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POLE APART - the life and work of Janusz Korczak
He has been the subject of a film by Andrzej Wajda, schools, hospitals and streets across Europe are named after him and his books have been translated into twenty languages. Yet few people in the English speaking world have heard of Janusz Korczak and his pioneering work on children's rights. Sandra Joseph sets out to make amends
Korczak envisaged that in 50 years, every school would have its own court, and that they would be a real source of emancipation for children
Dr Janusz Korczak (1879-1942) was a man who took his convictions and sense of responsibility so strongly that he was prepared to go to his death rather than betray them. During the Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto, having rejected countless offers from Polish admirers and friends to save himself, Korczak led his two hundred orphans out of the ghetto and on to the train that would take them to their deaths at the gas chambers of Treblinka.
Korczak, who had brought up thousands of Jewish and Polish children, refused to desert them so that even as they died, the children would be able to maintain their trust in him and some faith in human goodness.
Not surprisingly, most accounts of Korczak's life and work focus on this noble act. But it would be unfortunate if the legend of his heroic and tragic death was to obscure the richness of his life and work. Korczak left a legacy not only of living and topical educational ideas, he also achieved greatness as a writer. He was awarded Poland's highest literary prize, guaranteeing him a permanent place in the history of Polish literature and the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Polish readers, children and adults. One of Korczak's children's books, King Matt the First, is as famous in his native country as are Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan over here.
Korczak was a renowned doctor, who specialised in paediatrics. Medical students would travel the country just to attend his lectures. His personality and unique teaching methods can perhaps best be illustrated by the account of a lecture he gave at the Institute of Pedagogy in Warsaw, entitled 'The Heart of the Child'.
One of his students recalls: 'We were all surprised by Dr Korczak's instruction to gather in the x-ray lab. The doctor arrived bringing along a four-year-old boy from his orphanage. The x-ray machine was switched on and we saw the boy's heart beating wildly. He was so frightened - so many strange people, the dark room, the noise of the machine.
'Speaking very softly so as not to add to the child's fears, and deeply moved by what could be seen on the screen, Korczak told us: çüon't ever forget this sight. How wildly a child's heart beats when he is frightened - and this it does even more when reacting to an adult's anger with him, not to mention when he fears being punished?. Then heading for the door with the child's hand in his, he added: �âhat is all for today.? We did not need to be told any more - everybody will remember that lecture forever.'
Korczak devoted one day each week to defending local destitute and abandoned street children, who were often on the receiving end of long jail sentences. 'The delinquent child is still a child,' he wrote. 'He is a child who has not given up yet, but does not know who he is. A punitive sentence could adversely influence his future sense of himself and his behaviour. Because it is society that has failed him and made him behave this way. The Court should not condemn the criminal but the social structure.'
Korczak envisaged that in 50 years, every school would have its own court, and that they would be a real source of emancipation for children
Dr Janusz Korczak (1879-1942) was a man who took his convictions and sense of responsibility so strongly that he was prepared to go to his death rather than betray them. During the Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto, having rejected countless offers from Polish admirers and friends to save himself, Korczak led his two hundred orphans out of the ghetto and on to the train that would take them to their deaths at the gas chambers of Treblinka.
Korczak, who had brought up thousands of Jewish and Polish children, refused to desert them so that even as they died, the children would be able to maintain their trust in him and some faith in human goodness.
Not surprisingly, most accounts of Korczak's life and work focus on this noble act. But it would be unfortunate if the legend of his heroic and tragic death was to obscure the richness of his life and work. Korczak left a legacy not only of living and topical educational ideas, he also achieved greatness as a writer. He was awarded Poland's highest literary prize, guaranteeing him a permanent place in the history of Polish literature and the hearts of hundreds of thousands of Polish readers, children and adults. One of Korczak's children's books, King Matt the First, is as famous in his native country as are Alice in Wonderland or Peter Pan over here.
Korczak was a renowned doctor, who specialised in paediatrics. Medical students would travel the country just to attend his lectures. His personality and unique teaching methods can perhaps best be illustrated by the account of a lecture he gave at the Institute of Pedagogy in Warsaw, entitled 'The Heart of the Child'.
One of his students recalls: 'We were all surprised by Dr Korczak's instruction to gather in the x-ray lab. The doctor arrived bringing along a four-year-old boy from his orphanage. The x-ray machine was switched on and we saw the boy's heart beating wildly. He was so frightened - so many strange people, the dark room, the noise of the machine.
'Speaking very softly so as not to add to the child's fears, and deeply moved by what could be seen on the screen, Korczak told us: çüon't ever forget this sight. How wildly a child's heart beats when he is frightened - and this it does even more when reacting to an adult's anger with him, not to mention when he fears being punished?. Then heading for the door with the child's hand in his, he added: �âhat is all for today.? We did not need to be told any more - everybody will remember that lecture forever.'
Korczak devoted one day each week to defending local destitute and abandoned street children, who were often on the receiving end of long jail sentences. 'The delinquent child is still a child,' he wrote. 'He is a child who has not given up yet, but does not know who he is. A punitive sentence could adversely influence his future sense of himself and his behaviour. Because it is society that has failed him and made him behave this way. The Court should not condemn the criminal but the social structure.'
Pioneer
Korczak was the director of two orphanages - one for Catholic children and one for Jewish children. For most of his life, he lived in the attic above one of the orphanages, receiving no salary. He promoted progressive educational techniques, including giving the children real opportunities to take part in decision making.
His children's court, for example, was presided over by child judges. Any child with a grievance had the right to summon the offender to face a court of his or her peers. Teachers and children were equal before the court; even Korczak had to submit to its judgement.
Korczak envisaged that in 50 years, every school would have its own court, and that they would be a real source of emancipation for children - teaching them respect for the law and individual rights. His insights into children were unclouded by sentimentality; they were based on continuous clinical observation and meticulous listing and sifting of data.
Korczak founded a popular weekly newspaper, The Little Review, which was produced for and by children: 'There will be three editors - one oldster, bald and spectacled, and two additional editors, a boy and a girl.' Children and young people all over Poland served as correspondents, gathering newsworthy stories of interest to children. This was possibly the first venture of its kind in the history of journalism.
Throughout Poland, Korczak was well-known as 'the Old Doctor' - the name he used when delivering his popular state radio talks on children and education. His soft warm and friendly voice, along with his natural good humour, brought him acclaim and a sizeable audience. In the words of one former child listener: 'The Old Doctor proved to me for the first time in my life that an adult could enter easily and naturally into our world. He not only understood our point of view, but deeply respected and appreciated it.'
Korczak was the director of two orphanages - one for Catholic children and one for Jewish children. For most of his life, he lived in the attic above one of the orphanages, receiving no salary. He promoted progressive educational techniques, including giving the children real opportunities to take part in decision making.
His children's court, for example, was presided over by child judges. Any child with a grievance had the right to summon the offender to face a court of his or her peers. Teachers and children were equal before the court; even Korczak had to submit to its judgement.
Korczak envisaged that in 50 years, every school would have its own court, and that they would be a real source of emancipation for children - teaching them respect for the law and individual rights. His insights into children were unclouded by sentimentality; they were based on continuous clinical observation and meticulous listing and sifting of data.
Korczak founded a popular weekly newspaper, The Little Review, which was produced for and by children: 'There will be three editors - one oldster, bald and spectacled, and two additional editors, a boy and a girl.' Children and young people all over Poland served as correspondents, gathering newsworthy stories of interest to children. This was possibly the first venture of its kind in the history of journalism.
Throughout Poland, Korczak was well-known as 'the Old Doctor' - the name he used when delivering his popular state radio talks on children and education. His soft warm and friendly voice, along with his natural good humour, brought him acclaim and a sizeable audience. In the words of one former child listener: 'The Old Doctor proved to me for the first time in my life that an adult could enter easily and naturally into our world. He not only understood our point of view, but deeply respected and appreciated it.'
Children's rights
Korczak spoke of the need for a Declaration of Children's Rights long before one was eventually adopted by the League of Nations in 1924. Of that declaration, Korczak said: 'Those lawgivers confuse duties with rights. Their declaration appeals to goodwill when it should insist. It pleads for kindness, which it should demand.'
In 1959, the United Nations produced a second Declaration on the Rights of the Child, but it was not legally binding and there was no procedure to ensure its implementation. Twenty years later, it was Poland who proposed that a new convention should be drafted on a text manifestly inspired by the teachings of Korczak. On 20 November 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was eventually passed unanimously by the UN General Assembly; it had taken more than 50 years to hammer out the 'rights' that Korczak had set out in his writings long before.
It is by chance that I stumbled into the world of Dr Janusz Korczak while studying psychotherapy. Alice Miller, who has received international recognition for her work on child abuse, had described Korczak as one of the greatest pedagogues of all time. So I tried to find out more about him, especially his theories on education and childcare. At libraries I drew a blank; I asked teachers, social workers, therapists - in fact, everyone I knew. No-one had ever heard of him.
Eventually, however, through a strange set of coincidences, I was introduced to Felek Scharf, a fellow Pole, an expert on Polish affairs and one of the few living links with Korczak in the UK. He sat me down in his office and started to talk.
Korczak spoke of the need for a Declaration of Children's Rights long before one was eventually adopted by the League of Nations in 1924. Of that declaration, Korczak said: 'Those lawgivers confuse duties with rights. Their declaration appeals to goodwill when it should insist. It pleads for kindness, which it should demand.'
In 1959, the United Nations produced a second Declaration on the Rights of the Child, but it was not legally binding and there was no procedure to ensure its implementation. Twenty years later, it was Poland who proposed that a new convention should be drafted on a text manifestly inspired by the teachings of Korczak. On 20 November 1989, the Convention on the Rights of the Child was eventually passed unanimously by the UN General Assembly; it had taken more than 50 years to hammer out the 'rights' that Korczak had set out in his writings long before.
It is by chance that I stumbled into the world of Dr Janusz Korczak while studying psychotherapy. Alice Miller, who has received international recognition for her work on child abuse, had described Korczak as one of the greatest pedagogues of all time. So I tried to find out more about him, especially his theories on education and childcare. At libraries I drew a blank; I asked teachers, social workers, therapists - in fact, everyone I knew. No-one had ever heard of him.
Eventually, however, through a strange set of coincidences, I was introduced to Felek Scharf, a fellow Pole, an expert on Polish affairs and one of the few living links with Korczak in the UK. He sat me down in his office and started to talk.
Writer
Scharf showed me two books by Korczak that had been translated into English. One was his famous children's book, King Matt the First; the other was Ghetto Diary, written at the end of his life. 'But what about his work on children?' I asked. Scharf shook his head. Very little had been published in English. Although I left that meeting with two treasured books, How to Love a Child and Respect for the Child, both were written in Polish. I realised that there was no way I could access Korczak's world until the books had been translated into English.
One year later, Betty Jean Lifton's biography of Korczak, The King of Children, was published, and the brilliant film, Korczak, emerged from Poland's leading director Andrzej Wajda. And I set out to have some of his writings translated into English.
