Sunday, January 27, 2013

Children are People: Remembering Janusz Korczak, a Hero of the Holocaust

Children Are People!
            Outside of Eastern Europe, much of the world knows little of Janusz Korczac and his orphans. A hero of the Holocaust, his name should be remembered throughout the centuries for his love, for his hard work to save the children he had come to love so much. But what led him to the desire to give these children the love and respect he believed they needed? Why did this man give up a potentially successful career to follow the deeper desire of his heart? How did he retain—or change—his identity, as he and his orphans dealt with the horrors of World War II and the Holocaust? The answers to all of these questions date back to Korczak’s childhood in his beloved Warsaw.
            Korczak was born to Jewish parents, but both parents were already completely assimilated into Polish society and did not practice the religion at all. However, his true name—Henryk Goldszmit—showed both their Jewishness and their assimilation: it was a Polish name, yet it was also “the equivalent of Hersh, his grandfather’s Jewish name” (Bernheim 5).
            Despite the absence of Judaism as a religion in the Goldszmit family, the Poles still recognized them as Jews, and they were treated accordingly. Thus, Henryk’s childhood did not start off happily; he soon learned that he could not play with the Christian children because he was Jewish, and that the same children also had learned that he was going “to hell, where it’s dark all the time” (Bernheim 13). Henryk never forgot what he heard from them. He hated the darkness.
            Only Henryk’s grandmother truly understood him, listened to him, calmed his fears. The child was intelligent beyond his years, wanting to see equal opportunity for everyone, regardless of who they were. Material possessions never made a difference to him; he would willingly have given up his toys in exchange for that which he wanted more—real friends. Concerning worldly possessions, he once asked his grandmother, “Why can’t we share?” to which she soothingly responded, “Ah, my little thinker. You’re too young to know, but that’s the way the world is” (Bernheim 15).
            And what was the child to think when his father had a nervous breakdown from which he never recovered, which eventually led to his death? The previously well-to-do family was forced to move into much humbler circumstances, which did not affect Henryk’s attitude or hopes, but he wished he could bring back the life of ease and luxury his mother had loved. He did not even miss the gifts his father had so often brought home, but simply wished he could continue to do such small things for his mother. He worked hard tutoring younger children, earning small sums of money, which he took home to his mother. The parents loved him because he was intelligent, kind, and patient. Even at this difficult time, Henryk sought to help those worse off than he was, coming home bruised and bleeding after helping another Jewish child escape his tormentors. It hurt him to see the hatred of the Christians toward the Jews, yet though he helped fellow-Jews in the face of their tormentors, he rejected the religion of his ancestors, and in fact all religion. But apparently he felt a willingness to allow others to practice (or not practice) their religion as they chose.
            Because of his own childhood experiences and his early ability to think and reason so clearly, Henryk hoped to be able to help others. He decided to fulfill the dream his father had had for him and become a doctor, so he attended medical school, first in Warsaw, then seeking further instruction in the more modern cities: Berlin, Paris, and London. During this time he met Stefa, another assimilated Polish Jew, also a unique individual, who shared many of the hopes Henryk did for the future of Poland and who eagerly took on the task with him to help him fulfill his dreams. (She was surprised to learn that this was also Janusz Korczak, the pen name Henryk found for himself in someone else’s work, whose literary works she and the rest of Poland so admired.) He saw the children as the future for Poland—the Poland he wanted to see created. He returned to Warsaw, where he decided to give up practicing as a pediatrician and create a home for the orphan children. He even explained what defines an orphan: “Children can be orphans, you know, even when their parents are living. If they never achieve what they might have been in their lives, then they are orphaned from themselves, and that is the worst loss of all” (Bernheim 66). His dream was not only to provide the physical comforts necessary for the well-being of these children, but to give them love and encouragement, to show them that they truly could become everything they dreamed they could be. Most of all, he wanted to begin to right some of the wrongs committed against children, emphasizing that they are people, too, and also have rights.
