Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit (22 July 1878 or 1879 – 7 August 1942), was a Polish Jewish educator, children's author and pedagogue known as Pan Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old Doctor"). After spending many years working as a principal of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused sanctuary repeatedly and stayed with his orphans when the entire population of the institution was sent from the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp during the Grossaktion Warschau of 1942. Biography 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 ), 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 Ignacy Jan Paderewski Literary Contest. The name originated from the book O Janaszu Korczaku i pięknej Miecznikównie by Józef Ignacy Kraszewski. In the 1890s he studied in the Flying University. During the years 1898–1904 Korczak studied medicine at the University of Warsaw and also wrote for several Polish language newspapers. After graduation, he became a pediatrician. In 1905−1912 Korczak worked at Bersohns and Baumans Children's Hospital in Warsaw. During the Russo-Japanese War, in 1905–06 he served as a military doctor. Meanwhile, his book Child of the Drawing Room (Dziecko salonu) gained him some literary recognition. In 1907–08, Korczak went to study in Berlin. While working for the Orphans' Society in 1909, he met Stefania Wilczyńska, his future closest associate. In 1911–1912, he became a director of Dom Sierot in Warsaw, an orphanage of his own design for Jewish children. He hired Wilczyńska as his assistant.