - Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the ill-fated 1943 Warsaw ghetto revolt against the Nazis, died yesterday at the age of 90. Dr. Edelman died of old age at the family home of his friend Paula Sawicka, where he had lived for the past two years. Most of Dr. Edelman’s adult life was dedicated to the defense of human life, dignity, and freedom. He fought the Nazis in the doomed Warsaw ghetto revolt and later in the Warsaw city Uprising. And then for decades he fought communism in Poland.

THE WARSAW ANAGRAMS By Richard Zimler Overlook, 323 pp., $25.95 Part murder mystery and part historical fiction, Richard Zimler’s latest novel, “The Warsaw Anagrams,’’ renews the impact of the large-scale atrocities committed by the Nazis on millions of Jews by comparing them to the specific and gruesome murder of a child. Jewish folklore, anagrams, deceit, and treachery all play a part in a novel that successfully makes personal a massacre whose scope is all too easy to diminish by quoting a mostly abstract number: 6 million.

WARSAW - The last surviving leader of the 1943 Warsaw ghetto uprising paid silent tribute yesterday to the young Jews who launched the doomed revolt against Nazi troops 65 years ago. Marek Edelman, 89, handed yellow tulips and daffodils to his grandchildren, Liza and Tomek. He watched as they placed them at the foot of the gray-and-black Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, located in a barren square at the heart of the former ghetto. Accompanied by a crowd of a few hundred people in wet weather, Edelman, in a wheelchair, moved on to nearby monuments to leaders of the...

WHO Marian Marzynski WHAT Marzynski, 74, is a Brookline documentary filmmaker and Emmy winner who contributes to such PBS series as "Frontline," "Nova," and "The American Experience. " Born in Poland, he survived the Holocaust as a Jewish child, first in the Warsaw Ghetto, later by living with Christians. In his new autobiographical film, "Never Forget to Lie," he returns to the ghetto with other child survivors. WHEN The film's North American premiere will be Wednesday at 6:15 p.m. at the Museum of Fine Arts as part of...

As a lesson in acting technique, Olympia Dukakis's performance in Martin Sherman's "Rose" is virtuosic. As a theatrical experience, however, this one-woman show at the Boston Center for the Arts delivers less than it should. Long before the role in "Moonstruck" that brought her an Oscar and fame, Dukakis was an accomplished theater actress, and she has also taught acting extensively. All this experience shows in her work here, even though she's chosen the theatrical equivalent of having her arms tied behind her back: For the entire hour and 50 minutes, she's sitting down, and she's...

Far more than “just’’ another Holocaust documentary, “A Film Unfinished’’ tackles issues of memory, history, intent — the lies of propaganda as they bend the truth of what we see. Within Yael Hersonski’s devastating documentary is nestled another film: four reels of silent footage — an hour’s worth — of the Warsaw Ghetto, shot by the Nazis in May 1942, and discovered a decade later amid the shelves of an archive deep in the...

THE WARSAW ANAGRAMS By Richard Zimler Overlook, 323 pp., $25.95 Part murder mystery and part historical fiction, Richard Zimler’s latest novel, “The Warsaw Anagrams,’’ renews the impact of the large-scale atrocities committed by the Nazis on millions of Jews by comparing them to the specific and gruesome murder of a child. Jewish folklore, anagrams, deceit, and treachery all play a part in a novel that successfully makes personal a massacre whose scope is all too easy to diminish by quoting a mostly abstract number: 6 million.

Far more than “just’’ another Holocaust documentary, “A Film Unfinished’’ tackles issues of memory, history, intent — the lies of propaganda as they bend the truth of what we see. Within Yael Hersonski’s devastating documentary is nestled another film: four reels of silent footage — an hour’s worth — of the Warsaw Ghetto, shot by the Nazis in May 1942, and discovered a decade later amid the shelves of an archive deep in the...

WARSAW — Polish officials unveiled a new monument yesterday honoring the last group of Jewish insurgents to escape from Warsaw’s burning ghetto in 1943 as the Nazis crushed the revolt against their brutal rule. The bronze memorial shows a sewage canal rising vertically from the ground with disembodied hands symbolically climbing their way to freedom. It honors insurgents who escaped the ghetto to the city’s Aryan side through a stinking, dark, and claustrophobic sewage canal.

WARSAW - Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the ill-fated 1943 Warsaw ghetto revolt against the Nazis, died yesterday at the age of 90. Dr. Edelman died of old age at the family home of his friend Paula Sawicka, where he had lived for the past two years. Most of Dr. Edelman’s adult life was dedicated to the defense of human life, dignity, and freedom. He fought the Nazis in the doomed Warsaw ghetto revolt and later in the Warsaw city Uprising. And then for decades he fought communism in Poland.

LODZ, Poland - Marek Edelman, the last surviving commander of the 1943 uprising in the Warsaw ghetto by a handful of scrappy, poorly armed Jews against the Nazi army, becomes emotional when he speaks of the fighters he led. "I remember them all - boys and girls - 220 altogether, not too many to remember their faces, their names," says the 89-year-old doctor, who still works in a Lodz hospital. Edelman will lay a wreath in their honor at the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto on Saturday, the 65th anniversary of the uprising.

CONCORD -- Headlong Dance Theater's "Shosha" is ostensibly about the Isaac Bashevis Singer novel of the same name, set in the Warsaw ghetto of the 1930s. The Philadelphia-based company introduces us to the innocent childlike title character (Nichole Canuso), her strapping young suitor, Aaron (David Brick), and the two sirens who seduce him (Niki Cousineau and Amy Smith). But just as we start to buy into the sense of drama suggested by the opening tableau, Andrew Simonet, acting as a kind of narrator/director, steps in officiously, saying "OK, now we can put this...

THE EMPEROR OF LIES By Steve Sem-Sandberg Translated, from the Swedish, by Sarah Death Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 664 pp., $30 Most novelists would be happy to have Steve Sem-Sandberg's problem - too much great material - but it is a real problem. Three thousand pages of "The Ghetto Chronicle," compiled by Lodz ghetto archivists, and a vast amount of other material from the community were available for Sem-Sandberg to re-create the life of residents from 1942 to 1944.

As a lesson in acting technique, Olympia Dukakis's performance in Martin Sherman's "Rose" is virtuosic. As a theatrical experience, however, this one-woman show at the Boston Center for the Arts delivers less than it should. Long before the role in "Moonstruck" that brought her an Oscar and fame, Dukakis was an accomplished theater actress, and she has also taught acting extensively. All this experience shows in her work here, even though she's chosen the theatrical equivalent of having her arms tied behind her back: For the entire hour and 50 minutes, she's sitting down, and she's reading from a...