            These many thoughts and preparations led Korczak to create a children’s home—The orphanage, as it came to be called. He and Stefa both envisioned a much better Poland—free from Russia, accepting of all people, a land of which they could truly be proud. They both loved their homeland, but they also knew that circumstances made it an unfriendly place for Jews (and certainly for other minorities) to live. Korczak decided he did not want to marry and raise a family, but rather to focus on the well-being of those children already living—those children who would one day lead the revolution he envisioned for Poland, who would finally know the freedom and equality that Korczak alone could not achieve. What high hopes he had for the children! His books demonstrated the strong feelings he had about the rights and the potential of children. How to Love a Child and The Child’s Right to Respect outlined his beliefs, just as the titles of the books would suggest, explaining how children could govern and help in establishing rules for themselves. He also wrote a child’s book, King Matt the First, which quickly became very popular among all the children of Poland. It “tells of the adventures and tribulations of a boy king who aspires to bring reforms to his subjects” (Lifton 1). It is significant that it is the story of a boy king, for it reemphasizes Korczak’s belief that the future lies with the children.
            Korczak even wrote of the rights he considered most essential to the children, including the right to: love; respect; optimal conditions in which to grow and develop; live in the present; be him or herself; fail; be taken seriously, appreciated; desire, claim, and ask; have secrets; a lie, a deception, a theft; respect for possessions and budget; education or to resist educational influence conflicting with their beliefs; protest an injustice; a Children’s Court of peers and to be defended in the same; respect for his grief; commune with God; die prematurely (Lifton 38). He even implemented these rights in the orphanages, successfully helping the children to establish and run their own newspaper, court, etc., rarely interfering in matters of punishment, because he believed the children were capable of working everything out for themselves.
            The children also had very specific responsibilities. They helped in keeping the orphanage clean, each child always having his duties, the duties rotating periodically, so that each child learned to work. Even the youngest children would have been responsible for their own belongings—Korczak especially checked up on their shoes and their dishes, which the children were required to keep in best condition. School work was also not neglected, the younger children learning in the orphanage itself, the older ones attending school outside.
            Known as Pan Doktor to the children, Korczak did all he could for them. He was perhaps not as down-to-earth as Stefa, who remembered each child’s name, but he loved them all and sought to give them a fair chance in life. Of at least 450 orphans whom he cared for in his first twenty years running the orphanage, perhaps two percent went astray after leaving the orphanage, not living up to their full potential. Though he must have felt sorrow upon learning of the course these young lives had taken, he must also have felt joy at seeing such great success in his work.
            One of Korczak’s sorrows was the requirement that he leave his beloved children and serve in the Russian army. Yet it was because of this service that he made another friend in Kiev and eventually established a Christian orphanage, which unfortunately had to be kept strictly separate from the Jewish orphanage. It pained him to see the hatred growing even among these youngsters towards people who were somehow different from themselves.
            In working among the orphans, Korczak himself wore old clothes and a green apron that allowed him to do “real work” and was often mistaken by visitors for a janitor. “As he explained, ‘These days the color of excitement and revolution seems to be red, but I prefer green. To me, it’s youth and hope; the color of the future I want for the children.’” (Bernheim 74).
            Despite having rejected all religion himself, Korczak willingly allowed his orphans to practice religion as they would. He spoke only Polish in the orphanage, as the orphanage came to be affectionately called—never Yiddish and definitely not Hebrew. But he also invited a rabbi to come on holidays, providing a way for those who wanted to worship to be able to do so. He said, “You can raise a child without religion, but not without God” (Bernheim 93). Clearly Korczak had begun to see the importance of religion, if he had not recognized it already. Even having never practiced religion himself, having gained an education in the more modern world, Korczak willingly recognized the existence of God and His importance in the lives of the children.
            As anti-Semitic tension worsened throughout Europe, Korczak began to realize the fears that had caused his father’s breakdown. He and Stefa both visited Palestine during this time, observing life on a kibbutz, where several children formerly under their care now worked. Here they saw hope for a good future for the children—an opportunity to work, to live in a true community, to make something of their lives, to avoid the hatred they would otherwise face forever in Europe. Sadly this hope was never fulfilled.
Korczak with children (Jewish Virtual Library)
            While the two were still pondering whether to send some of the older children to Palestine, the Nazis invaded Poland and began to gather the Jews into ghettos. The orphanage was moved to the center of Warsaw with the rest of the Jews. Korczak sought all the help he could for the neglected orphans. Living packed like animals, many of the people began to behave like animals, so the weaker—especially the children—had no chance for survival without help. As was the case for many formerly assimilated Jews, Korczak found himself embracing the religion of his ancestors. He no longer spoke Polish to the children, but rather Yiddish, and even offered several small prayers he had learned in Hebrew. Would any other circumstances have led Henryk Goldszmit (in these circumstances, he returned to his given name and accepted his Jewish identity) to turn suddenly to the religion he had never known? Goldszmit—seen now again as a Jew, not as the famous writer Korczak or as a pediatrician—actually had the opportunity to escape, even to help the children possibly escape into homes (not without risk, of course), but he refused to leave his children even for a moment. He never knew what might happen in that brief moment, and after working so hard with them and gaining their trust, he would not leave them alone in danger. He prepared the children for the worst, helping them to hold their heads high in spite of everything they already had to face, and everything that might yet come. As portrayed in the film Korczak, this included creating a play to introduce death to the children so they would not fear it. The play taught them that death was a natural part of life, that it was not the end but only a new beginning. He considered committing suicide—he had the pills ready at every moment—but because of the children he loved, the children he would be abandoning, he could not bring himself to do it.
            Then of course there came the horrible liquidation of the ghetto. The children would be the first to go, because they were useless to the Germans as workers. Korczak had the option of waiting for a later deportation, or again even of complete escape through the help of friends, but again he refused. He could not leave the children he had come to love—he could not send them alone into the unknown. So with the orphans he loved, to whom he had attempted to give a new life with a fair chance, he traveled by train to Treblinka, where they were all gassed together. He must have wondered if this wasn’t for the best anyway, since the children would no longer have to experience the hatred the world held towards them. What hope could the world hold for these children? And how grateful the children must have been that the Pan Doktor stayed with them at this most dreadful time—that he went with them, even to death!
            Yet Janusz Korczak—Henryk Goldszmit—seemed always to hope for better, to want to find the good in mankind. Among the children, he had known that even the worst troublemakers simply needed love and the opportunity to improve. Surely the adult world needed the same thing! Surely they could also become as little children! His words demonstrate his hope for the future: “I cannot give you love of man, for there is no love without forgiveness, and forgiving is something everyone must learn to do on his own. I can give you one thing only: a longing for a better life, a life of truth and justice. Even though it may not exist now, it may come tomorrow if you long for it enough” (Sacks 1).
            One may question how it is that Korczak was able to work so well with the children, to understand their needs and desires. Some of his own writings demonstrate his respect for and understanding of the children. The first of these is his work When I am Little Again, in which the main character wishes to be a child again. An elf grants him his wish. Throughout the work, one sees the world through a child’s eyes and realizes that even as an adult Korczak had few problems understanding his beloved children. The first-person narration draws one into this child’s world, helping the reader to remember his own childhood and to recognize the truth of a child’s descriptions.
            Korczak provides two introductions to this work, one for adult readers and one for child readers. The one for the adult readers better explains what seems to be his purpose in writing the book:
            You say:
            –Dealings with children are tiresome.
            You’re right.
            You say:
            –Because we have to lower ourselves to their intellect.
            Lower, stoop, bend, crouch down.
            –You are mistaken.
            It isn’t that which is so tiring. But because we have to reach up to their feelings. Reach up, stretch, stand on our tip-toes.
            As not to offend.
Korczak

What better person could one want to raise a new generation of children? While others look on children as inferior, unable to think and reason in the same way as adults can, Korczak treated them like normal people, recognized their intelligence, gave them the freedom to learn and think and judge for themselves.
            The narrator, whom the author never mentions by name, continues to discuss some of the mistakes adults constantly make as viewed through a child’s eyes, and he realizes that he, too, made some of these mistakes. He describes watching a horse struggle to get over a patch of ice and hoping with all his might that the horse would make it. “If I were big, I’d walk right by indifferently and probably wouldn’t take any notice” (Korczak 16). How true it is that children are so observant, while adults seem to focus only on their own lives and often ignore the world around him. Or sometimes, if they do notice, they see only the negative: “when I was a grownup and I saw snow, I already anticipated that slush would follow. I felt the damp overshoes and wondered whether there would be enough coal for the winter. And joy—it was there too, but sprinkled somehow with ashes, dusty and grey. But now I feel only that white, transparent, blinding joy. Why? For no reason at all: because it snowed!” (Korczak 53). Yet Korczak did not ignore the world, nor did he ignore the beauty in it. In many ways, he was still a child himself, for he could see and think and love like a child.
