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]
