Janusz Korczak's orphanage, Ulica Jaktorowska
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"You do not leave a sick child in the night, and you do not leave children at a time like this." - Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit) |
On Jaktorowska Street stands the Dom Sierot, the orphanage co-founded by Dr. Janusz Korczak, doctor, educationalist, writer and social worker. Before the war it was known as the Krochalma Street orphanage.
Korczak's real name was Henryk Goldszmit. He was born into an assimilated middle-class Jewish family in 1878. He studied medicine at Warsaw University and practiced in Berlin, Paris and London. From 1904 to 1906 he served as a military doctor in the Russian forces (Warsaw was then the third largest city in the Russian Empire) in the Russo-Japanese War. Having adopted the pseudonym Janusz Korczak in 1899 as a rejection of his middle-class roots, in 1911 he co-founded (and became joint director of) the Krochalma Street Orphanage for working-class Jewish children. In 1919 he also co-founded Nasz Dom (Our House), an orphanage for poor gentile children. He wrote many specialist works on education, as well as a number of children's books.
At Krochalma Street Korczak developed his idea of a peaceful and classless society, a democratic republic of children where they had their own parliament, court and newspaper.
In 1939 he again served as a military doctor, this time in the Polish forces. In 1940 the Krochalma Street orphanage was moved, firstly to 33 Chlodna Street and then to 9 Sliska/16 Sienna streets. Korczak and his co-director, Stefania Wilczynska, kept the institution going and managed to shield their young charges from some of the horror of life under the Nazis. They could not however save the children from the Great Deportation that began on 22nd July 1942, despite Korczak's attempts to have orphanages reclassified as factories in an attempt to make the Germans think of the children as productive individuals.
On 6th August 1942 the Germans came for the children of the Krochalma orphanage. Korczak had several chances to save his own life, but opted to accompany his children to Treblinka, as did Stefania Wilczynska and the orphanage's other staff. This was not the only orphanage whose staff chose to die with their children. The 192 children and 10 adults marched to the Umschlagplatz singing a song called "Though the storm is howling, let us keep our heads high."
Korczak's story is told in the Polish director Andrzej Wajda's film Korczak.
There are 17,000 stone memorials at Treblinka. Each bears the name of a town, city or country whose residents were killed at the camp. Only one bears a person's name. Its inscription reads JANUSZ KORCZAK (HENRYK GOLDSZMIT) I DZIECI (Janusz Korczak [Henryk Goldszmit] and the Children).
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The Jaktorowska Street orphanage has a memorial plaque and a statue outside it, as well as a memorial in the main hall. The photograph above is however of the Korczak memorial in the Okopowa Street cemetery. It is situated not far from the grave of Korczak's father.
The little girl in Korczak's arms was called Romcia. She was five years old.