经济学人18:华沙犹太人起义的最后一名指挥官马雷克·爱德曼

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　　讣告;马雷克·爱德曼;

　　Marek Edelman, the last military commander of the Warsaw ghetto¹ uprising, died on October 2nd, aged² 90;

　　马雷克·爱德曼，华沙犹太人起义的最后一名指挥官，于2009年10月2日辞世，享年90岁。

　　He was sure that once he started fighting, he was going to die. No point in being scared about it. Death was death; there was nothing more, nothing bigger, that could happen to him. At least in this way, taking up arms, he could die on his own terms rather than theirs. His time, his place. Suicide would have been another way to do it, but he never considered that. Going to the gas chamber³ or the mass grave with quiet, considered dignity, like many of the residents of the Warsaw ghetto, was another way: far more admirable and more difficult, he thought, than running through random⁴ bullets as he did. But it was not for him. 这两句我的译法绝对有问题，盼高手现身！Only by dying as publicly as possible, loudly and with his gun blazing, could he let the world know what the Nazis⁶ were doing to the Jews in Poland.

　　他明白，一旦他投入战斗，他就会死。他对此无所畏惧。死就死，对他而言，没有什么大不了。至少，拿起武器战斗，他可以以自己的方式而不是他们[纳粹]的方式死亡。[拿起武器战斗可以决定]自己的死亡时间、死亡地点。自杀是死亡的另一种方式，但他从未考虑过。像华沙犹太人区的很多居民那样,带着平静和尊严走向毒气室和万人坑，是死亡的又一种方式：他认为穿越枪林弹雨，虽更加困难但更有意义。他[也]不愿作此抉择。最好的方式是尽可能公开地，带着呐喊和复仇的枪弹死去，他要让世界明白，纳粹正在对波兰犹太人做些什么。

　　The odds⁷ were overwhelming. He was deputy commander of 220 untrained “boys” with pistols and home-made explosives. Against them were around 2,000 Nazi⁵ soldiers, the pick of the Wehrmacht, with plenty more behind them. The Nazis had come on the eve of Passover, April 19th 1943, to liquidate⁸ the Warsaw ghetto, from which they had been deporting⁹ 6,000 Jews a week to the death camps. For almost a month Mr Edelman helped keep them at bay, barricaded¹⁰ in the streets around the brushmakers' district until the whole place was burned down round him.

　　冲突势不可挡。他是220名持有手枪及自制炸弹的未受训练的“童子军”的副指挥官。他们的敌手是德军精锐——约2,000名纳粹士兵，其后还有更多的敌人。纳粹在1943年4月19日——逾越节前夜对华沙犹太人区展开清洗行动，纳粹已在此前一个星期里把该区6000名犹太人赶进了死亡集中营。在近一个月里，爱德曼帮助犹太人在brushmakers区街道设置路障，以牵制[纳粹]，直到其周围的整个地区被烧毁。

　　The ghetto had been established in October 1940 to cut off the city's Jews, with a high wall and wire, from the general population. Jews were crammed¹¹ into its four square kilometres from all over the city, Poland and the German Reich. By April 1942 half a million people lived there, many on filthy¹² straw mattresses¹³ directly on the ground. Around 1,500 were dying each week from hunger and disease. In those conditions, Mr Edelman said, the most important thing was just to be alive: not to be one of the naked corpses¹⁴ wheeled past on carts, heads bobbing up and down or knocking on the pavement. A “terrible apathy” took hold, in which people no longer saw or believed the random horrors round them. He tried to rouse them, first by staying up night after night to print mimeograph newspapers, and then by fighting.

　　充斥着高墙和电网的犹太人区建立于1940年10月，用以隔离居民中的犹太人。来自波兰和德国各城市的犹太人被塞进了这个4平方公里的地方。 1942年4月时，有50万犹太人生活在那里，其中许多人直接生活在地上那肮脏的稻草垫上。每星期大约1500人死于饥饿和疾病。爱德曼说，在这种情况下，最大的希望仅仅是还活着：不是那经过的轮车上，头部上下摆动或者敲击过道的裸尸之一。一种“恐怖的漠然”滋生，在漠然中，人们不再认为无处不在的恐怖是恐怖。他试图唤醒他们，首先是持续、连夜打印油印报纸，然后是战斗。

　　rough the sewers¹⁵

　　穿过下水道

　　As a messenger at the ghetto hospital, Mr Edelman was one of the few allowed out. He passed on news of Nazi atrocities¹⁶ to the larger Polish underground, and gathered up weapons and fighters. Precisely¹⁷ how much help he got is still disputed. He implied later that gentile Poles both couldn't do much, and wouldn't, to help the Jews they still distrusted, even though they faced a common enemy. But the beleaguered¹⁸ Jews were disunited too: secular¹⁹, socialist²⁰, non-Zionist Jews like him, with ardent²¹ Zionists and communists, all bickering²² over tactics at the edge of the abyss.

