Marta Aleksandra Balinska, author of the standard Ludwik Rajchman biography, is his own great-granddaughter — a family memoir, not an arms-length account
Ludwik Rajchman's daughter, Irena Rajchman Balinska, had a son, Michel Balinski (the mathematician known for work on apportionment theory, 1938–2019). Michel Balinski's daughter, Marta Aleksandra Balińska, wrote For the Good of Humanity: Ludwik Rajchman, Medical Statesman (Central European University Press, 1998) — the standard biography of her own great-grandfather. The Rajchman family's own memorial-foundation page states the relationship directly, crediting an excerpt to "Testimonial of Marta Balinska, daughter of Michel BALINSKI. Excerpted from For the Good of Humanity: Ludwik Rajchman, Medical Stateman, 1995" — placing Marta three generations below Ludwik through his daughter and grandson. Independently, a 2023 academic article on Rajchman's League of Nations work describes her, in the same sentence, as "health science researcher, biographer, and great granddaughter Marta A. Balinska."
This matters as a source-critique fact rather than a discrediting one: the biography's access to unpublished family archives — noted by works citing it — comes bundled with the fact that it is a family member's account of her own ancestor, not a disinterested outside biography. Any claim in this vault that traces back to Balinska's book, directly or through a secondary account citing it, should be read with that provenance in view.
Source
“Testimonial of Marta Balinska, daughter of Michel BALINSKI. Excerpted from For the Good of Humanity: Ludwik Rajchman, Medical Stateman, 1995.”
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