Lessons of love for children by Janusz Korczak. Part 1
The article is devoted to the life and work of the great Polish doctor, teacher, writer, public figure Janusz Korczak. A study of his work and activities is carried out from the position of the system-vector psychology of Yu. Burlan.
Janusz Korczak was born on July 22, 1878.
The series of articles "Lessons from Janusz Korczak's Love for Children" has been published in the scientific press since 2015. For the first time in the history of periodicals, the system-vector methodology of Yuri Burlan is used to study the life and heritage of the great teacher.
In the second issue of the scientific journal "Society: Sociology, Psychology, Pedagogy" for 2015, the first article from this cycle was published, dedicated to Janusz Korczak.
Scientific journal "Society: Sociology, Psychology, Pedagogy"
ISSN 2221-2795 (print), 2223-6430 (online)
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Lessons of love for children by Janusz Korczak. Part 1
Resume: The article is devoted to the life and work of the great Polish doctor, teacher, writer, public figure Janusz Korczak. A study of his work and activities is carried out from the position of the system-vector psychology of Yu. Burlan. The emphasis is made on the creative and professional disclosure of the properties that determine the formation of an outstanding personality, based on the system-vector methodology. The essence of the pedagogical and literary creativity of J. Korczak is revealed. A systematic analysis of the teacher's life situation is given, and those essential characteristics of his pedagogical and writing work that determine life and human choice are revealed.
The first part of the essay is a chronological study of the teacher's life path; the second part is a poetic study of the most striking works, which expresses the author's position on the problems of parents, examines the attitude of society to the period of childhood, growing up, child protection, mental and physical health of the child; in the third part of the essay, the last three days of J. Korczak's life are presented in chronological order.
The final part of the essay contains reviews of students of the Faculty of Pedagogy and Methods of Preschool, Primary and Additional Education about the book "How to Love a Child". The essay emphasizes that the use of the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan allows you to reveal the true motives of actions, relying not on guesswork, but on modern methods of psychological research.
Janusz Korchak: Lessons of love
Summary: The paper is about life and deeds of Janusz Korchak, prominent Polish physician, teacher, writer and historical figure. His creative work and professional life have been studied in this paper using Yuri Burlan's System Vector Psychology approach.
The paper laid an emphasis upon the impact of innate vector characteristics on creative and professional development of an outstanding personality. The essence of pedagogical and writing work of Janusz Korchak has been discussed. new system methodology allows giving some insights into Korchak's life circumstances and crucial factors defining his life and human choices.
In the first part of the essay reader can find the chronological research of Janusz Korchak`s life; the second part is review of his most bright works in which the teacher`s position on parenthood is expressed. The attitude of society to the childhood and adolescence, to the guard of childhood, psychic and physical health of child are also shown; in the third part of the essay the last three days of Korchak 'life have been chronologically described.
The final part of the essay contains How to love child book reviews written by the students majoring in Pedagogics. Y. Burlan's System Vector Psychology allows to expose true reasons of human behavior due to its innovatively unique approach to the psychological research.
In the history of mankind, there are many big names and great people. And in this treasury of the brightest manifestations of human talent, a special place is occupied by the life of one of the greatest humanists of the 20th century - a doctor, teacher, writer, public figure Janusz Korczak.
Janusz Korczak (real name Henrik Goldschmit) was born into an assimilated Jewish family on July 22, 1878. One of the most touching childhood memories that Henrik shares was that of a five-year-old boy of a dead canary. When the baby went out into the yard to bury her, and wanted to put a wooden cross on the grave, a neighbor boy, the janitor's son, approached him, explained to him that the bird was Jewish and she was of the same nation as Henrik himself. So, the future teacher and humanist learned about his origin. This case will be described by him later in the autobiographical story "The Child of the Living Room." Henrik's lonely, sad childhood was filled with fantasy. For example, having received cubes at the age of six, he played with them until he was fourteen, talked to them and asked them: "Who are you?" [3]
The father treated his son in a special way, calling him stupid, crybaby, stupid and lazy, but the mother was surprised that the child had no ambitions: he didn't care what he eats, what he was wearing, he was ready to play with any child. And only grandmother was Henrik's best friend and main listener. He trusted her with the secrets of arranging the world, the dream of destroying money, poverty and wealth.
