Event History
The Children's Home [Dom Sierot] was a Jewish orphanage established by Janusz Korczak in Warsaw in 1912. It was located at 92 Krochmalna Street in a building designed by Korczak to facilitate the implementation of his progressive educational theories. The orphanage was funded by the Jewish Orphans' Aid Society and served children between the ages of seven and fourteen. These children attended Polish public schools and government-sponsored Jewish schools, known as "Sabbath" schools, while they lived at the Krochmalna Street home. In 1921 the orphanage opened a summer camp on the Rozyczka farm in Goclawek. Rozyczka operated through the summer of 1940. Korczak's chief assistant and collaborator at the Krochmalna Street orphanage was Stefa Wilczynska.
Biography
Janusz Korczak (pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, 1878-1942) was a physician, writer, and educator who directed the Warsaw Jewish orphanage on Krochmalna Street. Korczak was highly regarded in Polish society for his contribution to Polish institutions, especially the "Our Home" orphanage, which he established in Warsaw in 1919. Though he received numerous awards, increased anti-Semitism in the 1930s soon barred his participation in all but exclusively Jewish projects. In 1934 and 1936 Korczak made two trips to Palestine, where he was greatly influenced by the social experimentation of the kibbutz movement. By 1937 he was convinced that all Jews should emigrate to the Jewish homeland. Soon after the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Jewish Orphans' Aid Society disbanded and funding for the Krochmalna Street orphanage was taken over by the JDC and CENTOS. With the establishment of the Warsaw ghetto in November 1940, the orphanage was moved to 33 Chlodna Street (or 16 Sienna Street, the second entrance) in the small ghetto. Although he received many offers to be smuggled out of the ghetto, Korczak refused to abandon the children. He continued until the end to press hard for material resources for the orphans and to maintain a strict regimen at the home. The end came on August 5-6, 1942, when the nearly 200 children and staff members of the orphanage were rounded-up for deportation. They marched in a silent procession of four columns to the Umschlagplatz, where they were saluted by ghetto police as they boarded the deportation train. All were put to death at Treblinka.