Korczak's basic philosophy was a belief in the innate goodness of children and their natural tendency to improve, given opportunity and guidance. Childhood, he believed, was perceived largely as a preparation for adult life, when in reality every moment has its own importance; one should appreciate a child for who he or she is, not who he or she will become.
Korczak believed in respecting and understanding the child's own way of thinking, instead of trying to understand the child from an adult's point of view.
Children in the orphanage lacked the emotional support of a parental figure. As a result, they were likely to assert themselves on the basis of anti-social norms. Korczak's approach was geared to prevent such development. First and foremost, he knew the children needed to be able to trust and rely on adults; therefore, he made it his goal to return to these children the very thing that adult society had deprived them of - respect, love and care.
Korczak's success is confirmed by a former resident of the orphanage: 'If not for the home, I wouldn't know that there are honest people in the world who never steal. I wouldn't know that one could speak the truth. I wouldn't know that there are just laws in the world.'
Scharf showed me two books by Korczak that had been translated into English. One was his famous children's book, King Matt the First; the other was Ghetto Diary, written at the end of his life. 'But what about his work on children?' I asked. Scharf shook his head. Very little had been published in English. Although I left that meeting with two treasured books, How to Love a Child and Respect for the Child, both were written in Polish. I realised that there was no way I could access Korczak's world until the books had been translated into English.
One year later, Betty Jean Lifton's biography of Korczak, The King of Children, was published, and the brilliant film, Korczak, emerged from Poland's leading director Andrzej Wajda. And I set out to have some of his writings translated into English.
Korczak's basic philosophy was a belief in the innate goodness of children and their natural tendency to improve, given opportunity and guidance. Childhood, he believed, was perceived largely as a preparation for adult life, when in reality every moment has its own importance; one should appreciate a child for who he or she is, not who he or she will become.
Korczak believed in respecting and understanding the child's own way of thinking, instead of trying to understand the child from an adult's point of view.
Children in the orphanage lacked the emotional support of a parental figure. As a result, they were likely to assert themselves on the basis of anti-social norms. Korczak's approach was geared to prevent such development. First and foremost, he knew the children needed to be able to trust and rely on adults; therefore, he made it his goal to return to these children the very thing that adult society had deprived them of - respect, love and care.
Korczak's success is confirmed by a former resident of the orphanage: 'If not for the home, I wouldn't know that there are honest people in the world who never steal. I wouldn't know that one could speak the truth. I wouldn't know that there are just laws in the world.'
Testimony
In the 1990s, I went to Israel to interview his 'children' -- the few surviving orphans left, now in their seventies and eighties. Their faces lit up when describing Korczak. Without exception, they spoke of the feelings of warmth, kindness and love they felt in his company; of his smiling blue eyes and his great sense of humour. Korczak had been a loved father to them all, at a time when they desperately needed one.
I asked how they would try to explain to people who knew nothing of him, why Korczak was such an important figure. One told me: 'It is difficult for me to explain to you in words the impact Korczak had on my life. He had so much compassion and a readiness to help all people. We used to say that Korczak was born to bring the world to redemption. What was so special about him was that he knew how to find a way to the child's soul. He penetrated the soul. The time spent at the orphanage changed my life.
'All the time, Korczak pushed us to believe in other people, and that essentially, man is good. He was an innovator of the educational system - the first to reach the conclusion that the child has the same rights as the adult. He saw the child not as a creature that needs help, but as a person in his own right. All this was not just a theory - he applied it in our orphanage. There were no limitations in the framework of the rules. The child had the same rights as the teachers.
'For example, the court's first mission was to protect the weaker child against the stronger. The rules were based in such a way that only children had the right to serve as judges. The teachers did all the paper work. When the war broke out and I was starving and ready to do anything, I didn't because something of Korczak's teachings stayed with me.'
When I asked if perhaps history had been kind to Korczak, or was he really a man like this, an elderly man with a broad smile answered: 'In my opinion, this was his very nature. Maybe it was because he had witnessed such poverty and hardship among abandoned street children when he was a doctor that gave him the strength to dedicate all his life as he did.
'I cannot remember any negative side to Korczak's character, even now, when I myself am a grandfather and teacher, and understand more about children and their education. I honour the memory of a man who was my father for eight years; a man who has healed my physical and psychological ailments and who instilled a code of ethics that served me throughout my life.'
I have shown Korczak's writings to young people, parents, teachers - indeed, anyone whose life is involved with children. But it was the children I have counselled over the years, many of whom have experienced abuse and neglect, whose reaction surprised me the most. Without exception, they all wanted to know more about him.
The children could not believe that more than fifty years ago, Korczak had set up a committee - comprising older children, himself and teachers - which had actually given pupils a base to voice their ideas on improving the orphanage. They all felt that if teachers listened to their opinions and valued their feelings in schools today, it would help minimise truancy by creating a happier and more democratic environment.
In the words of one young person: 'If only my parents had read Korczak, they could have seen things from my point of view. Instead of feeling so isolated and misjudged, I could have quoted his words back to them. Maybe then they would have understood me.'
In the 1990s, I went to Israel to interview his 'children' -- the few surviving orphans left, now in their seventies and eighties. Their faces lit up when describing Korczak. Without exception, they spoke of the feelings of warmth, kindness and love they felt in his company; of his smiling blue eyes and his great sense of humour. Korczak had been a loved father to them all, at a time when they desperately needed one.
I asked how they would try to explain to people who knew nothing of him, why Korczak was such an important figure. One told me: 'It is difficult for me to explain to you in words the impact Korczak had on my life. He had so much compassion and a readiness to help all people. We used to say that Korczak was born to bring the world to redemption. What was so special about him was that he knew how to find a way to the child's soul. He penetrated the soul. The time spent at the orphanage changed my life.
'All the time, Korczak pushed us to believe in other people, and that essentially, man is good. He was an innovator of the educational system - the first to reach the conclusion that the child has the same rights as the adult. He saw the child not as a creature that needs help, but as a person in his own right. All this was not just a theory - he applied it in our orphanage. There were no limitations in the framework of the rules. The child had the same rights as the teachers.
'For example, the court's first mission was to protect the weaker child against the stronger. The rules were based in such a way that only children had the right to serve as judges. The teachers did all the paper work. When the war broke out and I was starving and ready to do anything, I didn't because something of Korczak's teachings stayed with me.'
When I asked if perhaps history had been kind to Korczak, or was he really a man like this, an elderly man with a broad smile answered: 'In my opinion, this was his very nature. Maybe it was because he had witnessed such poverty and hardship among abandoned street children when he was a doctor that gave him the strength to dedicate all his life as he did.
'I cannot remember any negative side to Korczak's character, even now, when I myself am a grandfather and teacher, and understand more about children and their education. I honour the memory of a man who was my father for eight years; a man who has healed my physical and psychological ailments and who instilled a code of ethics that served me throughout my life.'
I have shown Korczak's writings to young people, parents, teachers - indeed, anyone whose life is involved with children. But it was the children I have counselled over the years, many of whom have experienced abuse and neglect, whose reaction surprised me the most. Without exception, they all wanted to know more about him.
The children could not believe that more than fifty years ago, Korczak had set up a committee - comprising older children, himself and teachers - which had actually given pupils a base to voice their ideas on improving the orphanage. They all felt that if teachers listened to their opinions and valued their feelings in schools today, it would help minimise truancy by creating a happier and more democratic environment.
In the words of one young person: 'If only my parents had read Korczak, they could have seen things from my point of view. Instead of feeling so isolated and misjudged, I could have quoted his words back to them. Maybe then they would have understood me.'
SANDRA JOSEPH
Sandra Joseph is a psychotherapist and the editor of A Voice for the Child: the inspirational words of Janusz Korczak.
The Institute of Education in London will host a conference on Korczak next March.
July/Aug 2002
References[edit]
- ^ a b Yad Vashem (2010). "Ceremony Marking 68 Years Since its Murder of Korczak and the Children of the Orphanage". Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Retrieved 27 January2012.
- ^ "Jewish Doctor Janusz Korczak Died With 190 Children at Treblinka Court: Changes Date of Death for Orphanage Director". JTA. 30 March 2015. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
- ^ Sandra Joseph, Institute of Education in London (July–August 2002). "POLE APART - the life and work of Janusz Korczak". Young Minds Magazine 59. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 27 January2012.
- ^ a b "Polskie Stowarzyszenie im. Janusza Korczaka".www.pskorczak.org.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2016-03-12.
- ^ Tadeusz Lewowicki (2000). "Janusz Korczak (1878–1942)" (PDF, 43 KB). Prospects:the quarterly review of comparative education, vol. XXIV, no. 1/2, 1994, p. 37–48.UNESCO: International Bureau of Education. Retrieved27 January 2012.
- ^ a b Prof. Barbara Smolińska–Theiss (2012). "Janusz Korczak – zarys portretu (the portrait)" (in Polish). Rok Janusza Korczaka (The official year of Janusz Korczak). Retrieved 27 January 2012.
- ^ The Month, Volume 39. Simpki, Marshall, and Company. 1968. p. 350.
When Dr. Janusz Korczak, a Jewish philanthropist and agnostic, voluntarily chooses to follow the Jewish orphans under his care to the Nazi extermination camp in Treblinka...
- ^ Chris Mullen (March 7, 1983). "Korczak's Children: Flawed Faces in a Warsaw Ghetto". The Heights. p. 24. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
An assimilated Jew, he changed his name from Henryk Goldschmidt and was an agnostic who did not believe in forcing religion on children.
- ^ Janusz Korczak (1978). Ghetto diary. Holocaust Library. p. 42.
You know I am an agnostic, but I understood: Pedagogy, tolerance, and all that.
- ^ Janusz Korczak; Aleksander Lewin (1996). Sława: Opowiadania (1898-1914) (in Polish). Oficyna Wydawnicza Latona. p. 387. ISBN 978-83-85449-35-5.
- ^ Maria Falkowska (1978). Kalendarium życia, działalności i twórczości Janusza Korczaka (in Polish). Wydaw-a Szkolne i Pedagogiczne. p. 8.
- ^ a b Joanna Cieśla (15 January 2012). "Henryk zwany Januszem. Janusz Korczak - pedagog rewolucjonista" (in Polish). S.P. Polityka. Historia. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
- ^ Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (2012). "Moja Biblioteczka".Historia o Janaszu Korczaku i o pięknej Miecznikównie. LubimyCzytać.pl. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
- ^ Carrie-Anne (2006). "Stefania Wilczyńska (1886–August 6, 1942)". Biography and photographs. Findagrave.com. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
- ^ Hanna Mortkowicz-Olczakowa (1960). "Goldszmit Henryk", in Polski Słownik Biograficzny, T. VIII. P. 214
- ^ Agnieszka Litwiniuk (March 29, 2012). "Stefania Wilczyńska". Sylwetki warszawskich Żydówek (Profiles of Warsaw Jewish women) (in Polish). Warszefroj, Centrum Kultury Jidysz (Yidish Centre). Retrieved 14 December2013.
- ^ "Dom Sierot. Krochmalna 92". Swedish Holocaust Memorial Association. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
- ^ Nick Shepley (7 December 2015). Hitler, Stalin and the Destruction of Poland: Explaining History. Andrews UK Limited. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-78333-143-7.
