{"id":66769,"date":"2026-04-23T10:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/66769\/"},"modified":"2026-04-23T10:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-04-23T10:56:12","slug":"defiance-in-the-face-of-death-janusz-korczak-and-the-warsaw-ghetto-the-national-wwii-museum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/66769\/","title":{"rendered":"Defiance in the Face of Death: Janusz Korczak and the Warsaw Ghetto | The National WWII Museum"},"content":{"rendered":"

Top Photo: Left: Postcard of Janusz Korczak, published in Warsaw in 1933. Wikimedia Commons<\/a>. Right: Monument to Janusz Korczak at the Jewish cemetery in Wola in Warsaw, Poland. Adrian Grycuk \/ Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n

Among the 17,000 stones standing as a symbolic cemetery at the Treblinka memorial, only one bears the name of an individual: \u201cJanusz Korczak (Henryk Goldzmit) i Dzieci (Children).\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

A pediatrician and educator, Korczak ran orphanages for Jewish children in Poland and was an early advocate for children\u2019s rights\u2014a revolutionary philosophy at the time. In 1942, when the Nazis rounded up the children in his Warsaw Ghetto orphanage and sent them to the death camp at Treblinka, Korczak refused to leave their side. He was murdered alongside his pupils shortly after arriving at Treblinka. Reflecting on his death, W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szpilman wrote in his memoir, The Pianist, that \u201cKorczak\u2019s true value was not in what he wrote but in the fact that he lived as he wrote. \u2026 [H]e had devoted every minute of his free time and every z\u0142oty he had available to the cause of children, and he was to be devoted to them until his death.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Stone
\n\"Stone<\/p>\n

Stone at Treblinka memorial commemorating Janusz Korczak and children. Wikimedia Commons<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Before World War II<\/p>\n

Born on July 22, 1878, as Henryk Goldszmit to a Jewish family in Warsaw, Poland (then part of the Russian Empire) Korczak took the name he would forever be remembered by during an 1898 literary contest the young writer entered. The name was the fictitious lead character in a novel by well-known Polish novelist Jozef Kraszewski, but according to biographer Betty Jean Lifton, \u201cThe noble character of the fictional Janasz Korczak, a poor orphan of gentry lineage, must have appealed to Henyrk. \u2026 Janasz turns his fate around by patience, honesty, and self-control.\u201d The Polish-sounding pseudonym also likely broke down some of the barriers that came with being Jewish in Poland at the turn of the 20th century.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Korczak studied pediatric medicine at the University of Warsaw, and after serving in the Russo-Japanese War, Korczak decided to become an educator, joining the Orphan\u2019s Aid Society in 1908. In 1911, he founded the Dom Sierot orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw. According to Yad Vashem, \u201cAbout one hundred children lived in the orphanage. [Korczak] established a \u2018republic for children\u2019 with its own small parliament, law-court and newspaper.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

He based the idea of the children\u2019s republic on the belief that children were people of today, not just people of tomorrow. As Lifton explains, \u201cKorczak believed [children] are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and respect, as equals, not as masters and slaves. They should be allowed to grow into whatever they were meant to be: the \u2018unknown person\u2019 inside each of them is the hope for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Postcard
\n\"Postcard<\/p>\n

Postcard of Janusz Korczak, published in Warsaw in 1933. Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

World War I suspended Korczak\u2019s orphanage work when he was drafted to oversee a field hospital in Ukraine. Resuming his work at the orphanage after the war, Korczak expanded his educational influence. He was an active member in four social organizations, started collaborating with Polish educational institutions for teachers, and became a lecturer at the Free Polish University. He also cofounded a second orphanage called Nasz Dom in Pruzk\u00f3w, near Warsaw.\u00a0 This productive period also saw Korczak publish several books, including King Matt the First and How to Love a Child, both of which enjoyed wide readerships.\u00a0In 1937, Korczak was awarded the Golden Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature for his work, a marker of his growing prestige as an educator and author.\u00a0 He also started a widely broadcast radio program, though it was later shut down due to rising antisemitism in Poland. In fact, after several trips to Palestine under the British Mandate during the 1930s, Korczak had all but made the decision to emigrate. However, the outbreak of World War II destroyed those plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The Warsaw Ghetto<\/p>\n

The onset of World War II fatefully altered the trajectory of Korczak\u2019s life. In 1940, Dom Sierot and its 150 children were resettled inside the Warsaw Ghetto<\/a>, along with the rest of the city\u2019s Jewish population.\u00a0 However, Korczak refused to wear the white band with the Star of David that Jews had been required to wear. One day, Korczak arrived at Gestapo headquarters to complain about a German sentry who had confiscated a cart of potatoes he had tried to bring into the ghetto. The Gestapo officer listening to the complaint noted that Korczak was not wearing the star, informing Korczak that he would be arrested. Korczak responded defiantly: \u201cThere are human laws which are transitory, and higher laws which are eternal\u2026\u201d He was cut off as he was seized by guards, beaten, and thrown into a prison cell.\u00a0\u00a0Upon being released a month later, the children of the orphanage, excited to see Korczak, asked why he shouted at the Germans and if he was scared during his ordeal. Korczak reportedly replied, \u201cOn the contrary, they were afraid of me. The Germans are always afraid of anyone who yells louder than them.\u201d When the kids asked what it was like in prison, Korczak said, \u201cWonderful,\u201d and then broke into a dance.<\/p>\n

