1871-1919
Revolutionary

Brilliant Youth. Born in the Russian part of Poland, Rozalia (Rosa) Luxemburg grew up in an anti-Semitic world. She spent her earliest years in a village where her father owned a timber business. In 1873, with the business in decline, the family moved to Warsaw, where her parents believed their children could receive a better education than in the village. The Luxemburgs were more secular than religious and desired integration into the non-Jewish Polish population. Integration was impossible to achieve in a Poland that still considered Jews to be the killers of Christ and whose population periodically engaged in attacks on Jews that resulted in suffering and death. Luxemburg was further isolated by a childhood illness that left her with a permanent limp. A brilliant child, she was one of few Jewish children to be admitted to a Russian Gymnasium for Girls. By 1888, when she...