- ^ Jerzy Waldorff, Władysław Szpilman, The Pianist. Page 96.
- ^ Mary Berg, The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1996, pages 169-170.
- ^ "The Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw (Cmentarz żydowski przy ul. Okopowej w Warszawie)". Cmentarium. 2007. Retrieved January 8, 2013.
- ^ Mirosław Gorzelanny (November 27, 2012). "School history". Specjalny Ośrodek Szkolno – Wychowawczy im Janusza Korczaka w Borzęciczkach. RetrievedJanuary 8, 2013.
- ^ "Wyrok w sprawie Korczaka – omówienie". Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
- ^ "Wygrany spór o datę śmierci Korczaka. Prawda pokonała "własność intelektualną"". Dziennik Internautów. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
- ^ "Author: Janusz Korczak". Wolne Lektury. Retrieved2016-03-12.
- ^ "Janusz Korczak", Book Institute
- ^ Modig, Cecilia (2009). Never Violence – Thirty Years on from Sweden's Abolition of Corporal Punishment (PDF). Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Sweden; Save the Children Sweden. Reference No. S2009.030. p. 8.
- ^ Hickling, Alfred (June 12, 2008). "?". The Guardian(London).
Television:
- Studio 4: Dr Korczak and the Children - BBC adaptation of Sylvanus's play, written and directed by Rudolph Cartier (13 March 1962)
Film:
- Sie sind frei, Dr. Korczak (The Martyr), written by Ben Barzman and Alexander Ramati, directed by Aleksander Ford(1975)
- Korczak, written by Agnieszka Holland, directed by Andrzej Wajda (1990)
- ^ a b Yad Vashem (2010). "Ceremony Marking 68 Years Since its Murder of Korczak and the Children of the Orphanage". Yad Vashem The Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority. Retrieved 27 January2012.
- ^ "Jewish Doctor Janusz Korczak Died With 190 Children at Treblinka Court: Changes Date of Death for Orphanage Director". JTA. 30 March 2015. Retrieved 30 March 2015.
- ^ Sandra Joseph, Institute of Education in London (July–August 2002). "POLE APART - the life and work of Janusz Korczak". Young Minds Magazine 59. Archived from the original on 28 September 2007. Retrieved 27 January2012.
- ^ a b "Polskie Stowarzyszenie im. Janusza Korczaka".www.pskorczak.org.pl (in Polish). Retrieved 2016-03-12.
- ^ Tadeusz Lewowicki (2000). "Janusz Korczak (1878–1942)" (PDF, 43 KB). Prospects:the quarterly review of comparative education, vol. XXIV, no. 1/2, 1994, p. 37–48.UNESCO: International Bureau of Education. Retrieved27 January 2012.
- ^ a b Prof. Barbara Smolińska–Theiss (2012). "Janusz Korczak – zarys portretu (the portrait)" (in Polish). Rok Janusza Korczaka (The official year of Janusz Korczak). Retrieved 27 January 2012.
- ^ The Month, Volume 39. Simpki, Marshall, and Company. 1968. p. 350.
When Dr. Janusz Korczak, a Jewish philanthropist and agnostic, voluntarily chooses to follow the Jewish orphans under his care to the Nazi extermination camp in Treblinka...
- ^ Chris Mullen (March 7, 1983). "Korczak's Children: Flawed Faces in a Warsaw Ghetto". The Heights. p. 24. Retrieved 25 August 2013.
An assimilated Jew, he changed his name from Henryk Goldschmidt and was an agnostic who did not believe in forcing religion on children.
- ^ Janusz Korczak (1978). Ghetto diary. Holocaust Library. p. 42.
You know I am an agnostic, but I understood: Pedagogy, tolerance, and all that.
- ^ Janusz Korczak; Aleksander Lewin (1996). Sława: Opowiadania (1898-1914) (in Polish). Oficyna Wydawnicza Latona. p. 387. ISBN 978-83-85449-35-5.
- ^ Maria Falkowska (1978). Kalendarium życia, działalności i twórczości Janusza Korczaka (in Polish). Wydaw-a Szkolne i Pedagogiczne. p. 8.
- ^ a b Joanna Cieśla (15 January 2012). "Henryk zwany Januszem. Janusz Korczak - pedagog rewolucjonista" (in Polish). S.P. Polityka. Historia. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
- ^ Józef Ignacy Kraszewski (2012). "Moja Biblioteczka".Historia o Janaszu Korczaku i o pięknej Miecznikównie. LubimyCzytać.pl. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
- ^ Carrie-Anne (2006). "Stefania Wilczyńska (1886–August 6, 1942)". Biography and photographs. Findagrave.com. Retrieved May 25, 2012.
- ^ Hanna Mortkowicz-Olczakowa (1960). "Goldszmit Henryk", in Polski Słownik Biograficzny, T. VIII. P. 214
- ^ Agnieszka Litwiniuk (March 29, 2012). "Stefania Wilczyńska". Sylwetki warszawskich Żydówek (Profiles of Warsaw Jewish women) (in Polish). Warszefroj, Centrum Kultury Jidysz (Yidish Centre). Retrieved 14 December2013.
- ^ "Dom Sierot. Krochmalna 92". Swedish Holocaust Memorial Association. Retrieved 27 January 2012.
- ^ Nick Shepley (7 December 2015). Hitler, Stalin and the Destruction of Poland: Explaining History. Andrews UK Limited. p. 55. ISBN 978-1-78333-143-7.
- ^ Jerzy Waldorff, Władysław Szpilman, The Pianist. Page 96.
- ^ Mary Berg, The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing Up in the Warsaw Ghetto, Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 1996, pages 169-170.
- ^ "The Jewish Cemetery on Okopowa Street in Warsaw (Cmentarz żydowski przy ul. Okopowej w Warszawie)". Cmentarium. 2007. Retrieved January 8, 2013.
- ^ Mirosław Gorzelanny (November 27, 2012). "School history". Specjalny Ośrodek Szkolno – Wychowawczy im Janusza Korczaka w Borzęciczkach. RetrievedJanuary 8, 2013.
- ^ "Wyrok w sprawie Korczaka – omówienie". Fundacja Nowoczesna Polska. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
- ^ "Wygrany spór o datę śmierci Korczaka. Prawda pokonała "własność intelektualną"". Dziennik Internautów. Retrieved 2016-03-12.
- ^ "Author: Janusz Korczak". Wolne Lektury. Retrieved2016-03-12.
- ^ "Janusz Korczak", Book Institute
- ^ Modig, Cecilia (2009). Never Violence – Thirty Years on from Sweden's Abolition of Corporal Punishment (PDF). Ministry of Health and Social Affairs, Sweden; Save the Children Sweden. Reference No. S2009.030. p. 8.
- ^ Hickling, Alfred (June 12, 2008). "?". The Guardian(London).
Television:
- Studio 4: Dr Korczak and the Children - BBC adaptation of Sylvanus's play, written and directed by Rudolph Cartier (13 March 1962)
Film:
- Sie sind frei, Dr. Korczak (The Martyr), written by Ben Barzman and Alexander Ramati, directed by Aleksander Ford(1975)
- Korczak, written by Agnieszka Holland, directed by Andrzej Wajda (1990)
Children's books[edit]
Korczak often employed the form of the fairy tale in order to actually prepare his young readers for the dilemmas and difficulties of real adult life, and the need to make responsible decisions.
In the 1923 King Matt the First (Król Maciuś Pierwszy) and its sequel King Matt on the Desert Island (Król Maciuś na wyspie bezludnej) Korczak depicted a child prince who is catapulted to the throne by the sudden death of his father, and who must learn from various mistakes.
He tries to read and answer all his mail by himself and finds that the volume is too much and he needs to rely on secretaries; he is exasperated with his ministers and has them arrested, but soon realises that he does not know enough to govern by himself, and is forced to release the ministers and institute constitutional monarchy; when a war breaks out he does not accept being shut up in his palace, but slips away and joins up, pretending to be a peasant boy - and narrowly avoids becoming a POW; he takes the offer of a friendly journalist to publish for him a "royal paper" -and finds much later that he gets carefully edited news and that the journalist is covering up the gross corruption of the young king's best friend; he tries to organise the children of all the world to hold processions and demand their rights – and ends up antagonising other kings; he falls in love with a black African princess and outrages racist opinion (by modern standards, however, Korczak's depiction of blacks is itself not completely free of stereotypes which were current at the time of writing); finally, he is overthrown by the invasion of three foreign armies and exiled to a desert island, where he must come to terms with reality – and finally does.
Recently (2012), another book by Korczak was translated into English. Kajtuś the Wizard (Kajtuś czarodziej) (1933) anticipated Harry Potter in depicting a schoolboy who gains magic powers, and it was very popular during the 1930s, both in Polish and in translation to several other languages. Kajtuś has, however, a far more difficult path than Harry Potter: he has no Hogwarts-type School of Magic where he could be taught by expert mages, but must learn to use and control his powers all by himself - and most importantly, to learn his limitations.
Korczak often employed the form of the fairy tale in order to actually prepare his young readers for the dilemmas and difficulties of real adult life, and the need to make responsible decisions.
In the 1923 King Matt the First (Król Maciuś Pierwszy) and its sequel King Matt on the Desert Island (Król Maciuś na wyspie bezludnej) Korczak depicted a child prince who is catapulted to the throne by the sudden death of his father, and who must learn from various mistakes.
He tries to read and answer all his mail by himself and finds that the volume is too much and he needs to rely on secretaries; he is exasperated with his ministers and has them arrested, but soon realises that he does not know enough to govern by himself, and is forced to release the ministers and institute constitutional monarchy; when a war breaks out he does not accept being shut up in his palace, but slips away and joins up, pretending to be a peasant boy - and narrowly avoids becoming a POW; he takes the offer of a friendly journalist to publish for him a "royal paper" -and finds much later that he gets carefully edited news and that the journalist is covering up the gross corruption of the young king's best friend; he tries to organise the children of all the world to hold processions and demand their rights – and ends up antagonising other kings; he falls in love with a black African princess and outrages racist opinion (by modern standards, however, Korczak's depiction of blacks is itself not completely free of stereotypes which were current at the time of writing); finally, he is overthrown by the invasion of three foreign armies and exiled to a desert island, where he must come to terms with reality – and finally does.
Recently (2012), another book by Korczak was translated into English. Kajtuś the Wizard (Kajtuś czarodziej) (1933) anticipated Harry Potter in depicting a schoolboy who gains magic powers, and it was very popular during the 1930s, both in Polish and in translation to several other languages. Kajtuś has, however, a far more difficult path than Harry Potter: he has no Hogwarts-type School of Magic where he could be taught by expert mages, but must learn to use and control his powers all by himself - and most importantly, to learn his limitations.
Thoughts on corporal punishment[edit]
Korczak spoke against corporal punishment of children at a time when such treatment was considered a parental entitlement or even duty. In The Child’s Right to Respect (1925), he wrote,
List of selected works[edit]
Fiction[edit]
Pedagogical books[edit]
- Momenty wychowawcze (Warsaw, 1919, 2nd edition 1924)
- How to Love a Child (Jak kochać dziecko, Warsaw 1919, 2nd edition 1920 as Jak kochać dzieci)
- The Child's Right to Respect (Prawo dziecka do szacunku, Warsaw, 1929)
- Playful pedagogy (Pedagogika żartobliwa, Warsaw, 1939)
- Momenty wychowawcze (Warsaw, 1919, 2nd edition 1924)
- How to Love a Child (Jak kochać dziecko, Warsaw 1919, 2nd edition 1920 as Jak kochać dzieci)
- The Child's Right to Respect (Prawo dziecka do szacunku, Warsaw, 1929)
- Playful pedagogy (Pedagogika żartobliwa, Warsaw, 1939)
Other books[edit]
- Diary (Pamiętnik, Warsaw, 1958)
- Fragmenty Utworów
- The Stubborn Boy: The Life of Pasteur (Warsaw, 1935)
- Diary (Pamiętnik, Warsaw, 1958)
- Fragmenty Utworów
- The Stubborn Boy: The Life of Pasteur (Warsaw, 1935)
Pedagogical books[edit]
In his pedagogical works, Korczak shares much of his experience dealing with difficult children. Korczak's ideas were further developed by many other pedagogues such as Simon Soloveychik and Erich Dauzenroth.Stage plays:
- Dr Korczak and the Children by Erwin Sylvanus (1957)
- Korczak's Children by Jeffrey Hatcher (2003)
- Dr Korczak's Example by David Greig (2001)[28]
- The Children's Republic A play based on the life and work of Yanusz Korczak (2008) by Elena Khalitov, Harmony Theatre Company and School
- The Children's Republic by Hannah Moscovitch (2009)
- "Loving Every Child: Wisdom for Parents" Edited by [Sandra Joseph] korczak.org.uk
Musicals:
- Facing the wall - Janusz Korczak by Klaus-Peter Rex and Daniel Hoffmann (1997) presented by Music-theatre fuenf brote und zwei fische, Wülfrath
- Korczak by Nick Stimson and Chris Williams (2011) presented by Youth Music Theatre: UK at the Rose Theatre, Kingston in August 2011.
In his pedagogical works, Korczak shares much of his experience dealing with difficult children. Korczak's ideas were further developed by many other pedagogues such as Simon Soloveychik and Erich Dauzenroth.Stage plays:
- Dr Korczak and the Children by Erwin Sylvanus (1957)
- Korczak's Children by Jeffrey Hatcher (2003)
- Dr Korczak's Example by David Greig (2001)[28]
- The Children's Republic A play based on the life and work of Yanusz Korczak (2008) by Elena Khalitov, Harmony Theatre Company and School
- The Children's Republic by Hannah Moscovitch (2009)
- "Loving Every Child: Wisdom for Parents" Edited by [Sandra Joseph] korczak.org.uk
Musicals:
- Facing the wall - Janusz Korczak by Klaus-Peter Rex and Daniel Hoffmann (1997) presented by Music-theatre fuenf brote und zwei fische, Wülfrath
- Korczak by Nick Stimson and Chris Williams (2011) presented by Youth Music Theatre: UK at the Rose Theatre, Kingston in August 2011.
In popular culture[edit]
In addition to theater, opera, TV, and film adaptations of his works, such as King Matt the First and Kaytek the Wizard, there have been a number of works about Korczak, inspired by him, or featuring him as a character.
Books:
- Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli (2003) – Doctor Korczak runs an orphanage in Warsaw where the main character often visits him
- Moshe en Reizele (Mosje and Reizele) by Karlijn Stoffels (2004) – Mosje is sent to live in Korczak's orphanage, where he falls in love with Reizele. Set in the period 1939-1942. Original Dutch, German translation available. No English version as of 2009.
- Once by Morris Gleitzman (2005), partly inspired by Korczak, featuring a character modeled after him
- Kindling by Alberto Valis (Felici Editori, 2011), Italian thriller novel. The life of Korczak through the voice of a Warsaw ghetto's orphan. As of 2011, no English translation.
- The Time Tunnel - Kingdom of the Children by Galila Ron-Feder-Amit (2007) is an Israeli children's book in the Time Tunnel series that takes place in Korczak's orphanage.
- The Book of Aron by Jim Shepherd (2015) is a fictional work that features Dr. Korczak and his orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto as main characters in the book.
Janusz Korczak
Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit born in 1878 or 1879, physician, writer and educator. He was born in Warsaw, the son of an assimilated Jewish famly.
Korczak’s father was a successful attorney who became mentally ill when Korczak was eleven. This was a heavy blow to the family’s financial situation and a trauma that cast its shadow over Korczak throughout his life.
Even while still a student of medicine at Warsaw University, Korczak was drawn to circles of liberal educators and writers in Poland. When he entered medical practice, he did his best to help the poor and those who suffered the most, at the same time he began to write.
His first books, Children of the Streets (1901) and A Child of the Salon (1906) aroused great interest. In 1904 he was drafted into the Russian army as a doctor, and was posted to East Asia.
Both as a doctor and a writer, Korczak was drawn to the world of the child. He worked in a Jewish children’s hospital and took groups of children to summer camps, and in 1908 he began to work with orphans.
In 1912 he was appointed director of a new and spacious Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, on Krochmalna Street. Throughout his life, his partner in his work was Stefania Wilczynska, a superb educator, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family who dedicated her life to the care of orphans and greatly influenced Korczak and his career as an educator.
In the orphanage, Korczak studied the secret depths of the child’s soul, and it was in the orphanage that he made practical application of his educational ideas. Korczak called for an understanding of the emotional life of children and urged that children be respected.
A child was not be regarded as something to be shaped and trained to suit adults, but rather as someone whose soul was rich in perception and ideas, who should be observed and listened to within his or her own autonomous sphere.
Every child he maintained has to be dealt with as an individual whose inclinations and ambitions, and the conditions under which he or she is growing up, require understanding.
In several of his books – such as King Matthew the First (1923), When I am Small Again (1925), and the short theoretical work The Child’s Right to Respect (1929) – Korczak stressed the social conflict between child and adult in a situation when power and control are in the hands of the adult, even when the adult does not understand or refuses to understand the child’s world, and deliberately deprives the child of his or her due. In Korczak’s view “to reform the educational system.”
In 1914 Korczak was again called up for military service in the Russian army, and it was in military hospitals and bases that he wrote his important work How to Love Children.
After the war he returned to Poland – now independent – and to his work in the Jewish orphanage, but he was also asked to take charge of an orphanage for Polish children and to apply there the methods he had introduced in the establishment on Krochmalna Street.
The 1920’s were a period of intensive and fruitful work in Korczak’s life – he was in charge of two orphanages, where he also lived, served as an instructor at boarding schools and summer camps and as a lecturer at universities and seminaries, and wrote a great deal.
In the late 1920’s, he was able to put into effect his long-time plan to establish a newspaper for children as a weekly added to the Jewish daily in the Polish language, Nasz Przeglad – it was written by children, who related their experiences and their deepest thoughts.
In the mid-1930’s, Korczak’s public career underwent a change. Following the death of the Polish dictator, Jozef Pilsudski, political power in the country came into the hands of radical right-wing and openly anti-Semitic circles.
Korczak was removed from many of the positions in which he had been active, and he suffered great disappointment. As a result, he took a growing interest in the Zionist effort and in the Jewish community in Palestine.
He visited Palestine twice, in 1934 and 1936, showing particular interest in the state of education, especially the educational achievements of the kibbutz movement, but he was also deeply impressed by the changes he found in the Jews living there.
On the eve of World War Two Korczak was considering moving to Palestine, but his idea failed to reach fruition.
From the very beginning of the war, Korczak took up activities among the Jews and Jewish children. At first he refused to acknowledge the German occupation and heed its rules, he refused to wear the Jewish yellow badge, and as a consequence spent some time in jail.
When, however, the economic situation took a sharp turn for the worse and the Jews of Warsaw were imprisoned in the ghetto, Korczak concentrated his efforts on the orphanage, seeking to provide the children there with food and the basics conditions of existence.
He was now an elderly and tired man and could no longer keep track of the changes that were taking place in the world and in his immediate vicinity and he shut himself in.
The only thing that gave him the strength to carry on was the duty he felt to preserve and protect his orphanage, where old rules continued to apply, it was kept clean, the duty roster was observed, there were close relations between the staff and the children, an internal court of honour had jurisdiction over both children and teachers, every Sunday a general assembly was held, there were literary evenings and the children gave performances.
Polish friends of Dr Korczak reported that they went to see him in the ghetto and offered him asylum on the Polish side, but he refused to abandon the children and possibly save himself.
During the occupation and the period he spent in the ghetto, Korczak kept a diary. At the end of July 1942, when the deportations were at their height – about ten days before he, the orphans, and the staff of the orphanage, were taken to the Umschlagplatz – Korczak wrote the following entry:
“I feel so soft and warm in the bed – it will be hard for me to get up … but today is Sabbath – the day on which I weigh the children, before they have their breakfast. This, I think, is the first time that I am not eager to know their figures for the past week.
They ought to gain weight – I have no idea why they were given raw carrots for supper last night.”
On Thursday 6 August 1942 the Germans deported Korczak, his assistants and the two hundred children, from the orphanage at 16 Sienna Street, the orphanage having been relocated from Krochmalna. A witness to the orphans three mile march to the deportation train described the scene to the Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum as follows:
“This was not a march to the railway cars - this was an organised, wordless protest against the murder.”
The children marched in rows of four, with Korczak leading them, looking straight ahead, and holding a child’s hand on each side.
A second column was led by Stefania Wilczynska, the third by Broniatowska, her children carrying blue knapsacks on their backs, and the fourth by Sternfeld, from the boarding school on Twarda Street.”
Nothing is known of their last journey to Treblinka, where they were all murdered by the Nazis. After the war, associations bearing Korczak’s name were formed in Poland, Israel, Germany and other countries, to keep his memory alive and to promote his message and his work.
He became a legendary figure and UNESCO named him “Man of the Year.”
Books, plays and films have all been produced about Korczak, and his own writings have been translated into many languages.
In addition to theater, opera, TV, and film adaptations of his works, such as King Matt the First and Kaytek the Wizard, there have been a number of works about Korczak, inspired by him, or featuring him as a character.
Books:
- Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli (2003) – Doctor Korczak runs an orphanage in Warsaw where the main character often visits him
- Moshe en Reizele (Mosje and Reizele) by Karlijn Stoffels (2004) – Mosje is sent to live in Korczak's orphanage, where he falls in love with Reizele. Set in the period 1939-1942. Original Dutch, German translation available. No English version as of 2009.
- Once by Morris Gleitzman (2005), partly inspired by Korczak, featuring a character modeled after him
- Kindling by Alberto Valis (Felici Editori, 2011), Italian thriller novel. The life of Korczak through the voice of a Warsaw ghetto's orphan. As of 2011, no English translation.
- The Time Tunnel - Kingdom of the Children by Galila Ron-Feder-Amit (2007) is an Israeli children's book in the Time Tunnel series that takes place in Korczak's orphanage.
- The Book of Aron by Jim Shepherd (2015) is a fictional work that features Dr. Korczak and his orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto as main characters in the book.
Janusz Korczak
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Korczak.html
Janusz Korczak
(1878 - 1942)
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Janusz Korczak was born Henryk Goldsmit in Warsaw on July 22, 1878. During his youth, he played with children who were poor and lived in bad neighborhoods; his passion for helping disadvantaged youth continued into his adulthood. He studied medicine and also had a promising career in literature. When he gave up his career in literature and medicine, he changed his name to Janusz Korczak, a pseudonym derived from a 19th century novel, Janasz Korczak and the pretty Swordsweeperlady.In 1912, Korczak established a Jewish orphanage, Dom Sierot, in a building which he designed to advance his progressive educational theories. He envisioned a world in which children structured their own world and became experts in their own matters. Jewish children between the ages of seven and fourteen were allowed to live there while attending Polish public school and government-sponsored Jewish schools, known as "Sabbath" schools. The orphanage opened a summer camp in 1921, which remained in operation until the summer of 1940.
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Besides serving as principal of Don Sierot and another orphanage, Nasz Dom, Korczak was also a doctor and author, worked at a Polish radio station, was a principal of an experimental school, published a children’s newspaper and was a docent at a Polish university. Korczak also served as an expert witness in a district court for minors. He became well-known in Polish societyand received many awards. The rise of anti-Semitism in the 1930's restricted only his activities with Jews.In 1934 and 1936, Korczak visited Palestine and was influenced by the kibbutz movement. Following his trips, Korczak was convinced that all Jews should move to Palestine.The Germans occupied Poland in September 1939, and the Warsaw ghetto was established in November 1940. The orphanage was moved inside the ghetto. Korczak received many offers to be smuggled out of the ghetto, but he refused because he did not want to abandon the children. On August 5, 1942, Korczak joined nearly 200 children and orphanage staff members were rounded up for deportation to Treblinka, where they were all put to death.
The K I N G of C H I L D R E N The L I F E and D E A T H of JANUSZ KORCZAK by: Betty Jean Lifton St. Martin´s Griffin -New York - ISBN: 0-312-15560-3 HTML-Code by: Korczak Communication Center Michael Parciak -Germany, Munich
Child of the Drawing Room Heritage Confessions of a Butterfly Which Way? Muzzle on the Soul Little Hospital Summer Camps The Desision The Children´s Republic How to love a Child The sad Madame Independence The Spirit of King Matt One Hundred Children Taming the Beast Striving for Justice Long Live the Hering! Madame Stefa Not Every Truth Can Be Blown on a Trumpet The Happiest Period Crossroads Palestine The Old Doctor The Hard Truth of Moses Loneliness The Religion of the Child September 1939 Arrest The Ghetto All Are Equal Our Children Must Live The Last Seder The Ghetto Diary: May 1942 Strange Happenings The Post Office Yesterday´s Rainbow The Last March: August, 6, 1942 Epiloque: Treplinka AfterAppendix: Janusz Korczak's Declaration of Children's Rights |
Biography[edit]
Korczak was born in Warsaw in 1878 or 1879 (sources vary[nb 1]) into the family of Józef Goldszmit,[1] a respected lawyer from a family of proponents of thehaskalah,[5] and Cecylia née Gębicka, daughter of a prominent Kalisz family.[6]Born to a Jewish family, he was an agnostic in later life who did not believe in forcing religion on children.[7][8][9] His father fell ill around 1890 and was admitted to a mental hospital where he died six years later on 25 April 1896.[10][11] Spacious apartments were given up on Miodowa street, then Świętojerska.[12] As his family financial situation worsened, Henryk, still while attending the gymnasium (the current 8th Lyccee in Warsaw), begun to work as a tutor for other pupils.[12] In 1896 he debuted on the literary scene with a satirical text on raising children, Węzeł gordyjski.[6]
In 1898 he used Janusz Korczak as a writing pseudonym in the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Literary Contest. The name originated from the book Janasz Korczak and the Pretty Swordsweeperlady (O Janaszu Korczaku i pięknej Miecznikównie) by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski.[13] In the 1890s he studied in the Flying University. During the years 1898–1904 Korczak studied medicine at the University of Warsaw[4] and also wrote for several Polish language newspapers. After graduation he became a pediatrician. In 1905−1912 Korczak worked at Bersohns and Baumans Children's Hospital in Warsaw. During the Russo-Japanese War in 1905–1906 he served as a military doctor. Meanwhile, his book Child of the Drawing Room (Dziecko salonu) gained him some literary recognition.
In 1907–1908 Korczak went to study in Berlin. While working for the Orphan's Society in 1909 he met Stefania Wilczyńska, his future closest associate.[14] In 1911–1912 he became a director of Dom Sierot in Warsaw, the orphanage of his own design for Jewish children.[15] He hired Wilczyńska as his assistant. There he formed a kind-of-a-republic for children with its own small parliament, court, and a newspaper. He reduced his other duties as a doctor. Some of his descriptions of the summer camp for Jewish children in this period and subsequently, were later published in his Fragmenty Utworów and have been translated into English.During World War I, in 1914 Korczak became a military doctor with the rank ofLieutenant. He served again as a military doctor in the Polish Army with the rank of Major during the Polish-Soviet War, but after a brief stint in Łódź was assigned to Warsaw. After the wars he continued his practice in Warsaw.
Sovereign Poland[edit]
In 1926 Korczak arranged for the children of the Dom Sierot to begin their own newspaper, the Mały Przegląd (Little Review), as a weekly attachment to the daily Polish-Jewish Newspaper Nasz Przegląd (Our Review). In these years, his secretary was the noted Polish novelist Igor Newerly.
During the 1930s he had his own radio program where he promoted and popularized the rights of children. In 1933 he was awarded the Silver Cross of the Polonia Restituta. Between 1934–36 Korczak traveled every year to Mandate Palestine and visited its kibbutzim, which led to some anti-semitic commentaries in the Polish press. Additionally, it spurred his estrangement with the non-Jewish orphanage he had also been working for. Still, he refused to move to Palestine even when Wilczyńska went to live there in 1938. She returned to Poland in May 1939, unable to fit in, and resumed her role of the Headmistress.[16]
The Holocaust[edit]
In 1939, when World War II erupted, Korczak volunteered for duty in the Polish Army but was refused due to his age. He witnessed the Wehrmacht takeover of Warsaw. When the Germans created the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, his orphanage was forced to move from its building, Dom Sierot at Krochmalna 92 to the Ghetto (first to Chłodna 33 and later to Sienna 16 / Śliska 9).[17] Korczak moved in with them. In July, Janusz Korczak decided that the children in the orphanage should put onRabindranath Tagore’s play, The Post Office.On 5 or 6 August 1942, German soldiers came to collect the 192 orphans (there is some debate about the actual number: it may have been 196), and about one dozen staff members, to transport them to Treblinka extermination camp. Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the “Aryan side” by Żegota but turned it down repeatedly, saying that he could not abandon his children. On 5 August he again refused offers of sanctuary, insisting that he would go with the children. He stayed with the children all the way until the end.
The children were dressed in their best clothes, and each carried a blue knapsack and a favorite book or toy. Joshua Perle, an eyewitness, described the procession of Korczak and the children through the ghetto to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point to the death camps):
AB
The Following is a selection bibliography of publications dealing with the issues related, in a broad sense, the history, culture as well as tangible and intangible heritage of Polish Jews. Presented literature is the intended to serve various research purposes (Including Polish-Jewish relations and issues related to anti-Semitism and its Manifestations). It also contains source publications as well as memoirs, diaries as well as a selection of literature (fiction, poetry and drama).
- Abdalla Ismail-Sabri, the Arabs and Israel , Warsaw 1972
- Israel Abrahams, everyday life of Jews in the Middle Ages, Warsaw, 1996
- Abramovič Šalom Jacob (pseudonym. Mendele Mojcher Sforim) Travel Benjamin the Third, Wroclaw 1990
- Abramovich Hirsch, Profiles of lost world. Memories of East European Jewish life before World War II , New York 1999
- Mieczyslaw Abramowicz, each brought what he had best Gdańsk, 2005
- Zofia Abramowicz, Imiennictwo Jews from Bialystok and the phenomenon of linguistic interference, Lublin 1993
- Zofia Abramowicz, Etymological Dictionary of names of Jews from Bialystok , Bialystok 2003
- Acharon Zvi, Jäger , Warsaw 1998
- Acharon Zvi, Operation Eichmann: How was it really, Warsaw 1998
- Acher Margaret-Mary, Wrong face: memories of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto , Częstochowa 2001
- Uriel Acosta, Exemplar Humanae Vitae, Warsaw, 1960.
- Adamczyk- Garbowska Monika, Boguslaw Wroblewski, Biłgoraj or Raj Singer family and the world, which no longer exists , Lublin 2005
- John Adamczyk Leszek, Castle Hill in Kielce , Kielce 1991
- Mieczyslaw Jerzy Adamczyk, education and the transformation of Jewish communities in the Habsburg monarchy 1774-1914 , Wroclaw 1998
- Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska [sellection, collaborative study and introduction]Kazimierz aka Kuzmir, Town of various dreams , Lublin 2006
- Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Kopciowski Adam, Trzciński Andrzej [collaborative study], the Book of memory of Jewish communities. There was once my home ..., Lublin 2009
- Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, O dcienie identity. Jewish Literature as a phenomenon multilingual , Lublin 2004
- Monika Adamczyk-Garbowska, Poland Isaac Bashevis Singer: parting and returning, Lublin 1994
- Adamiak Elizabeth Women in the Bible. The Old Testament, Kraków 2006
- Adamska Jolanta, Kaźmierska Janina Ruta Sakowska, [collaborative study], so it was ... Reports from the Warsaw Ghetto 1939-1943 (selection) , Warsaw 1988
- Adamska Jolanta, so it was ...: reports from the Warsaw Ghetto 1939-1943 (selection)., Warsaw 1988
- Jerzy Adamski (collaborative study), Jewish joke: humor and tears , Warsaw 1993
- Shmuel Josef Agnon, from Buczacz to Jerusalem: stories , Wroclaw 1995
- Zvi Aharoni, Jäger: Operation Eichmann , Warsaw 1998.
- Zvi Aharoni, Operation Eichmann: How was it really, Warsaw 1998.
- Ajchelman Isaac (sellection and collaborative study) Humor Jewish Rzeszów 1989
- Ajzenman Zvi, on the edge of sleep, Łódź 2001
- Ajzensztajn Betti, underground movement in the ghettos and camps: materials and documents, Łódź 1946
- Akavia Miriam, Price , Wrocław 1992.
- Akavia Miriam, Galia and Miklos: rupture , Poznan 1992
- Akavia Miriam, Autumn youth , Krakow 1989
- Akavia Miriam, Autumn youth , Oswiecim 1996
- Akavia Miriam Carmi Shelah , Kraków 2000
- Akavia Miriam, My vineyard: family saga in three parts, Warsaw 1990
- Akavia Miriam, my returns , Kraków 2005
- Akavia Miriam, Delusions , Poznan 2000
- Akavia Miriam (sellection), New Poetry Hebrew, Lodz 1995
- Akavia Miriam, Price, Wrocław 1992.
- Akavia Miriam, Galia and Miklos: rupture, Poznan 1992
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- Brodzki Stanislaw Palestine in the struggle for freedom, Warsaw 1948
- Suzanne Brøgger, Cat with jade, Warszawa 2004
- Brojer Wojciech, Doctor John, Kos Bohdan (collaborative study), Sefer Yetzirah or Book of creation, Warsaw 1995
- Bron Michael [edit.], Jews and Christians in Dialogue II , Stockholm 2001
- Bronner Irena, Rydlowa Maria (collaborative study), cicadas on the Vistula River and the Jordan, Krakow 1991, 2004.
- Aleksander Bronowski, There were so few, Warsaw 1989
- Bronsztejn neck, the Jewish population in Poland in the interwar period. Study statistics., Wrocław 1963.
- Bronsztejn Neck, The History of the Jewish population in Lower Silesia after the Second World War: a failed attempt to create clusters, Wroclaw 1993
- Christopher Browning, Ordinary People: Reserve Police Battalion 101 and the "final solution" in Poland, Warsaw 2000.
- Franziska Bruder, Stanislaw Wygodzki, Field, Jude, Kommunist - Schriftsteller , Munster 2003
- Bruell Janina (collaborative study), Israel - our elder brother, Cieszyn 2000
- Bruliński Wladyslaw, What is Marxism ?, Warsaw 1981
- Bruliński Wladyslaw, Christian civilization and the Jewish Warsaw 1982
- Bruliński Wladyslaw, Where are you going Polish, Warsaw 1981-1982
- Bruliński Wladyslaw, worldwide network of conspiracy. Vol. 1-2, Warszawa 1982
- Bruliński Wladyslaw (pseudonym. Witness the story.) The red stains of history,Warsaw 1981, 1982
- Bruliński Wladyslaw (pseudonym. Witness the story.) Judeopolonia, Warszawa 1987, 1989.
- Bruliński Wladyslaw (WZB crypts.), Period of errors and distortions, Warsaw 1985
- Brunner-Taut Gemma (edit.), Five great religions of the world, Warsaw
- Bryn Felicia, never forget to lie, Poznan 2006
- Brzewska Iwona, Piątkowska, Renata (collaborative study) Map of Judaica in Poland, Warsaw 1991
- Brzezińska Zofia, Yellow tulips, Warsaw 1996
- Birch Czeslaw, Jewish political mosaic in Poland in 1917 - 1929. The choice of documents , Kraków 2003
- Birch, Czeslaw (sellection and collaborative study), Jewish political mosaic in Poland from 1917 to 1927: (a selection of documents), Kraków 2003.
- Martin Buber, Tales of the Hasidim , Poznan - Warsaw 2005
- Martin Buber, Moses, Warsaw 1998
- Martin Buber, The way of man according to the teachings of Hasidim, Warsaw 2004
- Martin Buber, Tales of angels, ghosts and demons, Warsaw 2004
- Martin Buber, the writings of Martin Buber, Warsaw 1980
- Martin Buber, Doctor, Jan (sellection, introduction), Me and You: choice of philosophical writings, Warsaw 1992
- Martin Buber, Hertz, Paul (introduction), Tales of the Hasidim, Poznan 1986, 1989, 2005;
- Martin Buber, introduction Adam Zak; introduction David Flusser, two types of faith, Krakow 1995
- Martin Buber, introduction Jan Garewicz., Gog and Magog: chronicle Hasidic,Warsaw 1999
- Buchner Abraham, Flowers East: a set of moral principles, proverbs, theological, social rules, allegoryi and novels from the Talmud and the writings of contemporaries, Wroclaw 1990
- Budrewicz, Olgierd, Malinowska, Maria (edit.), Lived among us: Judaica Polish,Warsaw 1995
- Budziarek Marek (edit.), Judaica Lodz in museums and archives: collective work,Lodz 1994
- Budziarek Marek, Post office in the Lodz ghetto: 1940-1944., Lodz; Berlin 1995.
- Budziszewski George, Living and the Dead, Warsaw 1988
- Budzyńska Celina, Snatches family saga, Warsaw 1997.
- Wieslaw Budzynski, City Schulz , Warsaw 2005
- Budzynski Victor; Wasylkowski Janusz (collaborative study), Phrasebook men Aprikosenkranca and Untenbauma: dialogues and skits with Merry Lviv Wave,Warsaw 2000
- Anna Bukowska, Palestinians: their lives and struggle, Warszawa 1978, 1988
- Bukowski Jacob story about life, Warszawa 2002
- Waldemar Bukowski, leg, Zdzislaw (eds), The Jews in Poland: Folks or foreign ?: exhibition catalog, Kraków 1998.
- Bukwalt, Milosz, literary portraits of Jewish fathers in the prose of Bruno Schulz and Danilo Kiš, Wrocław 2003
- Bulkiewicz Stanislaw, Money Lodz ghetto 1940-1944, saw 1993
- Miroslaw M. Bulat, Krakow Jewish Theatre = Krokewer Yiddish Teater: between szundem and art, Kraków 2006
- Piece Wladyslaw (edit.) The words engraved on the columns: "Gazeta Żywiecka" in 1925-1926, Zywiec 2004
- Piotr Buras (collaborative study) dispute with the German memory: debate Walser - Bubis, Warsaw 1999
- Przemysław Burchard (collaborative study, introduction), Gift and Jewish monuments in Poland., Warsaw 1990.
- Josif Burg; Magdalena Ruta (sellection, collaborative study), Crumbs, Sejny 2001
- Richard Burgin, Conversations with Isaac Singer Bashewisem, Gdansk 1992
- Michael Burleigh, The Third Reich: A new story, Warsaw 2002
- Burnett Ignatius B., after traces of memory, Warszawa 1995
- Buryła Sławomir, the truth of myth and literature: the writings of Tadeusz Borowski and Leopold Buczkowski, Kraków 2003
- Buryła Sławomir, Describe the Holocaust: Holocaust in the works of Henryk Grynberg, Wroclaw 2006
- JANUSZ KORCZAK
- (1878–1942)
- Tadeusz Lewowicki1
- Janusz Korczak (whose real name was Henryk Goldszmit) is one of the greatest and most
- impressive figures in contemporary pedagogy. His was a multi-faceted personality, with broad
- interests and extensive knowledge, a great empathy with children and a genuine concern for all
- social problems. A doctor by education and an educator by predilection, his passion for improving
- the reality he observed drove him to writing and journalism.
- His life, his community activities, educational work and creative output cannot be squeezed
- into any standard mould, or even presented in a complete manner. For Janusz Korczak was the
- kind of individual who exerted a strong influence on his surroundings, changed social practice,
- destroyed the petrified scientific dogma, and laid the foundations of new theories. At the same time
- he was involved in wide-ranging practical activities, in the fields of medicine, education and
- journalism. He condemned all manifestations of evil, and derided stupidity, while himself setting an
- example of how the world can be made better and more beautiful. He fought for this better and
- more beautiful world especially for children. He set the highest value in his life on the happiness of
- children, and their smiling, unhampered development. In fact, he devoted his entire life to trying to
- bring happiness to more and more children.
- His evolving personality
- Janusz Korczak was born in Warsaw in 1878. His father, Józef Goldszmit, was a respected lawyer
- with broad scholarly interests and ambitions. The Goldszmit family had a living tradition of
- community activity. Janusz Korczak’s grandfather, Hirsz Goldszmit, was very much involved in
- progressive Polish Jewish circles, belonging to ‘Haskale’ (which represented the Enlightenment
- movement in the Jewish milieu), and also practiced medicine.2 His father’s brother, Jakub, was a
- lawyer, also involved in journalism.
- His family atmosphere no doubt had an enormous influence on Janusz Korczak’s
- development, and especially on his awareness of social problems. He was himself quite conscious
- of the fact that he owed a great deal to his family and immediate circle.3 A. Lewin writes: ‘His
- struggle against evil, injustice and ignorance was a continuation of the actions of preceding
- generations. There is good reason to believe that he attached great importance to genealogy. In his
- writings he often expressed the conviction that outstanding individuals, the "good spirits of
- mankind", appear as the result of many generations of development.’4
Janusz Korczak’s personality was greatly influenced by his studies at the Praskie
Gimnazjum (the school’s name deriving from the name of the Praga district in Warsaw), now well
known in Poland as the Wladyslaw IV Liceum. He was particularly impressed by his teacher of
Greek.
Young Janusz Korczak displayed great interest in nature, and quickly developed a passion
for reading, being deeply moved by the poetry of A. Mickiewicz and the novels of J.I. Kraszewski.
2
By 1891, that is, as a 13-year-old boy, he was keeping a diary. As the years passed, various forms
of writing became a strong need and an ingrained habit.
He wrote his first literary works while still at school, for example ‘Samòbojstwo’ (Suicide)
in 1895, and a series of humorous sketches in 1896. The manuscript of the 1895 work, whose main
character was a man overcome by madness, was lost and never published. His first publication was
the humorous ‘Wezel gordyjski’ (Gordian Knot), which appeared in an 1896 issue of Kolce
(Barbs). This was also the first time the author used the cryptonym ‘Hen’ from the first syllable of
his first name ‘Henryk’. He published more works even before going on to post-secondary studies.
In 1898, as a Grade 8 pupil, he took part in the I. Paderewski literary competition. His entry was a
four-act play entitled Ktòredy? (Which way?). This was the first time used the pseudonym Janusz
Korczak, by which he is known to this day.His social programme
His sensitivity to social issues, acquired in the family home, made it impossible for Janusz Korczak
not to react to all manifestations of evil, unfairness and injustice. He was aware of these phenomena
both on a social and an individual level. He protested against numerous cases of coercion, whether
material or spiritual. He also spoke out against poverty, unemployment, exploitation and social
inequality. He did so as ‘a man following a lonely path of individual decisions and deeds’,5 for he
did not belong officially to any political organization, but devoted all his energy to social activity,
fighting for the dignity of human beings and their right to a full life, both in writing and in speech.
Janusz Korczak was closely bound to his country, occupied as it was by invaders for so
many years. Since he was deeply concerned about the fate of Poland and the Poles, he was close to
those social groups that desired and actively worked towards independence. Thus he maintained
relations with progressive social groups, with a number of progressive (sometimes radical)
periodical editors, with teachers, writers, journalists, doctors and students. As a social activist and
practising physician, he often had contact with the poorest classes of society.
Janusz Korczak’s social programme became crystallized during his medical studies, which
he started in 1898 at Warsaw University’s Department of Medicine. Although spread over many
works and implemented in many forms, this programme was exceptionally clear and consistent. Its
main aspects were improvement of living conditions, employment opportunities for all, higher
sanitary standards—especially among the poorest social classes, providing children with
appropriate conditions for their physical and mental development, family life as a value, education
for all, equal rights for women, and many other important social issues in Polish society of the time.
The range of Janusz Korczak’s social interests and sociological observations was
astonishingly broad. He had things to say on issues related to his own profession, namely medicine,
but he also devoted a lot of attention to topics somewhat removed from, albeit not irrelevant to
medicine or education. For instance, he wrote on economics and on labour relations, and did not
shy away from subjects in the domains of culture, natural sciences and ethics. He combated evil
customs by criticizing and ridiculing them, but he also forced people to reflect more profoundly by
appealing to their consciences, especially when his goal was to improve the living conditions of the
poor, to bring social practice around to the principles of justice, and to win recognition for the
universal right to live in dignity.While in the Far East he kept up a journalistic correspondence from the front. The
awfulness of war did not keep him from writing; he continued to send in articles on the war, some
on sociological or educational subjects. His journalistic output did not flag after his return to
Warsaw. He published articles in medical journals, such as the professional Krytyka Lekarska, as
well as in other periodicals and in book form. He also wrote about the state of public health,
problems encountered by physicians, and the work of midwives6 and gave lectures to medical
audiences.
To further his professional knowledge, he travelled to Berlin in 1907, and to Paris in 1909,
to study. At this time he also published articles on the care of new-born babies, for example: ‘Waga
dla niemowlat w praktyce prywatnej’ (Scales for infants in private practice), ‘O znaczeniu
karmienia piersia niemowlat’ (On the importance of breast-feeding), ‘Niedziela lekarza’ (The
doctor’s Sunday), ‘Kropla mleka, czy niedziela lekarza?’ (A drop of milk, or the doctor’s Sunday).7
Unlike his other publications, his medical writings are usually signed with his real name—
Henryk Goldszmit. Most of these articles appeared in the first and second decades of the century.
During the First World War he was once again forced to practice medicine under extreme
circumstances. He found himself a ward head of a field hospital on the Ukrainian front, where the
fate of children with war injuries made a particularly strong impression on him. In 1917 he came
upon shelters for homeless children in Kiev.
Janusz Korczak studied psychological and educational literature from his early youth. He
was very interested in the history of educational thought, he was familiar with the works of
Pestalozzi and Spencer, and was attracted by the contributions of Froebel. Right from the start of
his journalistic activities, he expressed respect, and even fascination for the works of these authors.
In 1899 he wrote in one of the periodicals of the day: ‘The names of Pestalozzi, Froebel and
Spencer shine with no less brilliance than the names of the greatest inventors of the twentieth
century. For they discovered more than the unknown forces of nature; they discovered the
unknown half of humanity: children.’9
Korczak frequently read the works of Tolstoy. The ideas contained in the essay ‘Who is to
learn from whom how to write: peasant children from us, or we from peasant children?’ were
particularly close to his own. Like Tolstoy, he proclaimed the need to rise up and open our minds
to the thoughts, emotions and experiences of children.9
Korczak’s programme of pedagogical work was based on the thesis that children should be
fully understood, that one should enter into the spirit of their world and psychology, but that, first
and foremost, children must be respected and loved, treated in fact as partners and friends. In his
own words: ‘Children are not future people, because they are people already....Children are people
whose souls contain the seeds of all those thoughts and emotions that we possess. As these seeds
develop, their growth must be gently directed.’11
The view that children differ but little from adults permeates almost all of Korczak’s
actions. Thus he himself treated each child as one ought to behave towards a respected, thinking
and feeling adult human being. He would assert that the main differences between children and
adults can be observed in the emotive domain, and drew the conclusion that it is necessary to study
this domain, and acquire the ability to participate in children’s experiences.
On the basis of Korczak’s written and practical legacy, we can outline many other key ideas
of his pedagogical programme. Some of these thoughts are still relevant today.
Apart from those mentioned above, involving a specific view of the child’s social status,
they also include deliberations on the need to introduce new ways of teaching in school. He
criticized teaching through lectures, detachment of school curricula from life, and excessive formal
relationships between teachers and pupils. He called for the establishment of schools that children
would like, offering interesting and useful subjects, and promoting a harmonious educational
relationship. He stressed the need to create a holistic system of education, with co-operation
between the school, the family and various social institutions.
No doubt these ideas were partly derived from the pedagogy of the New Education period,
but they were partly the fruit of Korczak’s own experimentation and meditation. The originality of
his educational concepts was most clearly evident in the work he did in reform institutions,
orphanages and summer camps for children.
Works by Korczak
The bibliography of Janusa Korczak’s works in Polish comprises about 1,100 publications (together with new
editions).
Main assembled works:
Pisma wybrane [Selected works]. Introduction and selection by Aleksander Lewin. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia,
1984, vol.. 1–2.
Pisma wybrane [Selected works]. Introduction and selection by Aleksander Lewin. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia,
1985, vol.. 3.
Pisma wybrane [Selected works]. Introduction and selection by Aleksander Lewin. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia,
1986, vol.. 4.
Wybór pism [Selected texts]. Selected by Stefan Wol,/oszyn. Warszawa, Wiedza Powszechna, 1982.
Fragmenty utworów [An anthology of works]. Selected by Danuta Stepniewska. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia, 1978.
A full bibliography of Korczak’s works is to be found in:
Janusz Korczak. Bibliografia 1896–1942. Heinsberg, Agentur Dieck, 1985.
Janusz Korczak. Bibliografia polska 1943–1987. Heinsberg, Agentur Dieck, 1988.
Selected Works of Janusz Korczak. Warsaw, 1967.
J. Korczak: Ghetto Diary. New York, Holocaust Library, 1978.
J. Korczak: Wie man ein Kind lieben soll [ ]. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Rprecht, 1967.
J. Korczak: Der kleine Prophet [ ]. Gütersloh, Güterslohner Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn, 1988.
J. Korczak: Verteidigt die Kinder. Erzählende Pädagogik [ ]. Gütersloh, Güterslohner Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn,
1978.
Allein mit gott. Gebete eines Menschen, der nicht betet [ ]. Gütersloh, Güterslohner Verlaghaus, 1981.
J. Korczak: Colonies de vacances [ ]. Paris, La pensée universelle, 1984.
J. Korczak: Comment aimer un enfant [ ]. Paris, Eds. Robert Lafont, 1978.
J. Korczak: Le gloire [ ]. Flemmenan, 1980.
J. Korczak: Moïse, le Benjamin de la Bible [ ]. Paris, UNESCO, 1988.
J. Korczak: Le Droit de ? enfant en respect [ ]. Paris, Eds. Robert Lafont, 1979.Janusz Korczak
"Festival de Cannes: Korczak". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
Gimnazjum (the school’s name deriving from the name of the Praga district in Warsaw), now well
known in Poland as the Wladyslaw IV Liceum. He was particularly impressed by his teacher of
Greek.
Young Janusz Korczak displayed great interest in nature, and quickly developed a passion
for reading, being deeply moved by the poetry of A. Mickiewicz and the novels of J.I. Kraszewski.
2
By 1891, that is, as a 13-year-old boy, he was keeping a diary. As the years passed, various forms
of writing became a strong need and an ingrained habit.
He wrote his first literary works while still at school, for example ‘Samòbojstwo’ (Suicide)
in 1895, and a series of humorous sketches in 1896. The manuscript of the 1895 work, whose main
character was a man overcome by madness, was lost and never published. His first publication was
the humorous ‘Wezel gordyjski’ (Gordian Knot), which appeared in an 1896 issue of Kolce
(Barbs). This was also the first time the author used the cryptonym ‘Hen’ from the first syllable of
his first name ‘Henryk’. He published more works even before going on to post-secondary studies.
In 1898, as a Grade 8 pupil, he took part in the I. Paderewski literary competition. His entry was a
four-act play entitled Ktòredy? (Which way?). This was the first time used the pseudonym Janusz
Korczak, by which he is known to this day.His social programme
His sensitivity to social issues, acquired in the family home, made it impossible for Janusz Korczak
not to react to all manifestations of evil, unfairness and injustice. He was aware of these phenomena
both on a social and an individual level. He protested against numerous cases of coercion, whether
material or spiritual. He also spoke out against poverty, unemployment, exploitation and social
inequality. He did so as ‘a man following a lonely path of individual decisions and deeds’,5 for he
did not belong officially to any political organization, but devoted all his energy to social activity,
fighting for the dignity of human beings and their right to a full life, both in writing and in speech.
Janusz Korczak was closely bound to his country, occupied as it was by invaders for so
many years. Since he was deeply concerned about the fate of Poland and the Poles, he was close to
those social groups that desired and actively worked towards independence. Thus he maintained
relations with progressive social groups, with a number of progressive (sometimes radical)
periodical editors, with teachers, writers, journalists, doctors and students. As a social activist and
practising physician, he often had contact with the poorest classes of society.
Janusz Korczak’s social programme became crystallized during his medical studies, which
he started in 1898 at Warsaw University’s Department of Medicine. Although spread over many
works and implemented in many forms, this programme was exceptionally clear and consistent. Its
main aspects were improvement of living conditions, employment opportunities for all, higher
sanitary standards—especially among the poorest social classes, providing children with
appropriate conditions for their physical and mental development, family life as a value, education
for all, equal rights for women, and many other important social issues in Polish society of the time.
The range of Janusz Korczak’s social interests and sociological observations was
astonishingly broad. He had things to say on issues related to his own profession, namely medicine,
but he also devoted a lot of attention to topics somewhat removed from, albeit not irrelevant to
medicine or education. For instance, he wrote on economics and on labour relations, and did not
shy away from subjects in the domains of culture, natural sciences and ethics. He combated evil
customs by criticizing and ridiculing them, but he also forced people to reflect more profoundly by
appealing to their consciences, especially when his goal was to improve the living conditions of the
poor, to bring social practice around to the principles of justice, and to win recognition for the
universal right to live in dignity.While in the Far East he kept up a journalistic correspondence from the front. The
awfulness of war did not keep him from writing; he continued to send in articles on the war, some
on sociological or educational subjects. His journalistic output did not flag after his return to
Warsaw. He published articles in medical journals, such as the professional Krytyka Lekarska, as
well as in other periodicals and in book form. He also wrote about the state of public health,
problems encountered by physicians, and the work of midwives6 and gave lectures to medical
audiences.
To further his professional knowledge, he travelled to Berlin in 1907, and to Paris in 1909,
to study. At this time he also published articles on the care of new-born babies, for example: ‘Waga
dla niemowlat w praktyce prywatnej’ (Scales for infants in private practice), ‘O znaczeniu
karmienia piersia niemowlat’ (On the importance of breast-feeding), ‘Niedziela lekarza’ (The
doctor’s Sunday), ‘Kropla mleka, czy niedziela lekarza?’ (A drop of milk, or the doctor’s Sunday).7
Unlike his other publications, his medical writings are usually signed with his real name—
Henryk Goldszmit. Most of these articles appeared in the first and second decades of the century.
During the First World War he was once again forced to practice medicine under extreme
circumstances. He found himself a ward head of a field hospital on the Ukrainian front, where the
fate of children with war injuries made a particularly strong impression on him. In 1917 he came
upon shelters for homeless children in Kiev.
Janusz Korczak studied psychological and educational literature from his early youth. He
was very interested in the history of educational thought, he was familiar with the works of
Pestalozzi and Spencer, and was attracted by the contributions of Froebel. Right from the start of
his journalistic activities, he expressed respect, and even fascination for the works of these authors.
In 1899 he wrote in one of the periodicals of the day: ‘The names of Pestalozzi, Froebel and
Spencer shine with no less brilliance than the names of the greatest inventors of the twentieth
century. For they discovered more than the unknown forces of nature; they discovered the
unknown half of humanity: children.’9
Korczak frequently read the works of Tolstoy. The ideas contained in the essay ‘Who is to
learn from whom how to write: peasant children from us, or we from peasant children?’ were
particularly close to his own. Like Tolstoy, he proclaimed the need to rise up and open our minds
to the thoughts, emotions and experiences of children.9
Korczak’s programme of pedagogical work was based on the thesis that children should be
fully understood, that one should enter into the spirit of their world and psychology, but that, first
and foremost, children must be respected and loved, treated in fact as partners and friends. In his
own words: ‘Children are not future people, because they are people already....Children are people
whose souls contain the seeds of all those thoughts and emotions that we possess. As these seeds
develop, their growth must be gently directed.’11
The view that children differ but little from adults permeates almost all of Korczak’s
actions. Thus he himself treated each child as one ought to behave towards a respected, thinking
and feeling adult human being. He would assert that the main differences between children and
adults can be observed in the emotive domain, and drew the conclusion that it is necessary to study
this domain, and acquire the ability to participate in children’s experiences.
On the basis of Korczak’s written and practical legacy, we can outline many other key ideas
of his pedagogical programme. Some of these thoughts are still relevant today.
Apart from those mentioned above, involving a specific view of the child’s social status,
they also include deliberations on the need to introduce new ways of teaching in school. He
criticized teaching through lectures, detachment of school curricula from life, and excessive formal
relationships between teachers and pupils. He called for the establishment of schools that children
would like, offering interesting and useful subjects, and promoting a harmonious educational
relationship. He stressed the need to create a holistic system of education, with co-operation
between the school, the family and various social institutions.
No doubt these ideas were partly derived from the pedagogy of the New Education period,
but they were partly the fruit of Korczak’s own experimentation and meditation. The originality of
his educational concepts was most clearly evident in the work he did in reform institutions,
orphanages and summer camps for children.
Works by Korczak
The bibliography of Janusa Korczak’s works in Polish comprises about 1,100 publications (together with new
editions).
Main assembled works:
Pisma wybrane [Selected works]. Introduction and selection by Aleksander Lewin. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia,
1984, vol.. 1–2.
Pisma wybrane [Selected works]. Introduction and selection by Aleksander Lewin. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia,
1985, vol.. 3.
Pisma wybrane [Selected works]. Introduction and selection by Aleksander Lewin. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia,
1986, vol.. 4.
Wybór pism [Selected texts]. Selected by Stefan Wol,/oszyn. Warszawa, Wiedza Powszechna, 1982.
Fragmenty utworów [An anthology of works]. Selected by Danuta Stepniewska. Warszawa, Nasza Ksiegarnia, 1978.
A full bibliography of Korczak’s works is to be found in:
Janusz Korczak. Bibliografia 1896–1942. Heinsberg, Agentur Dieck, 1985.
Janusz Korczak. Bibliografia polska 1943–1987. Heinsberg, Agentur Dieck, 1988.
Selected Works of Janusz Korczak. Warsaw, 1967.
J. Korczak: Ghetto Diary. New York, Holocaust Library, 1978.
J. Korczak: Wie man ein Kind lieben soll [ ]. Göttingen, Vandenhoeck und Rprecht, 1967.
J. Korczak: Der kleine Prophet [ ]. Gütersloh, Güterslohner Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn, 1988.
J. Korczak: Verteidigt die Kinder. Erzählende Pädagogik [ ]. Gütersloh, Güterslohner Verlaghaus Gerd Mohn,
1978.
Allein mit gott. Gebete eines Menschen, der nicht betet [ ]. Gütersloh, Güterslohner Verlaghaus, 1981.
J. Korczak: Colonies de vacances [ ]. Paris, La pensée universelle, 1984.
J. Korczak: Comment aimer un enfant [ ]. Paris, Eds. Robert Lafont, 1978.
J. Korczak: Le gloire [ ]. Flemmenan, 1980.
J. Korczak: Moïse, le Benjamin de la Bible [ ]. Paris, UNESCO, 1988.
J. Korczak: Le Droit de ? enfant en respect [ ]. Paris, Eds. Robert Lafont, 1979.Janusz Korczak
 |
Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit born in 1878 or 1879, physician, writer and educator. He was born in Warsaw, the son of an assimilated Jewish famly.
Korczak’s father was a successful attorney who became mentally ill when Korczak was eleven. This was a heavy blow to the family’s financial situation and a trauma that cast its shadow over Korczak throughout his life.
Even while still a student of medicine at Warsaw University, Korczak was drawn to circles of liberal educators and writers in Poland. When he entered medical practice, he did his best to help the poor and those who suffered the most, at the same time he began to write.
His first books, Children of the Streets (1901) and A Child of the Salon (1906) aroused great interest. In 1904 he was drafted into the Russian army as a doctor, and was posted to East Asia.
Both as a doctor and a writer, Korczak was drawn to the world of the child. He worked in a Jewish children’s hospital and took groups of children to summer camps, and in 1908 he began to work with orphans.
In 1912 he was appointed director of a new and spacious Jewish orphanage in Warsaw, on Krochmalna Street. Throughout his life, his partner in his work was Stefania Wilczynska, a superb educator, the daughter of a wealthy Jewish family who dedicated her life to the care of orphans and greatly influenced Korczak and his career as an educator.
In the orphanage, Korczak studied the secret depths of the child’s soul, and it was in the orphanage that he made practical application of his educational ideas. Korczak called for an understanding of the emotional life of children and urged that children be respected.
A child was not be regarded as something to be shaped and trained to suit adults, but rather as someone whose soul was rich in perception and ideas, who should be observed and listened to within his or her own autonomous sphere.
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Every child he maintained has to be dealt with as an individual whose inclinations and ambitions, and the conditions under which he or she is growing up, require understanding.
In several of his books – such as King Matthew the First (1923), When I am Small Again (1925), and the short theoretical work The Child’s Right to Respect (1929) – Korczak stressed the social conflict between child and adult in a situation when power and control are in the hands of the adult, even when the adult does not understand or refuses to understand the child’s world, and deliberately deprives the child of his or her due. In Korczak’s view “to reform the educational system.”
In 1914 Korczak was again called up for military service in the Russian army, and it was in military hospitals and bases that he wrote his important work How to Love Children.
After the war he returned to Poland – now independent – and to his work in the Jewish orphanage, but he was also asked to take charge of an orphanage for Polish children and to apply there the methods he had introduced in the establishment on Krochmalna Street.
The 1920’s were a period of intensive and fruitful work in Korczak’s life – he was in charge of two orphanages, where he also lived, served as an instructor at boarding schools and summer camps and as a lecturer at universities and seminaries, and wrote a great deal.
In the late 1920’s, he was able to put into effect his long-time plan to establish a newspaper for children as a weekly added to the Jewish daily in the Polish language, Nasz Przeglad – it was written by children, who related their experiences and their deepest thoughts.
In the mid-1930’s, Korczak’s public career underwent a change. Following the death of the Polish dictator, Jozef Pilsudski, political power in the country came into the hands of radical right-wing and openly anti-Semitic circles.
Korczak was removed from many of the positions in which he had been active, and he suffered great disappointment. As a result, he took a growing interest in the Zionist effort and in the Jewish community in Palestine.
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He visited Palestine twice, in 1934 and 1936, showing particular interest in the state of education, especially the educational achievements of the kibbutz movement, but he was also deeply impressed by the changes he found in the Jews living there.
On the eve of World War Two Korczak was considering moving to Palestine, but his idea failed to reach fruition.
From the very beginning of the war, Korczak took up activities among the Jews and Jewish children. At first he refused to acknowledge the German occupation and heed its rules, he refused to wear the Jewish yellow badge, and as a consequence spent some time in jail.
When, however, the economic situation took a sharp turn for the worse and the Jews of Warsaw were imprisoned in the ghetto, Korczak concentrated his efforts on the orphanage, seeking to provide the children there with food and the basics conditions of existence.
He was now an elderly and tired man and could no longer keep track of the changes that were taking place in the world and in his immediate vicinity and he shut himself in.
The only thing that gave him the strength to carry on was the duty he felt to preserve and protect his orphanage, where old rules continued to apply, it was kept clean, the duty roster was observed, there were close relations between the staff and the children, an internal court of honour had jurisdiction over both children and teachers, every Sunday a general assembly was held, there were literary evenings and the children gave performances.
Polish friends of Dr Korczak reported that they went to see him in the ghetto and offered him asylum on the Polish side, but he refused to abandon the children and possibly save himself.
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During the occupation and the period he spent in the ghetto, Korczak kept a diary. At the end of July 1942, when the deportations were at their height – about ten days before he, the orphans, and the staff of the orphanage, were taken to the Umschlagplatz – Korczak wrote the following entry:
“I feel so soft and warm in the bed – it will be hard for me to get up … but today is Sabbath – the day on which I weigh the children, before they have their breakfast. This, I think, is the first time that I am not eager to know their figures for the past week.
They ought to gain weight – I have no idea why they were given raw carrots for supper last night.”
On Thursday 6 August 1942 the Germans deported Korczak, his assistants and the two hundred children, from the orphanage at 16 Sienna Street, the orphanage having been relocated from Krochmalna. A witness to the orphans three mile march to the deportation train described the scene to the Jewish historian Emanuel Ringelblum as follows:
“This was not a march to the railway cars - this was an organised, wordless protest against the murder.”
The children marched in rows of four, with Korczak leading them, looking straight ahead, and holding a child’s hand on each side.
A second column was led by Stefania Wilczynska, the third by Broniatowska, her children carrying blue knapsacks on their backs, and the fourth by Sternfeld, from the boarding school on Twarda Street.”
Nothing is known of their last journey to Treblinka, where they were all murdered by the Nazis. After the war, associations bearing Korczak’s name were formed in Poland, Israel, Germany and other countries, to keep his memory alive and to promote his message and his work.
He became a legendary figure and UNESCO named him “Man of the Year.”
Books, plays and films have all been produced about Korczak, and his own writings have been translated into many languages.
"Festival de Cannes: Korczak". festival-cannes.com. Retrieved 2009-08-08.
| Ashes and Diamonds | |
|---|---|
1958 Polish poster by Wojciech Fangor[1]
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| Directed by | Andrzej Wajda |
| Produced by | Roman Mann |
| Written by | Jerzy Andrzejewski |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Filip Nowak |
| Distributed by | KADR |
Release dates
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Running time
| 110 minutes |
| Country | Poland |
| Language | Polish |
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