Rosa Luxemburg was born into a middle class, Jewish family on March 5, 1871, in the small town of Zamosc in southeastern Russian Poland in the year of the Paris commune. She was the youngest out of five children, three boys and two girls. Her father lacked the knack for business. When his fortunes declined and his family's needs grew he decided to try his luck in the capital. When Rosa was two and a half years old her family moved to Warsaw, where she grew up (Waters 1).

At the age of five she developed a serious hip ailment, and had to spend nearly a year in bed. While bedridden for that year she taught herself to read. The disease was wrongly diagnosed as tuberculosis and wrongly treated. She never fully recovered from t

Lieutenant Vogel aimed his revolver at Luxemburg's head and shot her. The shot was heard all around. Her body was then thrown into the Landwher Canal (Ettinger 248). Her body was not found until May 31, 1919. She was buried on June 13 in Freidrichsfeld cemetery where Liebknecht and the other killed revolutionaries were also buried (Feminist).

At the age of thirteen, Rosa entered the second girls' high school in Warsaw. She graduated on June 14,1887 with an excellent academic record. She was supposed to have received a gold metal that she had earned for academic achievements, but was denied because of her rebellious attitude towards the authorities (Feminist).

In the beginning of 1889, 18-year-old Luxemburg was forced to flee Poland and move to Zurich, Switzerland, to escape imprisonment (MIA). She was smuggled across the border under a pile of straw in a peasant's cart. She was helped by a Catholic priest who she had convinced that she wanted to be baptized in order to marry her lover, but could not do it in Poland because of her parents (Waters 2).

One of her earliest battles was in August of 1893. As founding member of the Polish Socialist Party, she wanted to be seated as a delegate at the Third Congress International of 1893. She met stiff opposition when she demanded the right to delegate status. Luxemburg took the floor at the convention showing no trace of self-consciousness at being seated in the presence of the heads of the international socialist movement. By the next congress in 1986, her demand to be seated went unchallenged (Feminist).

During this time Luxemburg met her life long companion Leo Jogiches, who was the head of the Polish Socialist Party. Although, they were together for 15 years, Jogiches insisted on absolute secrecy about their intimacy. While Luxemburg was the speaker and theoretician of the party, Jogiches complimented her as the organizer of the party. They developed an intense personal and political relationship throughout the rest of their lives (MIA).

While in Zurich she was mostly involved in Polish politics. In 1892 she became one of the founding members of the Polish Socialist Party, the first attempt to unite all the various currents of Polish nationalism. In 1894 she a small group broke away from the Polish Socialist Party and started the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland, which later became the Social Democratic Party of Poland and Lithuania (Waters 3).

She became a martyr for her cause because her tactics of historical progress

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Approximate Word count = 1692
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)