When the boy was eleven, his father died after a prolonged mental breakdown. Henrik was forced to earn money as a tutor in wealthy houses and continued to study at the gymnasium. And at the age of fourteen came the realization that “I exist not to be loved and admired, but to act and love myself. It is not the duty of those around me to help me, but I myself am obliged to take care of the world and the person”[4, p.11]. Awareness of responsibility to oneself, one's own destiny, and the people around him arose in one of the most difficult periods of Henrik's life.
It was at this time that his pedagogical talent manifested itself. The ability to find a special approach to each student, to interest him, to find something that he will be able to captivate, as if there is nothing more interesting in the world, something about which two almost friends, almost the same age, talk on long evenings. One remarkable entry in Henrik's diary dates back to this time: “A strange feeling came over me. I don't have my own children yet, but I already love them”[2].
The difficulties that Henrik faced did not break him, and the boy determined his calling in helping people. Henrik carried this desire to help people, to help everyone who surrounded him throughout his life. And at the last minute of his life, while encouraging the children in the gas chamber in Treblinka, he thought only about how to ease their suffering, how to help the children, whose eyes were fixed on him in this terrible hour of death …
The first pedagogical experience was not in vain and prompted an inquiring thought to search. It is also remarkable that “even in his student years, the young man became involved in volunteer activities. He settled in the area of the poor and spent the whole year conducting literary and educational work among street children”[2].
Already at the age of 18, he published the first article on the problems of pedagogy, which was called "The Gordian Knot". In this article, a thoughtful young man asked society and himself a question: when will mothers and fathers themselves take up the upbringing and education of their children, without shifting this role onto nannies and tutors?
Since childhood, his heart was open to the world and people, so Henrik decides to become a doctor. Neither childhood nor adolescence was easy and cloudless, therefore, as a student of medicine, Henrik taught courses, worked at a school, in a children's hospital and in a free reading room for the poor. Being a support for his mother from an early age, he helps to support the family after the death of his father. And of course he does. He is writing a play called Which Way? about a madman ruining his family. This play was submitted to the competition, and the author chose the pseudonym Janusz Korczak. The play received recognition, and the young author was successful as a talented teacher, writer Janusz Korczak and doctor Henrik Goldschmit.
After graduation, Henrik works at the Children's Hospital. And it is here that he becomes convinced that the lack of understanding by adults of the child often leads not only to childhood suffering, but also to childhood diseases.
Understanding the nature of children, its peculiarities, the realization that children are not the same in nature, the desire to take on some of the child's concerns, understanding childhood gives Henrik confidence to make one of the most important decisions in his life - to leave medicine and become the director of the Orphans Home for Jewish children. It was from this moment that a physician with the pseudonym of a writer becomes a teacher with a new name Janusz Korczak. And everything that matured "on the sidelines", which was perceived as the pain of the soul, became the single meaning of life, a single inhalation and exhalation - from making a decision to the last hour in the gas chamber in Treblinka. It was not by chance that Korczak became involved in Jewish orphans. In pre-war Poland, the situation of Jewish orphans was the most difficult.
Janusz Korczak and his assistant, friend and colleague Stefania Vilczynska in the first year of the orphanage's operation worked without rest - 16-18 hours a day. The street habits of the wards, their attempts to survive in an aggressive antisocial environment, the unwillingness to change their usual way of life had to be overcome with difficulty. His youthful experience of tutoring tells Janusz that he needs a special approach to children, who yesterday built their relationships with their peers according to the principle of a wild archetypal pack. Opposing wild habits with moral upbringing, Janusz Korczak introduces elements of children's self-government into the upbringing system, and young citizens create their own parliament, court and newspaper. In the process of common work, they learn mutual assistance and justice, develop a sense of responsibility. As researchers of the life of J. Korczak write:“The House of Orphans will become a place for professional work, an office for creativity, and your own home” [2].
The First World War interrupts the first experiments of upbringing, and Janusz goes to the front as a military doctor. It was here, in the midst of the horrors of war, far from his pupils, that he began to write one of his main works - the book How to Love a Child. His sensitive soul, compassionate for the troubles of children, did not know rest. He transfers his pain from the realization of childhood suffering into a book, where in every word, in every thought he tries to show that an adult, namely a mother, needs to listen, take a closer look, and feel his child. And already in the first lines of the book, Albert Likhanov, laureate of the Janusz Korczak International Prize, addresses the reader with the following words: “But we do not have enough love for children. There is not enough dedication - parental, pedagogical. There is not enough filial, filial love”[1, p. one].