　　作为犹太医院的信差，爱德曼是少数准许外出者之一。他向波兰大多数地下组织传递关于纳粹暴行的消息，收集武器、召集战斗人员。恰恰是因为他提供了那么多帮助，却招致怀疑。他后来含蓄地提出：波兰人既不能也不愿帮助他们不信任的犹太人。甚至认为犹太人与[纳粹一样]是波兰人的共同敌人。处于困境的犹太人也四分五裂：世俗[主义]者、社会主义者、像他那样的非犹太复国者、狂热的犹太复国者、共产主义者，所有这些人在深渊的边缘就出路争吵不休。

　　He considered himself both a Pole and a Jew, despite his white armband with its blue star. Warsaw was home to him; his parents had died when he was young, leaving him to be brought up by staff in the hospital. He spoke²³ Polish, Yiddish and Russian. His dream was not of some Zionist homeland, but a socialist Poland in which Jews would have cultural autonomy. He continued to hope for that all his life.

　　尽管戴的是蓝星白色臂章，但爱德曼认为自己是一个波兰人也是一个犹太人，华沙是他的家。当他年轻、刚成为医院工作人员时，他的父母去世了。他讲波兰语、依地语和俄语。他的梦想中，波兰不是某些犹太复国主义的祖国，而是社会主义者的波兰，在社会主义者的波兰中，犹太人将拥有其文化自治权。他终其一生，为实现这一梦想不懈努力。

　　During the final throes of the ghetto uprising 50,000-60,000 Jews were deported²⁴ to the camps. Mr Edelman survived, escaping with a handful of colleagues along tunnels barely two feet high, slimy water up to his lips, to safety. Some 16 months later, in August 1944, he took part in the larger Warsaw uprising, which was crushed after 63 days. It led to the razing²⁵ of the city by the Nazis in a last act of revenge.

　　犹太区起义的最终惨痛结局是5-6万人犹太人被赶进集中营。爱德曼与少数难友一道，沿着仅两英尺深的下水道，伴着漫进嘴唇的泥泞安全逃离，得以幸免。约16个月后的1944年8月，他参加了大规模的华沙起义，该起义在坚持63天后被镇压。纳粹的这一最后报复行动，致使华沙城被彻底摧毁。

　　After the war, Mr Edelman was one of the few Jewish Holocaust²⁶ survivors²⁸ who stayed in Poland. He moved to Lodz, where he graduated in medicine. Subsequent waves of anti-Semitism did not dislodge him: not even one in 1968 when up to 20,000 Jews left, including his wife and daughter. When he lost his job, he merely moved to another hospital. Nothing else terrible happened to him, as he put it. In 1981, having become an activist²⁹ for the Solidarity³⁰ movement, he was briefly³¹ interned³² under martial³³ law. He had known worse.

　　战后，爱德曼成为留在波兰的少数犹太大屠杀幸存者之一。他移居到[波兰]罗兹，并从医学专业毕业。随后的反犹浪潮并没有迫使他离开波兰，即使在1968年，有近20000犹太人离开时，其中包括他的妻子和女儿，他也未曾有过离开这个国家的念头。他失业时，也只是到另一家医院[就业]，就像他所说过的那样，不曾有人找过他麻烦。 1981年成为团结工会活动家后，他曾因戒严令被短暂拘留。他已见怪不怪了。

　　Mr Edelman could be brusque and difficult with colleagues. But it was his quiet thoughtfulness that most irritated people. He refused to express open hatred³⁴ for the Nazis, and for years would not talk about the ghetto uprising. As Bronislaw Geremek, another ghetto survivor²⁷, said once, he was “a hero who didn't like heroism”. Only in old age did he start to speak out, not least to try to influence the present. In 1999 he publicly supported NATO strikes in the Balkans, arguing that a policy of pacifist non-intervention only played into the hands of dictators.

　　爱德曼或许态度粗暴而显得难与同事相处。然而，正是他的慎思笃行惹恼了民众。他拒绝公开表达对纳粹的仇恨，且长达数年不愿谈及犹太区起义。正如另一位犹太幸存者盖雷·梅克曾说：他是“一个不喜欢英雄主义的英雄”。到了晚年，为了教育现代人他才开始谈及往事。 1999年，他公开支持北约轰炸巴尔干地区，认为和平主义者的不干涉政策，只会让独裁者占便宜。

　　His expertise³⁵ was in cardiology (uninhibited by his chain-smoking), and the heart and its emotions seemed to intrigue³⁶ him more as the years passed. His last book, published this year, made a point of describing the love affairs of the Warsaw ghetto: the “marvellous things” that happened, and the ecstatic moments of happiness, when terrified and lonely people were thrown together. Man was naturally a beast, but love could overwhelm him, and love could also be taught. As for his general devotion to medicine, that was easily explained. Someone who had known so much death, he used to say, bore all the more responsibility for life.

　　他的专长是心脏病学，而岁月长河中,更能激起勇气的是爱的情感。在他今年出版的最后一部书里，重点描述了华沙犹太区的爱：当恐怖和孤独的人们被命运抛聚在一起时，那是曾发生“不可思议的奇迹”和极度幸福时刻。人类的天性是野兽，但爱能超越，也能传承。至于他毕生献身医学也容易由此得到解释。他常说，对于曾经历了那么多死亡的人来说，理当为命运承担更多责任。

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