            He describes another situation in which two girls are running and playing outside and run into a woman. They apologize, but “the woman pushed the girl so hard that she spun around. That was rude. After all, children are needed in the world, and exactly as they are” (Korczak 36). Why do we, as adults, so often expect that children should not be children? What right do we have to take their childhood away from them? Why can we not, as Korczak did, find a balance between giving them responsibilities and allowing them to be children? Yet the narrator describes further how adults will misunderstand one thing and suddenly begin to criticize a child on everything: “Button yourself up; why are your shoes covered with mud? Did you do your homework? Show me your ears. Trim your fingernails” (Korczak 47). How should one expect a child to respond to such demands and interrogations? “They tell us to respect them. But I wonder what for? They’re rude. The commandment teaches: ‘Honor your father,’ but not every grownup” (Korczak 80). Korczak certainly knew better; he taught his children through example, and especially through love, to be good members of society. His children respected him, not because he demanded it, but because he earned it. Cited in the film Korczak, as well as in several other sources, is the experience in which the doctor admonishes his medical students never to strike out at a child in anger. He takes one of the smaller children from the orphanage to his class, where he stands her behind the X-ray machine and allows them to see the pounding of her heart, telling them that whenever they are tempted to strike a child they should remember this little girl and the tiny heart pounding in fear and then decide if they should really strike.
            The narrator also questions why it is that children are always to blame. It seems to him that adults take the time to work out their problems completely, but they do not have the same respect toward children. “Why is this so? Why is it that so often we are punished without being guilty? Why is it allowed to punish a child unjustly and then to regard this as a trifle and not be required to answer to anyone for it?” (Korczak 64).  He cites several examples of this unjust punishment, such as: “The new hygienist found a louse on Kruk’s shirt. At once she began to admonish us. Not only him but everyone else…” (Korczak 151). Earlier in the story another, similar instance occurs: “There’s going to be a name day party, and the moths ruined her [Mama’s] dress. And so, children have to suffer because of what the moths did” (Korczak 75). How often are children punished for something they did not do, or treated unfairly because an adult is upset about something else. Again, Korczak was not this way, but gave children a fair chance. In fact, he did not even judge the children himself, but helped them create a court system in which they judged themselves! His children were able to resolve their problems without the interference of an adult. One sees also in the film Korczak how willing he was to trust the children. Shlomo steals a chocolate bar from another child but denies it. Although the viewer senses that Korczak knows the truth, that he knows Shlomo took the chocolate, it is the trust and love that Korczak shows that help Shlomo turn toward his real potential.
            The narrator also questions why parents interfere in relationships between their children. “It’s hard to reach an understanding with little children, because grownups interfere” (Korczak 78). At the slightest problem, a noise slightly louder than it has to be, a parent steps in and takes control (or so he/she believes) of the situation. Korczak, however, put more trust in the children and allowed them to work things out amongst themselves.
            One reads further about the mistake adults will often make of believing they are needed or can help, but that the children are not needed. For example, in watching a fire or some other horrible accident, “grownups too, like to run and gape—not only children. It’s as if they can be of use while they tell us: ‘Go away. You’re not needed here.’” (Korczak 112).
            Perhaps even more important than recognizing the mistakes that adults constantly make is Korczak’s ability to understand the way a child thinks and feels, to understand a child’s difficulties and joys. Again one notices that Korczak must truly have understood, because through his narrator he describes a child’s thoughts in such a way as to take the reader back to his own childhood. “It’s inconvenient to be small. You always have to raise your head. Everything occurs up high somewhere, above you. As a result a person feels less important, degraded, weak, and somewhat lost. Maybe that is why we like to stand beside grownups when they are sitting: then we can look straight into their eyes” (Korczak 30). Should adults, then, bend down when they are talking to children in order to be on the same level? Or does this only serve to make the children feel inferior again? Perhaps Korczak’s method of simply talking to the children as if they were adults, treating them with respect, is the best method. Then the child does not feel that someone is looking down on him, but can truly feel like an equal. Now that I’m a child again, it seems to me that history is unimportant, or the facts a person knows. What is really important, is how a person feels inside” (Korczak 41). It seems, then, that like Korczak, one should try to make the child feel that he is an equal, that what he thinks and feels and does is important, no matter how small it may be. “Children’s games aren’t silly; to uncover a secret, to show that something can’t be so well hidden that you can’t find it—that’s the whole point. The harder it is to find something, the more fun it is…. I was an Eskimo and a dog; I chased and was chased; I was a champion and also a hapless victim in an accident; an artist and a philosopher—life sounds to me like an orchestra” (Korczak 49). What an important thing the imagination can be, as well. In the film Korczak, one sees the doctor play ‘choo-choo train’ with the children upon returning home, and all the children—not just the youngest ones—join in eagerly. Korczak emphasizes the importance of being a child, of thinking and imagining, of playing. The imagination is not an escape, but a way of learning to see and understand the world, and he encourages such activities. The narrator further adds, “I don’t know whether we laugh more frequently than grownups do or not. But one thing is certain: their laughter says little while we understand perfectly. Sometimes our laughter says more than our words. A meaningful glance, a meaningful smile” (Korczak 65). One senses that adults have not really lost this ability to communicate without words, but rather that they believe that they can no longer be like children and therefore they must be able to express themselves only through words. Or maybe they have lost the ability to understand the laughter and smiles! But the children know: “we know better what bothers us; we have more time to think about and observe ourselves;we know ourselves better; we’re together more often” (Korczak 135). What if, then, like Korczak, we would take the time to ask the children if we do not understand what they are feeling? They can tell us, in spite of what we may think.