Reflecting on children, the teacher insistently repeats every time that “a child is not a lottery ticket, which should receive a prize in the form of a portrait in the courtroom of the magistrate or a bust in the foyer of the theater. Each has its own spark, which can carve a flint of happiness and truth, and maybe in the tenth generation it will flare up with a fire of genius and, glorifying its own kind, will illuminate humanity with the light of a new sun”[1, p. 29].
The inquisitive creative thought of the great humanist makes its way, laying down on a white sheet of paper with reserved lines: “A child is not the soil cultivated by heredity for sowing life, we can only contribute to the growth of that which violently and persistently begins to strive for life in him even before his first breath. Recognition is needed for new varieties of tobacco and new brands of wine, but not for people”[1, p. 29].
We can say that the book "How to Love a Child" is dozens of pages of knowledge of the soul, physiology, interests, needs of a little person. A person who tries to live as best he can. Trying to live in order to survive. The world of adults, presenting to the child its laws - the laws of indifference and inaction, callousness and indifference - breaks the thin, unprotected, fragile psyche of the child, throwing it into an archetypal state, forcing it to survive according to the laws of the "capitalist jungle" by which the whole world lives. Y. Korczak wrote not about that in his book. Calling on the mother to a reverent attitude towards her child, to understand his needs, the author, as if on a silver thread, strung the meanings of heartfelt and understanding love for children: “The child brings a wonderful song of silence into the life of the mother. From the long hours spent near him, when he does not demand, but just lives,what she will become, her life program, her strength and creativity, depends on the thoughts with which the mother diligently envelops him. In the silence of contemplation, with the help of a child, she grows to the insights that the work of an educator requires … Be ready for long hours of thoughtful lonely contemplation …”[1, p. 70].
Janusz Korczak puts his reflections on the fate of children into questions: what should be done so that children do not suffer, so that they grow up worthy people? He writes: “If a dogmatic environment promotes the upbringing of a passive child, then an ideological environment is suitable for sowing initiative children. Here, I think, are the origins of a number of annoying surprises: one is given a dozen commandments, carved in stone, while he longs to carve them himself in his soul, while the other is forced to seek the truth, which he is more likely to receive ready-made. You can not notice this if you approach the child with a confident "I will make a man out of you", and not with the question: "what can you become, man?" [1, p. 31].
Understanding that childish nature is completely special leads Janusz to the idea that “if we divide humanity into adults and children, and life into childhood and adulthood, it turns out that children and childhood are a very large part of humanity and life. Only when we are busy with our worries, our struggle, we do not notice him, just as the enslaved tribes and peoples did not notice before the woman, the peasant. We settled down so that the children interfere with us as little as possible, so that they understand as little as possible what we really are and what we are actually doing”[1, p. 35].
His love for children matured on quiet nights of despair, when his father was sick and dying, in a concentrated search for answers to the questions of how to save the life of small, helpless creatures, just born into this world, in the hot everyday life of a military doctor. And the everyday life of the bloody mess of war, and the endless suffering of thousands of people, and pre-war small victories and large military losses - everything came together in one single point, where the past and the future converge. Everything converges in a small white dot on the black cloak of the universe - a spark of love for children that burns in the heart, flew out of the flame of eternity and illuminated the path of humanity with the fire of Prometheus. As if living his life anew with each newly written page, Janusz Korczak wrote out the basic commandment of his life: how to love children. And this love, as a great disclosure of a person's mission, as a found meaning of life,the milestone of the great ascent began and ended with his last second of life in the Treblinka gas chamber next to his children, revealing the meanings of all the lives lived before him and lived after …
System analysis. A systematic understanding of what is happening to a person, his actions makes us think about what are the true reasons, the roots of what is happening to him? System-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan provides answers to the questions over which humanity is struggling, living outside this direction of knowledge. What are the origins and essence of the actions and thoughts of Janusz Korczak? In order to answer the question posed, we will use the autobiographical research method, which consists in the study of diary entries, letters, memoirs of the contemporaries of a person about whom it is necessary to form a definite opinion.
