Janusz korczak short biography

Polish pediatrician, educator and children's author (1879–1942)

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942), was a Polish Jewish pediatrician, educator, children's author and pedagogue known as Pan Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old Doctor"). He was an early children's rights advocate, in 1919 drafting a children's constitution.

After spending many years working as a principal of an orphanage in Warsaw, he moved in with his orphans when the orphanage was forced to move to the ghetto, despite pleas from friends to flee the country. He was executed when the entire population of the institution was sent to the Treblinka extermination camp during the Grossaktion Warschau of 1942.

Early life and education

Korczak was born in Warsaw in 1878. He was unsure of his birth date, which he attributed to his father's failure to promptly acquire a birth certificate for him. His parents were Józef Goldszmit, a respected lawyer from a family of proponents of the haskalah, and Cecylia née Gębicka, daughter of a prominent Kalisz family. Born to a Jewish family, he was an agnostic in his later life. He did not believe in forcing religion on children. His father fell ill around 1890 and was admitted to a mental hospital, where he died six years later on 25 April 1896. Spacious apartments were given up on Miodowa street, then Świętojerska. As his family's financial situation worsened, Henryk, while still attending the gymnasium (the current 8th Lycée in Warsaw [pl]), began to work as a tutor for other pupils. In 1896 he debuted on the literary scene with a satirical text on raising children, Węzeł gordyjski (The Gordian Knot).

In 1898, he used Janusz Korczak as a pen name in the Igna

heroes

Betty Jean Lifton

Janusz Korczak once wrote “The lives of great men are like legends – difficult but beautiful," and it was true of his. Yet most Americans have never heard of Korczak, a Polish-Jewish children's writer and educator who is as well known in Europe as Anne Frank. Like her, he died in the Holocaust and left behind a diary; unlike her, he had a chance to escape that fate – a chance he chose not to take.

His legend began on August 6, 1942, during the early stages of the Nazi liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto-though his dedication to destitute children was legendary long before the war. When the Germans ordered his famous orphanage evacuated, Korczak was forced to gather together the two hundred children in his care. He led them with quiet dignity on that final march through the ghetto streets to the train that would take them to “resettlement in the East" – the Nazi euphemism for the death camp Treblinka. He was to die as Henryk Goldszmit, the name he was born with, but it was by his pseudonym that he would be remembered.

It was Janusz Korczak who introduced progressive orphanages designed as just communities into Poland, founded the first national children's newspaper, trained teachers in what we now call moral education, and worked in juvenile courts defending children's rights. His books How to Love a Child and The Child's Right to Respect gave parents and teachers new insights into child psychology. Generations of young people had grown up on his books, especially the classic King Matt the First, which tells of the adventures and tribulations of a boy king who aspires to bring reforms to his subjects.

It was as beloved in Poland as Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland were in the English-speaking world. During the mid-1930s, he had his own radio program, in which, as the “Old Doctor," he dispensed homey wisdom and

Janusz Korczak (Henryk Goldszmit 1879-1942) was a pediatrician, educator, and writer who dedicated his life to orphaned children in Poland. An assimilated Polish Jew, he practiced universal humanism. Dr. Korczak is credited in Europe with the introduction of progressive orphanages designed as democratic republics; he founded the first national children’s newspaper, trained teachers in what we now call moral education, and worked in juvenile courts defending children’s rights. He was a strong advocate of the need for a Declaration of Children’s rights long before such documents were drawn up by the Geneva Convention (1924), the United Nations General Assembly (1959), and the Convention of the Rights of the Child (1989). His books, How to Love a Child and The Child’s Right for Respect gave parents and teachers new insights into child psychology. His classics, King Matt the First and King Matt on the Deserted Island, enchanted children around the world. He stepped into legend when he refused offers to save his life. Together with 198 Jewish orphans under his care, Stephania Wilczynska, his assistant of 30 years, and 9 staff people, they entered cattle cars in the Warsaw Ghetto on August 5, 1942, and left for the Treblinka death camp never to be heard from again.The Israelis revere Janusz Korczak as one of the Thirty-six Just Men whose pure souls, according to the ancient Jewish tradition, make the world’s salvation possible, and UNESCO declared 1978-79 the Year of Korczak to coincide with the Year of the Child and the centenary of his birth.

(These biographical details were used with permission from The King of Children by Betty Jean Lifton, Copyright1988)

Click here to read an introduction by DR. JOOP BERDING about Janusz Korczak’s pedagogical ideas.

Poem attributed to Janusz Korczak:

How many fields did you plow,
How many loaves of bread did you bake,
How much seed did you sow,
How many trees did you plant,
How ma

In 1911, Korczak took a position leading a new Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. For decades, he and his close colleague, Stefania "Stefa" Wilczyńska, operated the children’s home according to Korczak’s philosophies on raising children. Every child in the home had duties and rights, and everyone was responsible for their actions. The home itself was run as a “children’s republic.” The young residents regularly convened a court to hear grievances and dispense justice.

Korczak also gave the children of the home central roles in the production of Mały Przegląd (The Little Journal). Mały Przegląd was a regular supplement published in the Polish-language Zionist newspaper, Nasz Przegląd (Our Journal). Unlike many other children’s periodicals at the time, the children themselves chose the topics they wrote about and determined what would appear in the pages of their newspaper. 

Korczak’s national profile grew as he began making radio broadcasts as “the Old Doctor.” He read stories, interviewed children, and lectured in a casual style that made his weekly show popular wi