            The narrator realizes finally that being a child is not as easy as it seems, that adults do not recognize children as people. He describes their thoughts: “Children—these are future people. And so it’s a matter of their becoming, it’s as if they don’t exist yet. But indeed, we are; we live, we feel, we suffer” (Korczak 155). As he finally realizes this, the elf returns. “ He’s waiting. With a hopeless whisper—through tears: ‘I want to be big again. I long to be a grownup again” (Korczak 157). He returns to the adult world understanding the children, ready to change to make the world more comfortable for them. And the reader realizes that Korczak is much like his narrator, that it is through his understanding of children that he is able to give them so much, to love them enough to give even his life for them.
            Korczak presents other important concepts in his treatise The Child’s Right to Respect. “We learn very early in life that big is more important than little…. Size is equated with ordinary and uninteresting. Little people mean little wants, little joys and sorrows” (Korczak 161). How inconvenient the world is for children! Everything is designed for grownups, even down to the very thoughts of the world. Children’s thoughts and ideas are unimportant. “Why is it though, that there’s always a sense of a heavy load with them, as if they were an obstruction, an inconvenient addition?” (Korczak 167). So not only is the world inconvenient to children, children are also inconvenient to the world. But why? Why is everything geared towards adults? “Children account for a large proportion of mankind, a sizeable portion of the population, of the nation, residents, citizens—constant companions” (Korczak 174). How lucky the children were that their beloved Pan Doktor recognized them as important, as part of the society, not as future people, but as the people who are the future.
            Korczak’s childhood probably influenced his writings about children, both of which (his childhood and his writings) influenced his desires and actions as he later created his orphanages. His understanding of the thoughts and feelings of a child made it possible for him to love them all the more, and for them to love him. He was also thus able to prepare the children for the death he knew would come upon them and to go with them to death. Again and again he had the opportunity to escape, yet he knew better than to leave the children to face a frightening situation alone. One might look on Korczak’s actions as a great sacrifice, yet the film cites him as saying that there is no such thing as sacrifice. When one does something that the world looks on as a sacrifice, it is because he loves what he is doing and would not choose to do anything else. Korczak, then, did not sacrifice anything, but only spent his life doing the work that he loved.
Bibliography
Bernheim, Mark. Father of the Orphans: The Story of Janusz Korczak. New York: Lodestar Books, 1989.
Jewish Virtual Library: A Division of the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise. 2003. http://www.us-israel.org/jsource/biography/Korczak.html
Korczak. Dir. Andrzej Wajda. 1990.
Korczak, Janusz. The Child’s Right to Respect. Trans. E. P. Kulawiec. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992.
- - -. When I am Little Again. Trans. E. P. Kulawiec. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1992.
Lifton, Betty Jean. The King of the Children: The Life and Death of Janusz Korczak. New York: St. Martin’s Griffin, 2002.
http://www.korczak.com/Biography/kap-0.htm
http://www.korczak.com/Biography/kap-38.htm
Sacks, Jonathan. “Learning to Sacrifice Our Hatred for the Sake of Our Children.” The Scotsman. Edinburgh, UK: 2003.
[Note: this is my work, though it includes citations where appropriate. Feel free to reference it as desired, but please give me credit for it. CSS]

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