\"Janusz
\n\"Janusz<\/p>\n

Janusz Korczak with children and teachers in from of Dom Sierot orphanage. Treblinka Museum<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Though defiant in the face of the Gestapo and brave before his charges, the prison stay had deeply impacted Korczak. Soon thereafter, he blocked one of the entrances to the orphanage and installed blackout curtains to help guard against further German intrusions. He was determined to safeguard his children against the barbarity he recognized in their German oppressors. By many accounts, he also was left physically weakened by his incarceration\u2014a doctor found he had fluid in his lungs and told Korczak this was a sign of heart failure.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Defiance in the Face of Death<\/p>\n

Despite several offers to hide in safety on the \u201cAryan side\u201d of Warsaw, Korczak refused to abandon his children. Instead, he begged for food, going door to door to ensure his pupils did not starve like many other ghetto inhabitants. He also tried to maintain the types of activities that made his orphanage so special on the outside\u2014allowing the children to have a say in their own governance, performing plays, and telling stories.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Yet, by 1941, ghetto life was becoming dire, especially as diseases like typhus raged in the cold winter months. Emaciated children not from the orphanage lay begging and dying on the ghetto\u2019s streets, and according to Lifton, \u201cSometimes Korczak knelt beside the dying children, trying to transmit some warmth from his hand to their emaciated bodies, whispering a few words of encouragement, but most of them were already beyond response.\u201d\u00a0 Such sights broke Korczak\u2019s heart, and as the calendar flipped to 1942, the fight to survive and the fight for his orphans only ratcheted up. In his diary, he tracked the steady decline in the body weights of his children, and, as a doctor, he too recognized that his own fatigue and deterioration were signs of malnutrition that came with receiving less than 800 calories per day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Korczak did not stop, and, if anything, the horrific conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto only made him push on harder. \u201cTo take on more than was humanly possible was Korczak\u2019s way of spiritual resistance,\u201d writes Lifton. \u201cHe held to his principle that if he kept the order of his house, the ritual of his day, he would succeed. Perhaps the war would end, and the Germans would be defeated. Until then, the fact that his children were well and active, did not get typhus or tuberculosis, that the orphanage did not have to be disinfected, was a point for life against death, for good against evil.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

On July 18, 1942, Korczak\u2019s orphans performed what would be their final play, entitled The Post Office. In the play, a sick boy confined to his room longs to fly to a distant land with a doctor leading him by the hand. According to Lifton, \u201cIt was clear from the hushed silence at the end of the play that Korczak had succeeded in providing the adults as well as the children with a sense of liberation from their present lives.\u201d When asked why he chose this play, Korczak reportedly said that he wanted to help the children accept death.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Indeed, word of resettlement and fears connected to the growing death toll in the ghetto had spread in recent days. On July 22, 1942, the first cattle cars appeared in the Warsaw Ghetto and the first trains left for Treblinka, carrying thousands of people to their deaths. On August 6, 1942, the Nazis descended on Korczak\u2019s orphanage to deport him, his co-workers, and the nearly 200 orphans of Dom Sierot to Treblinka.\u00a0 Korczak\u2019s diary, which was smuggled out by a friend after he had been deported, included these among the last lines he ever wrote: \u201cIt is a difficult thing to be born and learn to live. Ahead of me is a much easier task: to die. After death, it may be difficult again, but I am not bothering about that. \u2026 I should like to die consciously, in possession of my faculties. I don\u2019t know what I should say to the children by way of farewell. I should want to make clear to them only this\u2014that the road is theirs to choose, freely.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

By all accounts, Korczak\u2019s march toward the loading platform that August day was an act of stoic heroism when, as he led his children into the cattle cars that would take them to be murdered at Treblinka, Korczak did not waver in fulfilling his mission to his orphans. Warsaw Ghetto poet W\u0142adys\u0142aw Szlengel, whose poems were later found in the Oyneg Shabes Archive<\/a>, immortalized the moment:<\/p>\n

\u00a0 \u00a0 Today, I saw Janusz Korczak
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As he and the children took their last walk.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dressed in clean clothes
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As if on a garden stroll to enjoy the Shabbat.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The face of the city turned anxious
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Like a torn and defenseless giant.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Empty windows searching the streets
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As in eye-sockets vacant and lifeless.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And the children lined up in orderly fives,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Not one pulled out from his line.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Orphans, these \u2013 with no chance
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Of a bribe and reprieve.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Janusz Korczak marched forward with no hesitation
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Bare-headed, eyes focused, gaze firm.
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A little child clutched his one pocket
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With two more held safe in his arms<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Someone approached at a run,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Document in hand, he proclaimed:
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Sir, Herr Brandt here has signed your release!
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At which Korczak simply marched on in disdain.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0All his life he had spent
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Creating some warmth in their world,
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How now could he leave them to go
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The last road in their lives all alone.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Top Photo: Left: Postcard of Janusz Korczak, published in Warsaw in 1933. Wikimedia Commons. Right: Monument to Janusz…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[95],"tags":[182,35924,36629,181],"class_list":{"0":"post-66769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-warsaw","8":"tag-poland","9":"tag-the-holocaust","10":"tag-the-jenny-craig-institute-for-the-study-of-war-and-democracy","11":"tag-warsaw"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@dk\/116453663416671195","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/dk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}