83: Janusz Korczak

 

83 years ago today (August 5, 1942) Janusz Korczak boarded a Cattle Car with 12 Adult Staff and 200 Orphans in the Warsaw Ghetto and 2 days later they were all Gassed by the Germans in the Gas Chambers and their bodies cremated at the Treblinka Death Camp.

Janusz Korczak was born Henryk Goldszmit on July 22, 1878 to an assimilated Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland. He was an Author, a Pediatrician and a Pedagogue.

In 1911 he established the Dom Sierot (House of Orphans) in Warsaw. In the 1920s and 1930s he published many Children’s Books.

 His works were extremely popular in Poland and around Europe to both Jews and non-Jews. In 1934 and 1936 he traveled to Palestine (then a British Mandate) and tried to get permission for his Orphanage to leave Warsaw (due to official Polish Anti-Semitism), but official British Anti-Semitism made that impossible.

After the German invasion of Poland in 1939 and the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940 (where his Orphanage was forced to relocate since it was not inside the Ghetto Walls) he focused on running his Orphanage and trying to get enough food for his Children as well as organizing different concerts and activities to both shield his Children from the hunger and death around them as well as to keep public awareness up (with both the Germans and the Jewish Administration – hoping it would save his Children.)

He also kept a Diary - which was published in Poland in 1958.

When he learned that his Orphanage was to be closed and all 200 Children deported he was offered to be hidden in the Non-Jewish part of Warsaw by both the Jewish Resistance inside the Warsaw Ghetto and the Non-Jewish Resistance in Warsaw.

He refused since he couldn’t take his Children.

On August 4, 1942 during the Grossaktion Warschau (Great-Action Warsaw) where the Germans deported 300,000 Men, Women and Children from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Death Camps; 200 Children, their 12 Teachers and Korczak marched through the streets of the Warsaw Ghetto (with one of the Children holding their Orphanage’s Jewish Flag) to the Umschlagplatz (Collection Point) to board the Cattle Cars.

 At the Umschlagplatz a German Soldier, who had read Korczak’s Books to his own Children when they were younger, tried to convince him not to board the train and go to his death, but when Korczak was told the Children would have to still go he said he couldn’t leave them to die alone and so boarded the Cattle Train.

Two days later they arrived at Treblinka and were gassed and cremated within 2 hours of arriving.

The Picture is of Janusz Korczak and his Orphans in the 1940s.