Janusz Korczak: No to Denying the Rights of Children

A portrait of the famously heroic doctor, writer, and director of an orphanage who left a powerful legacy of creating a forum for and respecting the dignity of children’s lives.

In 1942 Janusz Korczak accompanied children of the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka concentration camp. That brave act became a lasting symbol of respect for the dignity of children. Korczak was the pen name of Polish doctor, Henry Goldszmit, an author of books for and about children including King Matt the First, and, most famously, the director of a Warsaw orphanage, which he called a "republic of children," where their rights, their voices, fairness and respect were paramount. Though some were very young, the children had a parliament, a newspaper, and a court with which to learn participation in citizenry and communal responsibility and care. When the Nazis invaded Poland, Korczak was given the opportunity by the authorities to escape before his charges were sent to the camps. After surviving the deprivations of the Warsaw ghetto together, he accompanied the children to Treblinka where it is assumed they all perished.

Janusz Korczak: No to Denying the Rights of Children shows the dedication of a humanist whose philosophy for empowering children inspired the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, and will compel readers to reconsider the status and welfare and agency of every child.