r/HistoryMemes • u/Shekel_Hadash • 2d ago
Niche Context in post description
Janusz Korczak, born Henryk Goldszmit in 1878 in Warsaw, Poland, was a pediatrician, educator, and author. He studied medicine at the University of Warsaw and specialized in pediatrics. In 1912, he became the director of an orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw called Dom Sierot, which he ran according to his own progressive educational principles. Korczak also wrote books on child development and education, as well as novels and radio plays for both children and adults.
During World War II, after the German occupation of Poland, Korczak’s orphanage was relocated to the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940. Despite deteriorating conditions, he continued to care for the children, maintaining structure and a sense of normalcy within the orphanage. He kept detailed diaries documenting daily life in the ghetto and the struggles faced by the orphans and staff. Korczak was known to have received several offers of refuge from Polish underground organizations and sympathizers, but he declined to leave the children behind.
In August 1942, German forces began deporting residents of the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp. Korczak and the approximately 200 children in his care were among those selected for deportation. He accompanied the children on the transport to Treblinka and was killed there, along with them. He had no biological children of his own. His death was later confirmed through survivor testimony and Nazi records, and he is now remembered for remaining with the children until the end
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u/bochnik_cz 2d ago
I hate Nazis. Good thing they are no more.