Within the framework of a new direction in the science of Man - the system-vector psychology of Yuri Burlan - it has been established that each member of a social group has a certain set of mental qualities, the implementation of which in a group contributes to their own survival, the survival of a social group and a person as a species. In system-vector psychology, a set of natural qualities is called a vector. Eight vectors are determined: sound, visual, olfactory, oral, cutaneous, anal, urethral, muscular.
Janusz Korczak is a carrier of the ano-visual ligament vectors. The manifestations of certain qualities that are characteristic of the anal and visual vector have been observed since childhood. So, from childhood, the boy lived in a world of fantasies, dreams of a better life for humanity, was impressionable, emotional, susceptible to the suffering of others. It was the suffering of others, acutely perceived visually, that forced the restless and sensitive child's soul to pour out in tears, for which the boy more than once received from his father an insulting nickname - "crybaby".
In adolescence, earning money by tutoring and taking care of the family, Henrik realizes his natural destiny, which is inherent in the anal vector - caring and teaching children. He makes a decision on his own, consciously, understanding and taking responsibility for the family, himself and striving to bear responsibility for the people around him. Compassion, care and responsibility in a complex give the boy an understanding of his professional choice - he becomes a doctor. These same qualities, embedded in the anal-visual ligament of vectors, allow Henrik to describe his perception of people, his experiences about children's fate in plays and essays.
At the height of his professional and human self-determination, Henrik decides to leave medicine, devoting his life to children. And again we turn to the system-vector psychology for an answer. Why did such a seemingly sharp turn of fate take place? In fact, both medicine and pedagogy are areas of human activity inherent in people - carriers of vectors: anal and visual. Medicine as saving life, as an anti-measure of murder and death, as survival contrary to natural laws is deeply humane and cultural in its essence. The developed and realized visual vector manifests itself in such seemingly illogical and unnatural properties as preserving life for all living things contrary to common sense, raising life into a cult, praising the beauty of life in everything, raising morality to a high level of moral consciousness. The anal vector is learning as it is - teaching children, transferring knowledge and experience about life to them. And a child is life itself! Small, fragile, but already born and striving to preserve herself at all costs.
That is why the transition from medicine to pedagogy - from preserving the lives of children to preserving their "crystal" soul - is in fact natural in the life of Janusz Korczak. And love for children, and the desire to teach others how to love and respect children, and an understanding of the special child's nature - all this is embedded in the anal vector, in order to germinate with thoughts and words in great books about your own awareness of yourself in your awareness of childhood.
That is why the moral search of Janusz Korczak, understanding the mission of parenting through care (as a manifestation of the properties of the anal vector), compassion and love (as a manifestation of the properties of the visual vector) is so understandable. The desire not only to teach, to transfer knowledge, to surround with care, but also to educate, to cultivate new high feelings in every child - this is the essence and meaning of a person's life with the anal-visual ligament in a developed and realized state.
Today, in the new literature, the opinion is increasingly being expressed that raising children is an unnecessary atavism that came to us from archaic times, and that upbringing can be replaced by socialization. From whom do you hear such remarks? These Western and pro-Western theories about the outdated parenting paradigm are, unfortunately, an indicator of the coming new time - the time of speed, information, benefit, efficiency and expediency. Education as a phenomenon of human life, as the preservation of historical memory is called upon to “nourish” and “absorb” the thousand-year experience of mankind into new forms of human souls. In one of his early works, Confessions of a Moth, Janusz Korczak wrote: “Reforming the world means reforming upbringing”. Realizing "through himself" the importance of education, the teacher understood that the transformation of a little man into a Human is a long process,complex and painstaking. And he tried to convey this vision of the future of the country, the world, humanity in every work, every book, in every day and hour he lived.
Janusz Korczak, embodying the great power of love for children, molded children's souls, educating them in himself, absorbing himself in them limitlessly, as the Universe itself is limitless, the only law of which is love.
About the works of J. Korczak
The First World War interrupted the pedagogical work of J. Korczak. And immediately after the war, the teacher returns to his children in his orphanage, which has already become native. It is precisely this post-war period that is the time of maximum tension and energy release. As the head of the Orphanage, Janusz Korczak performed on the radio under the pseudonym "Old Doctor", edited a children's newspaper and performed many other assignments. And of course he continued to write himself. Back in the pre-war period in 1907, the book "School of Life" was written, which depicts the school of dreams not only of the author himself, but also, probably, of any teacher. Impressions of working with Polish and Jewish children are vividly described in the books "Miuski, Yoski and Sruli" ("Summer in Mikhailovka" in Russian translation) and "Yuzki, Yaski and Franky", and later the book "Alone with Mr. B -gom. The prayers of thosewho does not pray”- a posthumous prayer lament for the mother. Later, in 1939, the stories “Children of the Bible”, “Three Journeys of Gershek”, and the parable story “Moses” were published.
