July 22: Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit), the pediatrician of Warsaw who became a martyr when he accompanied the children of his orphanage to their deaths in Treblinka rather than taking advantage of offers of sanctuary or escape, was born on this date in 1878. Korczak was a children’s book writer and pedagogue who designed his own orphanage in Warsaw and created there a “republic for children” with its own bodies of governance and a newspaper. When the Nazis established the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, the orphanage was moved to its confines. On the day of their deportation in August, 1942, wrote Joshua Perle, a witness, “the very stones of the street wept at the sight of the procession,” as “two hundred children did not cry out.”

“Children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today. They are entitled to be taken seriously. They have a right to be treated by adults with tenderness and respect, as equals.” —Janusz Korczak