February's Hero of the Month

By Elina Bloch






Janusz Korczak: The Children’s Friend

A hero does not know he is a hero.
He risks his life a thousand times
to save yours.
He risks his life a thousand times
not for glory, not for rewards--
but to wipe your tears when you are sad,
to warm your heart when you are lonely,
to hold your hand when you are falling.
A hero does not know he is a hero.
He is like Atlas, holding on his shoulders
the conscience of the world.

Janusz Korczak was such a hero.

“You don’t labor for your homeland, for society, for the future unless you labor toward the enrichment of your own soul. Only in taking can you give, only in the growth of your own soul can you participate in growing. In the notes there are seeds from which rose forests and meadows, there are droplets which created streams, brooks. This is what I feed on, drink, comprehend, rejoice from drudgery in. From your own notes you derive a balance of life. They are proof you didn’t squander away your life. Life always challenges only a small portion, allows only a fraction to be attained. I was once young—I didn’t know. My hair has turned grey—I know now but the strength is lacking. From your own notes you set up a defense before your own conscience that it wasn’t as much or in such a way as it should have been…”

Such was the credo of Janusz Korczak, spelled out in the preface to his book An Educator’s Moments (1919), a credo of a man whose own conscience stands as an example for generations to follow. When Belzec and Dachau, Treblinka and Auschwitz were filled with the silence of death, when the hearts of people were frozen, when humanity seemed to gather around the banner of hatred, there appeared a brave man, the noted Polish pedagogue, doctor, writer and a friend of children to prove that in the midst of destruction and death, there is hope for rebuilding the world. Like a phoenix, he rose from the ashes of the war and confirmed that even death chambers could not trample his spirit, his vision, his creed of love, and his belief in the power of children to create a just, humane world, a world built not on mutual animosity but on mutual respect.

Born Henryk Goldszmit on July 22, 1878 in Warsaw, Poland, he became known through his country and in the world for his work and his writings published under the pen name Janusz Korczak. Korczak’s life can be described as one of selflessness and dedication to others. From the age of fourteen, after his father’s sudden death, he helped his family survive by giving private lessons after school. Then, as a young medical student, he provided free medical aid to the poor of Warsaw. Later, he served in field hospitals and wards as an army doctor, an experience that initiated his lifelong work—the caring for children. In 1911, Korczak was appointed the director of two orphanages, one for Jewish and one for Polish children.

From that moment on, Korczak had never ceased defending children’s rights. The theme of all his books--over twenty in number--is respect for a child, an appreciation of a child’s feelings, and the belief in a child’s wisdom. For instance, in his famous fable for children King Matt the First, Korczak narrates the story of a boy-king bent on reforming the world, the boy being no other than Korczak himself who has always attempted to fight the world’s wrongs. In another story, “When I am Little Again,” he poses both as a child and an adult, as a learner and an educator, endeavoring to demonstrate to each the difficulties and joys of the other.

Korczak’s natural kindness and his direct involvement with children through his work in the orphanage were the kernel from which his decision to dedicate his life to the love of children grew. It was this passion, along with his editing of a children’s newspaper, his participating in a children’s court, his talent of observation, and his zeal for scrutiny that led Korczak to construct a unique methodology of child upbringing. In his most serious book, How to Love a Child (1920), Korczak--a philosopher whose moral and ethical concerns resemble those of Socrates--recounts this methodology. In this work in particular, and in the course of his life in general, the great humanist had created a children’s republic, an island of justice and good amongst the waves of prejudice and repression.

“A child is a butterfly over the seething whirlpool of life. How can one give it steadiness without weighting down its flight, how can it be tempered without tying its wings?” Korczak asks. When his conviction of the children’s right to liberty was challenged by the Nazis, Korczak has denied all offers of personal rescue. To all such offers his response was a firm: “And what about the children?” On August 5, 1942, his soul united with those of his students as he joined them in their last march, a march to the gas chambers in the extermination camp of Treblinka. The great educator, teacher, counselor, friend lived for the children and died with them, an act of choice that affirmed his unwavering devotion to all he has ever believed in.

Korczak’s last lines--written just a few days before his death and inspiring like his life--read: “I exist not to be loved and admired but to love and act. It is not the duty of those around me to love me. Rather, it is my duty to be concerned about the world, about mankind.”


Bibliography:

Cohen. Adir. The Gate of Light: Janusz Korczak, the Educator and Writer who Overcame the
Holocaust. New Jersey: Associated University Press, Inc., 1994.

Falkowska, Maria. A Chronology of the Life, Activities, and Works of Janusz Korczak. Trans.
E.P. Kulawiec. New York: The Kosciuszko Foundation: 1978.

Korczak, Janusz. The Warsaw Ghetto Memories. Trans. E.P. Kulawiec. Washington: University
Press of America, 1979.

Lifton, Betty Jean. The King of Children: A Biography of Janusz Korczak. New York: Farrar,
Straus and Giroux, 1988.