Monday, June 30: Warsaw

Dear Family and Friends,

Today your children are in Warsaw. During their stay they will visit the Warsaw Jewish Cemetery, the House of Janus Korzak, The Zlota Wall, Mila 18 and the Rappaport Memorial. They also will see the Umschlagplatz—the place where the ghetto residents waited for the trains that took them to Treblinka.

Later they will have dinner in Warsaw and drive to Lublin where they will spend the night. As I hear from the students I will send you their personal updates and quotes. In the mean time I will provide you with some information about specific sights on their journey.

Since they began their trip with a visit to the Jewish Cemetery in Warsaw, I will begin with this site. Although it is a huge cemetery, this incredible place reveals so much about the Jewish Community of Warsaw and of Poland in general. Established in 1806, it is located on Okopowa Street. It is estimated that there are 300,000 people buried in this cemetery, perhaps even more. However, there are 100,000 tombs that have been preserved. The Warsaw Cemetery is one of the few remaining cemeteries in Poland where new burial still takes place.

There is a mass grave of Jews who perished between 1940 and 1943 during the war due mainly to starvation. It is to the left of the wall surrounding the original cemetery and during the war it was part of the Ghetto. As one enters the gate of the cemetery you see on the left an administration building which before the war housed hearses. On the site of a grassy path to the right stood until 1939 buildings of pre-burial houses with rooms for the Tahara (cleaning of the body) and a prayer house. To the right of that is a wall that was built in 1907. Another brick wall into which elements of tombstones destroyed during the war also has been built and was put up by the Poles after World War II.

Students will walk to several gravestones of prominent Jews and by visiting each one of them they will learn the symbols of the gravestones and begin to understand just what was lost when close to 3 million Polish Jews were murdered by the Nazis. Great rabbis, doctors, authors, artists, playwrights, bankers, etc., are buried in this unbelievably immense cemetery. The dates go back more than 200 years.

It is the right place to start a journey to Poland in order to understand how Jewish individuals and communities lived and even thrived for several centuries in Poland. One of those individuals well known among Poles and Jews and a hero in his own right is Janus Korzak. Today the students will visit his orphanage.

Dr. Janus Korzak (or Korczak) was an incredible hero. There is a memorial to him at the Warsaw Cemetery and at Yad Vashem. Both show him with his arms reaching around children. He was well known throughout Poland and he was if you will the Dr. Spock of his day. However, he rejected many offers to be saved from extermination in the Nazi death camps. He refused to desert the children to whom he devoted his entire life, so that even as they approached death they would be able to maintain their faith in human goodness. He easily could have saved himself. He was repeatedly urged to do so by his many Polish admirers and friends as he was a prominent figure in Polish cutural life by the time he had died. He was offered false identity paper and they arranged for his escape from the Warsaw Ghetto. Even the children whom he had rescued from neglect in the past begged him to save himself. But as the head of the Jewish orphanage in Warsaw for 30 years, Korzak was determined not to abandon the children who trusted him.

On August 6, 1942 the Nazis ordered the 200 children who remained in the Jewish orphanage of the Warsaw Ghetto to a train station only to be packed into railroad cars. Korczak, like most other adults of the Ghetto, knew at this time that they were to be taken to their deaths in the gas chambers of Treblinka.

To deceive the children of their fate, Korczak told them that they were all going on an outing or a picnic in the countryside. On this day he had the oldest child lead them through the streets, carrying high the flag of hope, a gold four leaf clover on a field of green--the emblem of the orphanage. Even in the most terrible of situations Korczak had arranged things so that a child rather than an adult would be the leader of the other children. He walked immediately behind this leader, holding the hands of the two smallest children. Behind them marched all the other children, 4 x 4, in excellent order. Many saw the children walk to the trains accompanied by the many they loved as much as one can love a father.

Many years preceding this Korcak had been known all over Poland as "The Old Doctor." He used this name when delivering his state radio talks on children and their education. He was one of the first to treat children as little people. He became a familiar name even to those who had not read his books. He even had received Poland's highest literary prize. He wrote plays and numerous articles on children. He not only fully understood the child's point of view, but deeply respected and appreciated it. What he taught best was the title of one of his most famous books "How One Ought to Love a Child."

He was born Henryk Goldszmit, and came from two generations of educated Jews who had broken away from the Jewish tradition to assimilate into the Polish culture. His grandfather also was a successful doctor and his father a successful lawyer. He spent his early life in comfortable circumstances. His family were Jewish but in terms of religious Polish Jewish life they were non-practicing Jews who spoke only Polish, not Yiddish. So although he was well cared for as a child he knew practically from birth what it meant to be an outsider in a certain way. He changed his name from Goldschmit to Korczak when he was 18 years old. His father at this time had died and the family had economic hardships. As a university student he began to support himself, his mother and his sister by writing. He therefore thought by adopting a Polish sounding name this would prevent him from being disqualified in a literary competition. Although he did not win the competition he kept this new penname.

As a medical student specializing in pediatrics, Korzcak worked in the slums of Warsaw, hoping that by combining medical treatment for children's physical ills with spiritual assistance; he would be able to effect changes in their living conditions. He was angry at how children were forced to live and spend their lives. In 1912 he decided to give up his medical practice and devote his life to helping suffering children. In his early thirties he then became the director of the Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. From then until his death, he lived and worked at the orphanage, the only interruption was his service as a physician in the Russian army during World War I.
Many of Korcak's ideas are now commonplace but they were radically new at the beginning of the century. He stressed the importance of respecting children and their ideas even when we cannot agree with them. He insisted that it is wrong to base expectations of children on what we want them to be in the future. He felt it more important to be concerned with what the child is now--not what we wish for him or her.

His most widely read book is "King Matt the First," a story of a boy who on the death of his father becomes king and immediately sets out to change his kingdom for the benefit of children and adults alike. King Matt is really none other than Korczak himself, recreated as a child, who did battle against all the injustices of the world, most of all against those that inflicted the kids.
From the time of the German invasion of Poland in 1939 Korczak knew the end was coming. On the last pages of his diary in 1942, Korczak wrote, "I am angry with nobody, I don't wish anyone evil."

The memorial at Treblinka to the 840,000 Jews who were murdered there consists of large rocks, marking the areas (cities or countries or towns) in which they died. The rocks bear no inscriptions other than the name of the city or country from which the victims came. One rock however is inscribed with a man's name; it reads: "Janus Korczak (Henry Goldszmit) and the Children"

"When everyone acts inhuman, what should a man do?" asked the Rabbis. The answer was: “He should act more human."

It is almost 3 p.m. and I have to leave the office today for a meeting. I will report tomorrow on what your children say about their journey thus far. As you know they will be calling me and leaving voice messages on my machine. As I receive my messages I will forward their reports to you.

Have a nice evening.

Barb