The pearls of creativity, both literary and pedagogical, are his books "How to Love a Child", "The Child's Right to Respect" and others. You ask how he wrote his books, where did he get the plots from? It's simple. Life itself and the children surrounding Janusz Korczak pushed him to explore the world of childhood.
Excerpt from the book “When I Become Little Again”: “Sink, bend, bend, shrink. You are wrong! This is not what we get tired of. And because it is necessary to rise to their feelings. Get up, stand on tiptoe, stretch. In order not to offend”[5, p.36].
What is a child in the understanding of J. Korczak? This is a special world, so touching and fragile. The teacher with all his being felt the child's soul, as if from within understanding the uniqueness of each child: “Two boys are walking and talking. The very ones who a minute ago stuck out their tongues to lick their nose, the same ones who just ran a race with the tram. And now they talk about wings for humanity”[5, p. 25]. The wings for humanity are the wings of the soul of the author himself, soaring in the space of love and care for children. Amusing daily little things, experiencing the feelings of a child with him, the prospect of his life - everything in one second lined up in the trajectory of the future, imbued with the love of the great teacher.
The absolute value of childhood for J. Korczak is not just a slogan, it is an inner conviction that he discovers in himself and talks about it, writes about it, does everything to "open the eyes" of the people around him to the fact that he is next to everyone of them there are children, there is a special world that needs recognition and understanding: “Adults think that children can only be mischievous and talk nonsense. But in fact, children anticipate the distant future, discuss it, argue about it. Adults will say that people will never have wings, but I was an adult and assert that people can have wings”[5, p. 15]. And there are no other people's children. There are children - our common future, which suffers, cries, laughs, but more often still experiences the difficulties of growing up.
The Bible of parenting is the book How to Love a Child. Surprisingly, the life of a child from the very first moment of his birth is accurately described. Accurate, one might say, systemic guesses, noticed by the author's ingenious perspicacity, make you think and amaze with daily observations and subtly noted nuances: “there are no children - there are people, but with a different scale of concepts, a different store of experience, different drives, a different play of feelings”; “In fear, lest death take the child away from us, we take the child away from life; protecting from death, we do not let him live”; “I want to have - I have, I want to know - I know, I want to be able - I can: these are three branches of a single trunk of will, rooted in two feelings - satisfaction and dissatisfaction” [1].
Here are almost systematic descriptions of the child that are close to us, and attempts to understand how children differ from each other (and they really differ), and the desire, by summarizing the pedagogical and psychological experience accumulated by the beginning of the 20th century, to take the best from this experience, apply this best, understand the reasons for the child's behavior.
And again you ask yourself another question: what is the essence of Korchakov's attitude towards children? The answer is very simple: the essence of the attitude towards children is in childhood, simplicity, the belief that the power of love for a child - absolute love that gives without a trace - can bring him what a growing, maturing soul needs. The power of love of the giver, as the power of love of the creator, is absolute and not limited. Yes, he himself, J. Korczak, was the conductor of this love, which was born in his heart, was transformed by his consciousness into such care for everyone and such a system of life organization, where everyone's desire to develop their inner self-consciousness, their moral root will awaken. Supporting the team, making collective decisions, belonging to the team gave the child that sense of security,which he lost in the struggle for survival in the slums of life and was found only next to a man whose eyes looked as if they had given light over the long years of wandering through the dark world of childish hopelessness and despair.
A real event in the world of pedagogy, psychology, and literature are the books “The Bankruptcy of Young Jack” (1924), “Kaytus the Wizard” (1935), “Stubborn Boy. The Life of L. Pasteur "(1938). A special place is occupied by the dilogy "King Matt I" and "King Matt on a deserted island" (1923). The parable of the noble boy-king, Matt I, has won the hearts of dreamy readers. And the quivering Matyush himself with an open soul became a symbol of dedication and kindness for many children. As if twelve-year-old Henrik himself descended from the pages of these books about the boy-king - just as fair, dreamy and selfless.
