Haapalah

Marek Balin was trapped in Warsaw by the German occupation, when he returned home to visit.

Halina Birenbaum, Marek Balin's sister, recalled in her book, "Hope is the Last to Die," that before she was sent to a concentration camp, Marek smuggled food to the family, and personally continued her schooling.

In testimony for Holocaust researchers, Marek Balin recalled how Jewish doctors were forced to choose which hospital patients should become part of the Nazis' deportation of Jews to concentration camps: "The doctors stopped at each bed for a longer time than usual.
They whispered quietly, with anguished voices.
They debated in Latin so the patients could not guess anything or comprehend the horror of this unusual consultation."
In April 19, 1943, when the deportations were met by armed resistance, Marek Balin ministered to Jews who were systematically blown, gassed or burned from underground bunkers and shelters.
Some 13,000 Jews were killed, an additional 50,000 shipped to concentration camps during the month long uprising.

After his escape, Marek Balin was sheltered in Warsaw by a Catholic woman, Jozefa Bartosiewicz.
During the uprising of 1944, he worked with Dr. Thaddeus Pogorski, a member of the Polish resistance.

Marek (Marc) Balin and Jeanine immigrated to Cleveland, where he taught at Case Western Reserve University.

Marc Balin established the department of anesthesiology at Lake County Memorial Hospital, in Painesville.