“In dark times, bright people are clearly visible,” Erich Maria Remarque once wrote. Our present is a vivid confirmation of this statement. How much pain and grief the war brought to Ukraine – dead and wounded people, millions of refugees and displaced persons, destroyed houses, villages and cities, man-made and ecological disasters. There are many scary analogies with the events of World War II. However, as then, despite all the horrors of existence, there are always such people who help others to survive and save themselves. This is how the great humanist Janusz Korczak did it – a Polish doctor, teacher, writer, publicist, officer, public figure of Jewish origin.

Janusz Korczak (Polish Janusz Korczak, real name Henryk Goldschmidt) was born on July 22, 1878 (according to other sources – 1879) in Warsaw in a Polonized Jewish family, which allowed him to emphasize belonging to both nations throughout his life. In March 1905, he received a doctor's diploma after graduating from the medical department of the Imperial University of Warsaw. In the same year, he participated in the Russian-Japanese war as a military doctor. In 1903–1911, he worked in the Bersoniv and Baumaniv Jewish Children's Hospital, then a teacher in summer children's camps, was a member of the Jewish charity Society for the Aid of Orphans. In 1911, he founded the Jewish Home for Orphans, which he managed until the end of his life. It was here that Janusz introduced a system of broad children's self-government, innovative for those years. During the First World War, he served as a military doctor of the divisional infirmary, mostly on the territory of Ukraine. During the Polish-Bolshevik war, he was a doctor in the military hospitals of Łódź and Warsaw. For his self-sacrificing work, he received the rank of Major of the Polish Army. In 1919–1936, he also participated in the work of the Polish boarding school “Our Home”. His radio programs – “Conversations of the Old Doctor” – were extremely popular not only in Poland, but also abroad, Janusz himself became known under the pseudonym “Old Doctor”. Also, he taught at the Free Polish University and at the Higher Jewish Pedagogical Courses, led work in the court dealing with juvenile criminals. He spent the last years of his life in the Warsaw Ghetto, where he ended up together with the children of the Orphanage. On the morning of August 6, 1942, about 200 pupils led by Janusz Korczak and teachers were deported to the Nazi death camp Treblinka. This day is considered the date of death of an outstanding teacher.

Janusz Korchak is an innovative pedagogue, author of works on the theory and practice of education. The initiator of the movement for the protection of children's rights and full equality of children. He left us as a legacy amazing, kind and instructive book. During the Second World War, Korchak kept a diary – a unique document of that era, considering the circumstances of its writing. Numerous works belong to his pen, in particular, fairy tales for babies, and most importantly – more than 20 books dedicated to raising children. Among them, a peculiar humanist manifesto “How to love a child” occupies a special place.

During his lifetime, Janusz Korczak received the Officer's Cross of the Order of the Renaissance of Poland, the Golden Academic Laurel of the Polish Academy of Literature. In 1948, he posthumously received the Knight's Cross of the Order of the Renaissance of Poland. In 2018, he was awarded Poland's highest honor – the Order of the White Eagle. In memory of the three years of life that Korchak spent in Ukraine, in 2016 a street named after Janusz Korchak appeared in Kyiv, and earlier – a memorial plaque at 47 Volodymyrska Street, where he worked.

Dilfuza Hlushchenko