Both in books and in his speeches, Korczak does not get tired of repeating: “Childhood is the foundation of life. Without a serene, filled childhood, subsequent life will be flawed: a child is a scientist in a laboratory, straining his will and mind to solve the most difficult problems. " An adult needs to carefully and slowly awaken and develop in a child “the need for self-awareness, self-control and the will to self-improvement” [1]. Childhood is not a period of bondage, since the personality of a child is valuable in itself and individual.
Modern pedagogy is replete with approaches, systems, technologies and methods. J. Korczak had only one approach, one system, one technology and one methodology - sacrificial, giving, heartfelt love for our common children, boundless care for each child and focused attention to his development. His reverent study of the world of childhood, understanding of the special significance of childhood in the life of every person gave his attitude towards children a special meaning, and the discovery of the laws of child development revealed the laws of the universe of the child's soul. Love for children gave Janusz Korczak the inner strength of life, illuminated his creative free thought as a guiding star, created the potential that seemed to make atoms, planets and galaxies move. This love began every new day with the discovery of the unknown space of children's souls,spinning the gigantic flywheel of life's endless action.
Three days in the life of a teacher. Janusz Korczak … His books about children, for children, about himself …
“Do the Eskimos eat bread? Why don't they go where it's warmer? Can't they build brick houses? Who is stronger, the walrus or the lion? Or maybe an Eskimo freeze to death if he gets lost? Are there wolves? Can they read? Are there any cannibals among them? Do they love whites? Do they have a king? Where do they get their sled nails? " [4] - these are the voices of those children with whom the Old Doctor rode in a stuffy closed carriage going to Treblinka …
August 4, 1942. An early cloudy, gloomy morning. Waiting for your incomprehensible lot does not let you sleep. Janusz Korczak watering flowers. What is he thinking about? What is it like - a premonition of death?
Thoughts from the diary: “I watered the flowers, the poor flowers of the orphanage, the flowers of the Jewish orphanage. The parched earth sighed. The sentry was looking at my work. Angry him, does this peaceful labor at six in the morning touch him? The sentry stands and looks. He spread his legs wide”[4, p. 15]. Uncertainty is like flying over an abyss. Uncertainty creeps into the soul with black creeping fear. But Janusz had no fear for himself, about his fate. When you feel compassion for the whole world, when you grieve with the whole world and with each child's soul separately, you are no longer afraid for yourself. Do you forget what it is like to be afraid for yourself?
The bottom line from the life lived, from the experienced and seen, there was sorrow. She is in sad eyes, lowered shoulders, bitterness of awareness of the hopelessness of the present. This grief is a moral reproach to people who do not know morality: “You drank, gentlemen officers, abundantly and tasty - this is for blood; in the dance they jingled orders, saluting the shame that you, the blind, did not see, or rather, pretended not to see”[4, p.16].
Premonition of death. Was it in a person who devoted his entire life to preserving life in spite of everything? On the eve of July 21, he writes in his diary: “It is a difficult task to be born and learn to live. I was left with a much easier task - to die. After death it can be hard again, but I don’t think about it. Last year, last month or hour. I would like to die, keeping the presence of mind and in full consciousness. I don't know what I would say goodbye to the children. I would like to say a lot and so: they have the right to choose their own path”[4, p.6]. He already knew that orphans from the orphanage located in the Warsaw ghetto would be deported. No one knew when it would be and where all its inhabitants would be sent, since the Germans announced that all "unproductive elements" were subject to deportation.
Approaching the last line, carrying with him a load of mistakes, unfulfilled dreams of transforming the world from somewhere from childhood, disappointments in people, until the end of his life, until his last minute, he saw the only light, a guiding star illuminating the darkness gathering around him. This light was the sparks of children's eyes - cheerful and mischievous, funny and often sad. The same as the eyes of Janusz himself.
A new day has come - August 5th. There were no more entries in the diary … It was the turn of the Orphanage to go to Umschlagplatz, from where it was sent to the Treblinka death camp. What did he say to his children on this day and at this hour? With what words did you help the smallest to get together, what did you talk about with the elders? Did the children know where they were going? And where is the Old Doctor going with them? Did he tell them the truth? The foreboding of great misfortune squeezed my throat with a heavy load. And was there any point in being cheerful? And were there any strength and even a drop of life for this? And how can you cheer up children who are going to die?
