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| Monument to the memory of Janusz Korczak in the center of Warsaw, Poland. |
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In the Polish tradition we left a candle and in the Jewish tradition we left a rock at the base of Korczak's memorial.
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Janusz Korczak was born Henryk Goldszmit, the son of Polish Jews. His father was a successful lawyer and his mother came from a wealthy family. After quitting his private practice and suffering from mental illness (possibly related to syphilis), Mr. Goldszmit passed away when Henryk was 18. His mother was forced to take in boarders in order to make ends meet. Henryk would often help out by tutoring the residents and through this discovered that he was a gifted and empathic teacher. He also experienced first-hand the disparity between socio-economic classes and would often spend his time socializing with less fortunate residents of Warsaw.
Henryk himself was a poor student but he was an avid reader and gifted writer. It was by entering writing competitions (where submitting work under a nom de plume was the common practice) that Henryk adopted the name Janusz Korczak. Nevertheless, he pursued his studies both at the public University and at the Flying University (an underground institution run clandestinely) and earned a medical degree. He was lucky to have been accepted to the public University as there was a quota on admitting Jews to institutions of higher learning in effect at the time. Henryk felt that although writing and literature were important, they were “just words” and that medicine was “deeds”. His medical career was his way of giving back to society and supporting others. He travelled throughout Europe and studied in many countries, returning to Warsaw to practice medicine and advocate for children’s rights. He would serve those who needed help without discriminating based on religious beliefs. He treated Jews as Dr. Goldszmit and non-Jews as Dr. Korczak. This would come back to help him time and time again throughout his life in a number of unexpected situations and unexpected ways -as an example, while incarcerated for refusing to wear the Star of David armband, some of his cellmates (murderers, rapists, thieves) recognized him from the past when he had provided medical attention for them and they protected and supported him while he was in jail. In return he was able to provide some respite from the solitude and loneliness in prison when he told stories and sang to them songs from their childhood, transporting the inmates temporarily back to simpler times.
Korczak is best known for his work with Jewish orphans aged 7 to 14. At great personal expense -emotional and financial- he provided a safe haven for many children and would stop at nothing in order to get what he needed to feed, protect and support them. He made a decision early on to father no children of his own -perhaps he was afraid of passing on the madness of his own father, perhaps it was because he couldn’t bear to bring another child into a world where he or she could not be free to be both a Pole and a Jew.
Korczak was a pediatrician, an activist, a writer, a child advocate, a social worker, a journalist and a brave soul who loved children and respected them for who they were. He actively and passionately contributed to the quality of life that the orphans under his care could never have achieved without his support. He established and maintained order and control in a tiny section of the Warsaw Ghetto -a world completely turned on its head during the Second World War.
He quietly and bravely walked hand in hand with his children towards the Umschlagplatz, a former rail loading yard. This was to be the last stop on the road to Treblinka.
It is important to note that Janusz Korczak was not the only teacher to stay with his children until the very end but his story has given a face and a name to the many brave men and women whose stories have been forever silenced by the horrors and atrocities of war. Keeping his memory alive and sharing his story gives a voice to those who can no longer speak for themselves.
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| The former site of one of Korczak's orphanages -now a children's puppet
theatre in the Palace of Culture and Science (Stalin's "gift" to the
people of Warsaw in 1955) |
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| Here was Śliska street -the site of one of Korczak's orphanages. |
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| The building on the right is an original structure that survived WWII and the Ghetto. |
The children's hospital where Korczak worked.
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| A section of the original Warsaw Ghetto wall, preserved for visitors to see. |
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| A section of the Warsaw Ghetto wall -2 bricks and a cast of this wall are housed/on display in the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC. |
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| The line of stones straight through the center of this photograph demarcate the path of the wall -in the background is a remaining section of the wall. |
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| section of the Warsaw Ghetto wall |
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| The missing bricks are housed in the various institutions that are named on the plaques. The "cans" are yartzeit candles (special candles lit to commemorate the anniversary of a Jewish death). |
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| "sidewalk memorials" showing the placement of the Ghetto walls |
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| There was a narrow channel built into the Ghetto borders that permitted non-Jews to access the Court Building found along the narrow street. Jews accessed the Court Building from an access point within the Ghetto while non-Jews were able to walk down an alleyway created for their access. The Ghetto walls were built around this narrow street. |
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| If you look closely, you can see the path of the Ghetto walls built to facilitate access to the Courthouse -look along the ground to the left and right of the three arches in the wall and you will see the "sidewalk memorials". |
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| Public art piece that echoes the lines of the pedestrian bridge over Chlodna Street connecting the "big ghetto" to the north with the "little ghetto" south of Chlodna Street. The stark, industrial structure is a rigid reminder of the measured control and power that was exercised over the Jews i the Ghetto. |
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| surviving structure from the Warsaw Ghetto |
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| surviving structure from the Warsaw Ghetto |
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| Future home of the Museum of the History of the Polish Jews -built on the site of the Warsaw Ghetto, set to open in 2013. http://www.jewishmuseum.org.pl/en/cms/home-page/ |
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Ulica Miła 18 (18 Pleasant Street) was the underground headquarters of the ŻOB -a Jewish resistance group formed in the Warsaw Ghetto. The bunker was originally created by a crime syndicate but was taken over by the resistance fighters -it provided shelter for 300 people at the time of the Ghetto uprising. Mordechaj Anielewicz, the leader of the ŻOB and the uprising, his girlfriend, and many of his staff stayed and choose to commit mass suicide rather than surrender to the Nazis. Leon Uris's novel Mila 18 is set in the Warsaw Ghetto.
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| Memorial gateway at the Umschlagplatz |
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| A poignant reminder of the atrocities that mankind has perpetrated. |
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| Shadow of a tree against a sombre backdrop -a symbol of hope, growth and regeneration. |
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| The final stop before boarding the cattle cars to Treblinka. |