In the memoirs of eyewitnesses, we read: "Korczak built the children and led the procession" [6]. It was a procession with thousands of eyes. It was the way to Golgotha through time, the way that tens and hundreds of thousands have traveled, whose existence was not included in the plans of the "Pontius Pilates" in black SS uniforms.
“The march of the House of Orphans to the wagons in Treblinka proceeded in perfect order. According to some recollections, Korczak led two children by the hands, and according to others, he carried one child in his arms, and led the other by the hand. The children … walked in rows of four, walked calmly, none of them cried. Many people saw this, some of them remained alive and left memories. Some recollect that the column of children marched under the green flag of the House of Orphans and the commandant of Umschlagplatz, accustomed to scenes of horror and despair, shouted in dumbfoundedness: “What is this?” [Ibid].
On the platform there was a loading in wagons. The train was heading for Treblinka. The heavy, still air smelled of despair and sorrow. The masses of people were tightly driven into the carriages, beating them to capacity. In the general crush, no individual screams were heard. A general groan of horror stood over the platform. The carriages, crammed with live contents for the gas chambers, started to move. The open mouth of the conveyor belt of death was already waiting impatiently for its victims …
There is ample evidence that during the loading the Old Doctor was asked to hide, hide, stay in Warsaw and not go to Treblinka. Janusz Korczak refused. Is it possible to imagine that a man who has devoted his whole life to his last breath to children, suddenly secretly, hiding from their tired, tear-stained eyes, runs away, hiding between the cars, running, looking around, along the alleys, runs to a secluded, hidden place to wait, and then he emigrates somewhere to Switzerland and lives peacefully in a small alpine house, practicing for the rest of his life?..
The train was moving fast, rattling at the joints of the rails. The Old Doctor tried to keep the children busy with conversation. But the children understood everything. And many already guessed where and why they were going. The Old Doctor knew and had no doubt that he would be with his pupils to the end. He understood that only his presence gives them the strength to somehow hold on. And he already knew why they were being taken to Treblinka.
A day will pass, and the Old Doctor will enter the gas chamber with his pupils. He cannot leave them alone in the face of the impending horror of death. He should be with them. Children … Until the last minute of his life, until the last breath, the last exhalation, a merciless thought tore his tired heart: did he do everything for these children, with whom he entered the cramped, fetid room of the gas chamber? Squeezing the little ones' arms to pain, he hugged them, hugged them, as if trying to cover the emaciated little bodies with his body. Amid screams of terror, crying and childish screams, his tired, broken heart refused to beat. Because the heart cannot withstand what is impossible …
On 6 August 1942, 192 children from the Korczak orphanage were martyred in the gas chamber of the Treblinka extermination camp. They were accompanied by two of their teachers - Janusz Korczak and Stefania Vilczynska, as well as eight more adults [3].
Afterword
The life and work of Janusz Korczak did not leave indifferent the modern generation of future teachers. This is how students of pedagogical specialties speak about J. Korczak's books. Kristina Sukhoruchenko, 2nd year student: “I had the great fortune to get acquainted with the work of Janusz Korczak, an outstanding Polish teacher, writer, doctor and public figure, and I really wanted to read his book“How to Love a Child”. From the very first lines, I realized that I had never read anything like this - simple and at the same time complex, forcing me to ponder every phrase and eagerly memorize it, arguing what the author wanted to convey to us”.
An interesting review of the book by Nastya Surina, a 1st year student: “How often we are wrong, often selfish in relation to children. After reading How to Love a Child, many parents will look at their child from a completely different angle. This book is a reflection on who a child is, what are the rights of a child in this world and, in general, how and how he lives in the world of adults."
Literature:
- Korchak Ya. How to love a child. Publishing house "Kniga", 1980.
- Shalit S. Korczak's Prayer. [Electronic resource] -URL:
- Raise a person. [Electronic resource] -URL:
- Korchak J. Diary. Pravda Publishing House, 1989. Translated from Polish by K. Sienkiewicz. OCR Dauphin, 2002.
- Korczak I. When I become little again. "Radianska School", 1983. Translated from Polish by K. E. Senkevich / Ed. A. I. Isaeva. 2003.
- Rudnitsky M. [Electronic resource] -URL:
