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SPRINGER BRIEFS IN EDUC ATION
KE Y THINKERS IN EDUCATION

Joop W. A. Berding

Janusz
Korczak
Educating
for Justice
123
SpringerBriefs in Education

Key Thinkers in Education

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Joop W. A. Berding

Janusz Korczak
Educating for Justice
Joop W. A. Berding
The Hague, the Netherlands

ISSN 2211-1921 ISSN 2211-193X (electronic)

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Thanks to theory—I know;
as a result of practice—I feel.
Janusz Korczak

Children are not future human beings, they

are already human beings.
Yes, they are human beings, not dolls;
we speak to their reason and they will
answer;
we speak to their heart and they will feel us.
Janusz Korczak
For Wouter Pols and Inge van Rijn
Preface, Acknowledgements and Dedication

In the mid-80s, I encountered the name ‘Janusz Korczak’ for the first time. And,
like others, I wondered: ‘Janusz who?’ This wonder was the beginning of a search
into the life and works of this strange and captivating man, that goes on until today,
and continues to bring me new insights and questions—endless questions, and some
answers too. The questions that Korczak raises are primarily about children and their
place in society, which makes him a social pedagogue and educator par excellence. It
is to him that we owe the pedagogical specification of such concepts as ‘participation’,
‘respect’, ‘justice’, and children’s rights that are part and parcel of our language of
pedagogy today. He was not only a forerunner, and ahead of his time, but also a true
experimenter and innovator, who always sought new ways to do justice to children.
During a time—the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the first half of the
twentieth—when adults were scarcely provided with political and social rights, this
Polish-Jewish doctor, educator and prolific writer had the audacity to stand up for
children and ask for, no: claim their rights. As a children’s advocate, he truly was a
revolutionary and a radical. He was no philosopher or theorist of education, though,
as I said, he probably single-handedly invented some of the most important ideas
and ideals of today’s education. He was a storyteller, a poet, a man of music and
of plays, and some of the best children’s books of the twentieth century came from
his imagination, and through his pen on paper. He was a person for whom lived
experience was the alpha and omega of education. Children were his example for
this experience, since they are ‘feelers’, while adults are ‘thinkers’. His published
works in Polish comprise novels, poems, essays, diaries, prayers, plays, short notes
and letters.1 The titles of his major works unveil a programme: How to love a child
(without a question mark!) from 1919 to 1920, and ‘A child’s right to respect’ from
1929, an essay about the ‘status’ of children in society that is as topical today as in
the time it was written. From his novels I’d like to mention When I am little again

1 Still
not everything is translated. In German there are Sämmtliche Werke (Collected Works, 17
volumes), in Hebrew a selection of nine volumes; a smaller selection in English, and a still smaller
choice in other languages.

ix
x Preface, Acknowledgements and Dedication

(from 1925) and the two novels for children about the Child-King Matt (both from
1923). But this short list could easily be extended with dozens of other works.2
In all of these, the main idea or thread is formed by questions such as: What,
or rather: who is the child? What makes her/him human? What is humanity? What
makes a society worthy of this heading: a ‘human society’? Korczak thus combines
in an illuminating way different levels of experience: the individual level, the level of
the community and of the society as a whole, and even of humankind as a universal
phenomenon. This also makes clear that Korczak is not the child-centred pedagogue
that is sometimes made of him, far from it, I would say. The fact that he has written
much about individual children, and indeed there are dozens, if not hundreds of these
portraits in his works, should not distract from the fact that he always writes about
children in context. And what counts in social contexts is: justice.
Korczak believed that the world could be a better place. One can only look with
admiration at the way he tried to convey, and ‘live’ this ideal in the most horrific of
times. He was a political pedagogue (if one is willing to interpret the term ‘political’
in a specific sense, which I will defend in this book), but he never tried to reach his
political goals at the expense of the children. He tried to strengthen their resilience,
as we would now call it, to cope with a world on fire. It is a great challenge to
live together with others whom you have not chosen yourself, as was the case in
the orphanage Dom Sierot in Warsaw of which Korczak was the director for 30
years (1912–1942). For educators it is a great challenge not to resort to authoritarian
ways of education and upbringing, to ‘rule’ all those ‘unruly’ boys and girls, and
this is precisely why Korczak experimented with democratic, and as I will explain,
‘republican’ ways of living and working with children. And adults, I might add. For
us, adults, parents, educators, teachers, group leaders and tutors, the plurality of the
world, as Hannah Arendt called it, is both a challenge and a commitment. Korczak
knew all about plurality: he was up to his neck in it, every day.
Korczak was a man, and a human. He therefore had his faults. For instance,
although on first sight it seems that he was the ideal, ever-patient, ever-compassionate
educator we all strive to be (or do we?), he had his moments of impatience, of
resistance against children’s wishes and demands; he suffered from moods of gloom
and even depression. His worldview was not just optimistic; he knew, he wrote, that
in every human there sits, waiting for its release, the homo rapax, the rapacious
one, who does not hesitate to make his fellow-humans suffer or even die. History,
unfortunately, is at Korczak’s side here. Also, in our own days it is evident that
layers of culture, and cultivation, are only thin, and only ‘this’ has to happen to be
broken through, as the multitude of child-abuse cases and the child-unfriendliness
of the world at large prove every day. Although it would be easy to write a book on
Korczak as a happy man who always saw the sunny side of things, this would be
unfair. His ‘darker’ sides must be acknowledged, not only to do justice to him but
also because they are our own darker sides (the darkness of the soul, Arendt calls it
somewhere).

2 Janusz Korczak. A bibliography 1939–2012 (Eds. Medeveda-Nathoo and Sanaeva, 2012) contains

over 350 entries of works in English by and about Korczak.

Preface, Acknowledgements and Dedication xi

This book is in some part based upon the work I have written and published earlier,
mostly in Dutch, and some in English. I have reworked and reorganized all previous
texts, to fit the form of this short book, and added much new material. In the last few
years there has been an increase in publications on Korczak in the English language,
and also there are new translations of some of his major works. As far as possible, I
refer to these works.
If Korczak is new to you, then I hope you will enjoy this book as an introduction.
If you are familiar with him, I hope this book will nevertheless shed some new light
on him. And if you are an expert, I hope you will examine my work critically.

Acknowledgements

Since the 1990s, I am actively engaged in the national and international Korczak
world. As a Board member of the Dutch Janusz Korczak Association for almost 18
years, until May 2014, I have come into contact with many fellow countrymen and
women, and children, whose life and work in education, child care and welfare is
inspired by Korczak. Especially I want to thank Theo Cappon, Arie de Bruin and
René Görtzen for our many stimulating conversations, and the activities we undertook
together. Korczak also has a definite international, if not cosmopolitan meaning. He
‘took’ me, so to speak, to Russia, Poland, the United Kingdom, Belgium, France,
Germany, Switzerland, Israel and Japan. I was able to see and hear about the work
done there. In most cases I was invited to give a lecture or do a workshop, which was
most gratifying. In particular, I want to thank, in no specific order: Tatyana Tsyrlina-
Spady, Batia Gilad, Avi Tsur, Irit Wyrobnik, Irina Demakova, Rosa Valeeva, Marek
Michalak, Kristin Poppo, Mark Bernheim, Malgorzata Kmita, Kelvin Ravenscroft,
Jadwiga Bińczycka, Basia Vucic and Marc Silverman for our interesting talks and
exchanges.
I also want to thank the editors of Springer, and the reviewers for their illuminating
comments on the manuscript of this book.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to my dear friends Wouter Pols and Inge van Rijn. Wouter
and I met in 2000, shortly after he’d read my dissertation on Dewey and reviewed
it favourably, and a friendship developed that is both intellectual and spiritual.
When Wouter asked me to join him in writing a new textbook on education for
the teacher education institutes in our country I agreed, and this became the widely
used Schoolpedagogiek. He introduced me to the work of Hannah Arendt, which has
become very important to me, and on which (he and) I have published extensively.
For Wouter, Korczak’s view became the sort of pedagogy we desperately need as a
xii Preface, Acknowledgements and Dedication

way of looking at (and doing) education, a field that is so dominated by the reduc-
tionist social sciences. With Inge, whom I met around the same time as Wouter, I
did a lot of practical work, especially in day care centres, where Korczak’s ideas
became a guide for many workers. We published a booklet about our courses, that is
still used, in Dutch, English, German and French editions. Inge really is the Dutch
expert where the application of Korczak’s ideas to day care is concerned. Her own
publications are witness to this. So I am very happy to dedicate this one to both
Wouter and Inge.

The Hague, the Netherlands Joop W. A. Berding

August 2020 Independent Scholar
Introduction

How to love a child

His greatest writing, and indeed considered as his magnum opus, How to love a
child dates from a century ago, 1919–1920. It consists of four parts: The child in
the family; the orphanage; the summer camps; and the orphan’s home.3 It is one of
the most original contributions to pedagogy, child psychology, and the science of
children’s health of the twentieth century. Although it offers anything but theory in
the strict sense, it does offer important insights into what and who children are; it
gives impressions of their hearts and their souls: their longings and dreams and a
clear picture of what it takes to be(come) an educator. Korczak did not write in a
scientific fashion about these subjects, take this example: ‘All tears are salty. One
who understands this, can become an educator; one who doesn’t cannot’ (Korczak
1979, 119; transl. by me, JWAB). Elsewhere he writes, ‘Be yourself, seek your own
path. Know yourself before wanting to know children’ (Korczak 2018a, 107).
As it will become clear, Korczak was trained as a physician, and he specialized
in child health care. This means that he had a thoroughly scientific and empirical
outlook. This can be seen in many places in his works, when he describes how
he monitors children’s health (weight, height, lung capacity, diseases, etc.), and he
deliberates what the best practice or intervention (or non-intervention) would be.
But other than pedagogues for whom scientific ‘evidence’ is the alpha and omega
of their actions, Korczak has severe reservations: he takes nothing for granted. Here
are some quotations that show this.
How, when, how many—why? I sense a great many questions awaiting answers, doubts
seeking explanations. And I respond: ‘I don’t know’ (Korczak 2018a, 2).
I do not know, and cannot, how unfamiliar parents under unfamiliar circumstance can raise
a child with whom I am also unfamiliar—can, I say, and not wish to, nor should (Korczak
2018a, 2; emph in or.).

3 It should be noted that the second and fourth parts deal with the same subject: life in the orphanage

Dom Sierot, then on Krochmalna [Street] 92 in Warsaw.

xiii
xiv Introduction

We have tens of thousands of measurements, some not entirely consistent charts of average
growth, we know nothing about what purpose the observed accelerations, delays, and
deviations in growth serve (Korczak 2018a, 47–48).
We do not know the child—worse, we know her through our prejudices (Korczak 2018a,
155).

Korczak’s pedagogical ‘mission’ is to do away with every pedagogical

(pre)judgment that does not rest upon authentic observation and reflection on the
part of the educator. Strahlberg (2012, 20) states. ‘Since he [Korczak] was a doctor
by profession, he wanted to diagnose. The difference between him and today’s doctors
or educators is the amount of time Korczak spent before he treated. Observe, listen,
dialogue, treat … are the steps he used in his practice’. By laying so much stress on
the educator-as-researcher, Korczak seems to manifest himself as a naïve empiricist,
but this is far beside the point (Efrat Efron 2018, 382). Korczak is the first to acknowl-
edge that it is hardly possible to derive any prescription for action from allegedly
‘hard’ empirical facts. Despite all scientific knowledge and accumulated insights,
children, every child, remain a mystery. He writes:
Thanks to medicine I learned to link—arduously—scattered details and contradictory symp-
toms into the logical picture of a diagnosis. And enriched by an experienced awareness of
the might of nature’s laws and the genius of scientific human thought I stand before the
unknown—the child (Korczak 2018a, 153).

In other respects too, Korczak deviated and still deviates from mainstream peda-
gogy. He does not develop (a) theory, and is hardly interested in it. Korczak gives
us, his readers, access to the world of children, through his stories, his ‘narratives’.
Most of what he has written, consists of stories: all his novels, and even his essays,
his prayers, and his ghetto diary, are made up of little stories.4 This makes him part
of a qualitative tradition in the human sciences, and especially in pedagogics, that
does not seek the truth in randomly controlled test trials, but in what the Dutch-
Canadian pedagogue Max van Manen so eloquently calls ‘lived experience’ (Van
Manen 2015). Lived experience is what one experiences, or goes through, and which
incites joy, or pain or frustration, and calls for thinking and reflexion (and perhaps
for a judgment). One’s experiences, as a human, as an educator, as …, get a place in
stories, that stay as close as possible to what ‘really’ happened. No reductions, no
cramping into a (theoretical) framework, but written from an open and honest and,
in the case of Korczak, also self-critical stance towards one’s own actions, feelings,
emotions, in short: experiences. It will become clear that where Korczak’s stories
are concerned, no detail was too small to be insignificant. In other words: everything
counted, like, say, in the case of a child who collects anything in his trouser-pockets
(Korczak 2018a, 199).

4 Of Alone with God. Prayers of those who don’t pray (from 1922) there is still no comprehensive
English translation. Five prayers were published in Dialogue and Universalism, XI, no. 9-10, 2001,
68-73, a few others in The Newsletter of the Janusz Korczak Association of Canada. See the Appendix
for ‘the prayer of an educator’.
Introduction xv

Analogies

Korczak was of course not the only one who tried to redevelop the institutions for the
young, and in close cooperation with them. The nineteenth century and especially
the second half of it, saw the rise of educational and youth movements in many
countries in Europe. Experimental schools were initiated, new methods were tried
out and some Western European pedagogues such as Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi
(1746–1827) and Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852), and in the United States John
Dewey (1859–1952) rose to fame, and founded schools for the new pedagogy. The
new outlook gave much attention to the child’s own initiative, and to spiritual and
bodily development, and child’s play first became an important activity, and then a
distinct field of study. There are probably both differences and analogies between
Korczak and other towering figures of educational renewal.5 He has been called
the Polish Pestalozzi, which, although not completely accurate, is understandable
because there are similarities between the latter’s activity-principles and Korczak’s
ideas of the active participation of children. According to Lifton (2005, 36) Korczak
‘considered Pestalozzi one of the greatest scientists of the nineteenth century’. And
indeed, Korczak writes favourably about the Swiss pedagogue: his ‘letters about his
time in Stanz are the most beautiful work of a caregiver-practitioner’ (Korczak 2018a,
121).6 And like Froebel, Korczak stresses the importance of play, and music, stories
and gatherings for children’s wellbeing and development.7 Between Korczak and
Dewey, lastly, there are many similarities with regard to their child-views, and their
longing and practical actions to reform educational institutions along democratic,
participative lines (Berding 2020; Kirchner 2020). Froebel, Dewey and Korczak share
a fascination for children’s play. It is interesting that they advocated play in three
different educational settings, the kindergarten, primary school and the orphanage,
respectively. Important differences in their conceptualization of play, however, must
not be neglected. In Froebel’s ‘idealistic’ view play was a means for the child to attain
a symbolic sense of the universe, nature and God. For Dewey it was a ‘realistic’ way
to explore the world, without (economic) pressure. For Korczak play is a ‘space’
where children are to a certain extent independent from adults (Korczak 2018a, 61).
For Korczak there was an intrinsic relationship between education, children’s rights,
participation, the strife for justice, and life in general.8 This book aims to show what

5 See Silverman (2017) for a select overview of both gentile and Jewish influences on Korczak.
6A conspicuous difference between the two is that Pestalozzi failed as a practical educator, also in
his own estimation, while Korczak was successful, although perhaps not by his own standards.
7 There is a well-known picture of Korczak, taken in 1923 in front of Dom Sierot, where he plays a

little trumpet, among other players of musical instruments. On a serious note, it is in a way shocking
but also consoling that a few days before the orphanage was deported to the trains, Korczak had
the children rehearse and actually perform Tagore’s play The post office, which is a tale about death
and loss, and acceptance. See Doron 2018; Felix 2018.
8 To be sure, there are certainly educators who had and have a comparable commitment. For a

comparison of Korczak and thinkers-activists such as Neill, Weineken, and Makarenko see Cohen
1994, 297-312.
xvi Introduction

this relationship looked like, what it meant for Korczak, and for the children and
what we may learn from it for our own practices today.

The Chapters

This book is divided into six chapters. Chapter 1 is biographical in nature, and
describes the life and works of Korczak in four phases: first, his youth and becoming
Janusz; the second and crucial phase when he joined the summer camps for deprived
children as a group leader, and learned what it means to be an educator; the third
phase, beginning in 1912, with the commencement of his works as director and doctor
in the orphan’s home, ends in August 1942 when he, the orphans and his co-workers
were marched off to the trains, to be gassed in Treblinka. In the sixties, a new phase
began when his work was rediscovered, and people all over the world heard his name
for the first time.
Chapters 2 through 4 contain the bulk of the presentation of his principles-put-
into-action, starting in Chap. 2 with ‘respect’, the basis as it were; then in Chap. 3 the
means, children’s participation, to culminate in Chap. 4 in the ideals and workings
of and for justice: Korczak’s unique experiment of the children’s court. Throughout
these chapters, works by Korczak and others are used as (primary and secondary)
sources, to present or to illuminate his ideas.
In Chap. 5 the question of the topicality of these ideas, and practices will be
discussed. What are we to think about children’s courts, are such practices still
relevant, and more importantly, what is the value of the underlying idea of doing
justice in educational settings?
A short Chap. 6 (Afterword) and an Appendix conclude this book.

References

Berding, J. (2020). Janusz Korczak and John Dewey on re-instituting education. In T. Tsyrlina-
Spady & P. Renn (Eds.), Nurture, care, respect, and trust: Transformative pedagogy inspired
by Janusz Korczak, 192–202 (E-Book). Gorham, ME: Myers Education Press.
Cohen, A. (1994). The gate of light. Janusz Korczak, the educator and writer who overcame the
Holocaust. London and Toronto: Associated University Presses.
Doron, S. (2018). Korczak and Tagore at the history point: The pedagogy of The post office. In M.
Michalak (Ed.), The rights of the child yesterday, today and tomorrow. The Korczak perspective.
Part II, 474–529. Warsaw: Office of the Ombudsman for Children.
Efrat Efron, S. (2018). Janusz Korczak: The legacy of a practitioner-researcher. In M. Michalak
(Ed.), The rights of the child yesterday, today and tomorrow. The Korczak perspective. Part I,
370–405. Warsaw: Office of the Ombudsman for Children.
Felix, M. (2018). Korczak and Tagore or The king’s letter. In M. Michalak (Ed.), The rights of
the child yesterday, today and tomorrow. The Korczak perspective. Part II, 450–473. Warsaw:
Office of the Ombudsman for Children.
Introduction xvii

Kirchner, M. (2020). John Dewey und Janusz Korczak: Routine oder Erfahrung? [John Dewey and
Janusz Korczak: routines or experience?]. https://www.korczak-forum.de/wp-content/uploads/
2020/03/Pa%CC%88dagogische-Rundschau_Dewey_Korczak.pdf. Retrieved August 6, 2020.
Korczak, J. (1979). Wer kann Erzieher werden? [Who can become an educator?] in Von Kindern
und anderen Vorbildern [Of children and other examples], 118–119. Gutersloh: Gerd Mohn.
Korczak, J. (2018a). In A. M. Czernow (Ed.), How to love a child and other selected works (Vol.
1). London and Chicago, IL: Vallentine Mitchell.
Korczak, J. (2018b). In A. M. Czernow (Ed.), How to love a child and other selected works (Vol.
2). London and Chicago, IL: Vallentine Mitchell.
Lifton, B. J. (2005). The king of children. The life and death of Janusz Korczak. S.l.: American
Academy of Pediatrics.
Silverman, M. (2017). A pedagogy of humanist moral education. The educational thought of Janusz
Korczak. New York: Palgrave MacMillan.
Strahlberg, M. (2012). Theory and methods of J. Korczak in the pedagogical practices today. In
2012 Janusz Korczak Year. An international perspective on children’s rights and pedagogy, P.
Jaros (Ed.), 19–23. Warsaw: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.
Van Manen, M. (2015). Pedagogical tact. Knowing what to do when you don’t know what to do.
Walnut Creek CA: Left Coast Press.
Contents

1 The Ethos: Living with and for Children . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

1.1 1878: From Henryk to Janusz . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
1.2 1904: What It Means to Be an Educator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
1.3 1912: Living Together . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1.4 1942: (To) the Bitter End—And Beyond . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9
1.5 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
2 The Basis: Respect for the Child . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.1 ‘A Child’s Right to Respect’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
2.2 Three Basic Children’s Rights . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17
2.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
3 The Means: Participative Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.1 The Term ‘Participation’ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
3.2 From Principles to Action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
3.2.1 The Notice Board . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
3.2.2 The Book-Shelf . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
3.2.3 The Shop and the Broom Stand . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2.4 Parliament . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
3.2.5 Little Review . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
3.2.6 The School . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
3.2.7 Tutorship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.2.8 Meetings . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
3.3 Participation—at All Costs? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
3.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36
4 The Core: Doing Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.1 Striving for Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
4.2 The Book of Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40
4.3 The ‘Republican’ in Korczak . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42

xix
xx Contents

4.4 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
5 Today: Living Together in a ‘Republican’ Fashion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.1 A Humanistic, Universal Educator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
5.2 The Reconstruction of Institutions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
5.3 Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 48
6 Afterword: Educating for Justice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Appendix . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
About the Author

Joop W. A. Berding was born in 1954, in The Hague, the Netherlands. He started
his career as a teacher in primary schools. Meanwhile, he trained as an advanced
educationalist and philosopher of education (B.A., M.A., Ph.D.). During the second
part of his career he worked as a civil servant for youth policy and welfare on both
the municipal and state level, as an educational councillor, and, before retiring, 11
years as an assistant professor, manager and researcher of education and youth at
the Rotterdam University of Applied Sciences (teacher education and social studies,
B.A.s and M.A.s).
From 1990 onwards Berding has published extensively, mostly in Dutch but also in
other languages (English, German) on topics educational, and on qualitative research
methodology. In his writings he seeks to link insights from education, philosophy and
ethics with everyday practice in families, schools, day care and youth work. Three
major sources of inspiration are the works of Janusz Korczak, John Dewey and
Hannah Arendt, on whom he has published a number of books and many (reviewed)
articles and book-chapters, and gave many lectures, in different parts of the world. His
latest book (November 2019, in Dutch) is on patience and impatience in upbringing
and education. A new book on Arendt is in preparation.
From 1996 to 2014 Joop Berding was a member of the Board of the Janusz
Korczak Association in the Netherlands, and from 2011 to 2013 Vice-president-
elect of the International Korczak Association. He is still active in the international
Korczak world.
A comprehensive list of Joop Berding’s publications may be found on his website
www.joopberding.nl (with an overview of publications in English).

xxi
Chapter 1
The Ethos: Living with and for Children

1.1 1878: From Henryk to Janusz

I am not ambitious. I have been asked to write my childhood memories – and refused (Korczak
1967, liv).1

On July 22, 1878 or 1879,2 Janusz Korczak was born as Henryk Goldszmit into a
Jewish family in Warsaw.3 His father Jozef Goldszmit was a lawyer and the family
was doing well. That changed when Henryk was 17 or 18 years old. His father died,
probably as a result of alcohol abuse. Also, ‘insanity’ seems to have played its part,
which led the son not to want to become a father himself. Henryk was not physically
strong: he played a lot indoors, in the drawing room, under the care of women,
his mother and grandmother.4 He didn’t like going to school, he thought it was an
‘artificial life’ (Korczak 1979, 51). The gymnasium also weighed heavily on him,
and he only blossomed during his studies at university. He took the name ‘Janusz
Korczak’ in a writing competition in 1898, and won a prize for a short story. Poland
was not an independent state at the time5 and there was much hidden social and
political tension. Korczak became a member of the so-called ‘flying university’, an
alternative to the official courses that came together as a kind of flash mob. Within

1 The quotations that head each section in this chapter are taken from Korczak’s short note ‘Appli-
cation’ from February 9, 1942, of which the first sentence goes: ‘Kind friends have asked me to
write my last will’ (Korczak 1967, li).
2 There is uncertainty about the exact year, due to negligence on the father’s part. The birth certificate

has been lost. Most scholars use 1878, and so do I.

3 Korczak’s father, Jozef, and his uncle, Jakub, belonged to what Lifton calls ‘the narrow stratum

of society made up of Polish and Jewish liberal intelligentsia’ (Lifton 2005, 23). Silverman (2017,
23–45) gives a picture of both Korczak’s ‘Polishness’ and ‘Jewishness’.
4 Korczak’s mother died in 1920. He was very much saddened by this loss, and wrote 19 ‘prayers’, or

perhaps better: conversations with God. One of them, the prayer of an educator, is in the Appendix
of this book.
5 Poland was part of the Russian (Tsarist) Empire, and only became an independent state in 1918.

© The Author(s) 2020 1

J. W. A. Berding, Janusz Korczak,
SpringerBriefs on Key Thinkers in Education,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-59250-9_1
2 1 The Ethos: Living with and for Children

the political spectrum of those days, Korczak was to be found on the left side: in him
socialism and patriotism were united.6
Already in 1901 his first novel, Children of the Street, was published, which was
set in the slums of Warsaw. More introspective was The Child of the Drawing Room,
from 1906, in part an autobiographical work in which Korczak’s sensitivity to the
disadvantaged position of children is already visible. In the years that followed,
more works appeared, including plays with a clearly socially critical approach. After
obtaining his doctor’s degree in 1904, Korczak went to work in a Jewish children’s
hospital. Less than a year later, however, he had to stand up for conscription, and
worked as a physician during the Russo-Japanese War. Back as a citizen, he started a
private practice and made a name for himself as a general practitioner. He picked up
the thread of his work for children again by specializing in paediatrics. He studied in
London and Berlin and became even more sensitive to the relationship between health
and society (Lifton 2005, 54–55). In 1904, Korczak was only modestly equipped—
paediatrics, a socially critical stance and a literary talent—but then a decisive, and in
fact life changing moment came for him, still as a student: he went as a leader with
a group of children to a summer camp.

1.2 1904: What It Means to Be an Educator

As an organizer – I cannot play the big boss (Korczak 1967, liv).

In How to love a child, first published in 1919, Korczak writes, almost 15 years
after he first went to the summer camps as a group educator:
I owe a great deal to the summer camp. Here it was that I first met with a flock of children and
got to know the ABCs of practical childrearing in independent work (Korczak 2018a, 160).

Between 1904 and 1908, Korczak participated three times in such a summer camp.
In particular, the description of the first summer camp will continue to be documented
as an important pedagogical writing, due to the varying, often unsuccessful attempts
of a novice educator to get a grip on what he is actually doing.7 Korczak’s confusion
in a world that he knew little about or did not understand, and to which he had no
access, left him bewildered. This part of How to love a child is especially exceptional
because on the one hand it is a ‘confessional’: Korczak examines himself, his own
actions and motives critically, and honestly admits his failure, and at the same time
it is also a report about the ‘Bildung’ of a young and inexperienced educator.

6 Already in 1899, in a short essay, Korczak (2018b, 95–98) shows his interest in social questions.
He devotes attention to Christ’s saying ‘Love thy neighbour as thyself’, and he applies this to three
oppressed groups in society: the poor, women and children. For an illuminating commentary on
Korczak’s social pedagogical view in this essay, see Wyrobnik (2020).
7 Smolinska-Theiss (2018, 26) makes an interesting and important remark about (Korczak’s) being

a ‘novice’, when she says that everyone already has some experience related to upbringing; and
indeed, we’ve all been children.
1.2 1904: What It Means to Be an Educator 3

In its rich detail, it is a self-critical account of a very personal quest to find

out what it means to be an educator (Berding 2004). Korczak found out ‘the hard
way’ that all his attempts to win the children’s affection, his indulgence but also his
nonchalance and lack of seriousness, were counterproductive, and even provoked
violence, both with the children and himself. Slowly, Korczak came to the realization
that educating children does not mean that you give them their way in everything, but
that you mediate, talk, discuss and adjust, and above all that you and your children
work together again and again. The whole work of Korczak is immersed in this
pedagogical ethos (Berding 2017).
When Korczak was put in charge of about 30 children in that summer of 1904,
he did have some practical experience with upbringing. He had given private lessons
for 10 years, and as a doctor he had a lot of experience with sick children. And,
not without pride, he writes that he had read many books about the psychology of
the child (Korczak 2018a, 166). At the beginning of the summer camp, Korczak
undertook to treat all children equally. He wanted to give them as much freedom as
possible. Full of enthusiasm and idealism, he prepared, bought a gramophone and
some records, collected games and found a magic lantern somewhere. He was not
concerned about order in the dormitory, or getting to know the names of the children
and such practical matters. He believed, he writes, that it would ‘come naturally’
(Korczak 2018a, 161). And also: ‘Naively trusting in how easy it would be, I clung
to the charm of the task before me’ (Korczak 2018a, 161). When Korczak looked
back on that time, he comes to the following insights:
With my wealth of illusions and poverty of experience, sentimental and young, I thought that
I would be able to do much because there is so much I wish to do. I believed that it’s easy
to win the love and the trust of the child world, that one ought to give children free reign in
the country side, that it is my duty to treat them all identically, that good will quickly brings
out remorse in every juvenile sinner. For these children, ‘of basements and attics’, I wished
to make the four-week stay at the camp ‘a ribbon of happiness and joy’ without a single tear
(Korczak 2018a, 160).

How different the practice of living in a group turned out to be! Korczak’s ideas
about freedom, equal treatment and what is important in life totally did not match
with the life world of these disadvantaged children. They spoke a different language:
the language of the street and of survival. Korczak did not realize that with high-
minded ideals and sophisticated theories one didn’t get very far with these children.
The journey by train from the city of Warsaw to the countryside, and then by horse
and cart and on foot was already chaotic. Things went wrong already on the train
when children threw each other’s luggage out. At the camp house, Korczak had no
idea what to do with all the clothes, pocket money and toothbrushes the children
brought with them. He left it to the manager of the house. He did let the children—
convinced that they could manage without him—choose their place at the table: ‘How
should children sit at the table? I didn’t foresee this either. I hastily decided at the last
minute, in keeping with the prevailing principle of freedom: let them sit where they
want’ (Korczak 2018a, 165). Choosing the sleeping places also amounted to a mess,
numerous fights broke out. After a lot of fussing it was finally calmer in the evening,
and Korczak pondered what had happened that day, with a ‘vague appreciation of
4 1 The Ethos: Living with and for Children

my own failures’, but, he writes, ‘I was too bewildered to seek out their sources’
(Korczak 2018a, 165).
When a brawl broke out that night, he felt ‘helpless against the mystery of the
collective soul of the society of children’ (Korczak 2018a, 166)—an experience that
many educators, teachers and group leaders probably have had early on in their
careers. He experienced ‘how powerful and threatening’ children can be, ‘when they
attack one’s will in united effort, aiming to burst the dam – not children, but an
elemental force’ (Korczak 2018a, 316). It was a disappointment for this educator,
who meant so well and was so good to the children. After some boys got Korczak
almost to the point of threatening to use force, he came to the following insight:
The whole crystal edifice of my dreams had come crashing down, had fallen to rubble. Anger
and thwarted ambition: I’ll be a laughing stock to those whom I surpass in feeling, those
whom I wanted to convince, to attract with my example, maybe to impress (Korczak 2018a,
168).
In these words, the first signs of self-reflection become visible: the educator’s
reflection on his own motives has begun. But it took an incident to really get to
the core. It became clear that the riots would repeat and that some boys had taken
sticks out of the forest to fight with each other and also with Korczak. He now
abandoned his sentimental attitude. He took the sticks for the night and said they
would talk about it the next day. This was the turning point that to my mind is one
of the defining moments in the history of modern education. The realization, finally
breaking through, that education is not about the fun and ease of the educator, but
about how to build and maintain a just community. Korczak realized that raising
children is (sometimes) hard work, because all people, including children, have their
own motives and interests and make their own decisions and choices. The resistance
that arises makes an undeniable appeal to the educator (Meirieu 1995). Korczak puts
it this way:
The following day, as we were talking in the woods, I spoke for the first time not to the
children, but with them; I spoke not about what I want, but about what they want to and can
become. Perhaps this is when, for the first time, I became convinced that one can learn a great
deal from children, that they both assert their own demands, conditions, and stipulations,
and have a right to do so (Korczak 2018a, 169).

Children’s participation was born at that decisive moment. From that moment
on, Korczak organized ‘meetings’ or ‘discussions’ with the children, in which he
discussed all kinds of subjects. In Korczak’s own development from a novice to an
educator it is a ‘Pauline moment’,8 with the kairotic release that is characteristic of it:
the flash of the insight that education and upbringing imply talking with children but
that adults can also learn from children. The dialogue took the place of the monologue;
educator and children were placed in a clear position towards each other, and it was
clear to everyone under what conditions they participated in the summer camp.
During the following summer camps, Korczak put these lessons into practice.
To begin with, he dealt much more directly with the children; after a few days he

8 By this I refer to the conversion of Saul to Paul, on his way to Damascus, as described in Acts 9:
3–9.
1.2 1904: What It Means to Be an Educator 5

knew all the faces and names, so that he could address the children personally.9
Korczak no longer let the children mess around, but created a structure of tasks and
responsibilities. He defined his own role as an educator as responsible for the whole,
but realized that he could not, and did not have to do everything himself. All children
were given a task: one with meals, the other in the kitchen or cleaning the toilets
(a task that Korczak himself often took care of). From now on, taking notes was an
important pedagogical tool for Korczak: about the appearance of children, about their
active or more passive character, about their playing, about every meeting or quarrel
or whatever he wrote. These observations became his ‘working material’, just like a
librarian dabbles in a new pile of books (Korczak 2018a, 17510 ). He learned to look
at children the way an insect expert looks at his beloved beetles (Korczak 2018a,
190). Throughout his life, Korczak kept the exact outlook of the natural scientist.
At the summer camp he kept statistics; for example, he drew a ‘Curve of children’s
fights at camps.’
July 5 – thirty children – twelve fights; a meeting to stop fighting; next day – three fights
only; again eight and ten – then six fights. Second meeting on the subject of accord, held
in the woods. Next day only two fights. Again seven, five – three fights. Meeting to agree
on: ‘One day without fights’. As a result of collective effort – the next day one fight only
(Korczak 1967, 36911 ).

This approach is interesting for several reasons. Firstly because of its exactness
and sequence over time, but secondly and mainly because of the deliberate efforts
that Korczak made to bring the children to different, non-violent behaviour through
consultation. It also shows Korczak as a ‘realistic’ educator: he acknowledges that
there will always be fights and arguments, that it is common for children to fight (every
now and then) and it is unrealistic to prohibit this. He writes: ‘I’m no advocate of
fights. But as an educator I need to have an understanding of them. And I do. I don’t
condemn them. I accept them’ (Korczak 2018b, 60). Korczak does not say it, but I
think that with the result of only one brawl, he would have been very content.
Another consequence of the meetings in the woods was that Korczak experimented
with a form of justice: the children’s court (Görtzen 2007, 51–56). At first, he took
the initiative himself, for example to sit in a room with two arguing children to talk
it over. In view of the public nature of the later children’s court in the orphanage, it
is interesting that during the summer camps Korczak still believed that it is better
to handle cases behind closed doors, because that makes ‘more impression’ [on the
children] (Görtzen, 2007, 51). The court in the summer camp consisted of three
children, and the hearings took place in the forest. Both the accuser and the defender
were adults, which is also an interesting difference from the orphanage, as we shall
see in Chap. 4. During the summer camps, it turned out that Korczak’s main ‘sanction’

9 Every teacher knows the difference between saying ‘you there!’ to a student, and addressing him
or her with their own name. And every student also knows the difference.
10 Although much of this material is lost, there still remains so much that gives us insight into

Korczak’s views, and working method, and also to his own inner, spiritual life.
11 Unfortunately, this story and its corresponding chart are not reprinted in the new English edition

of Korczak’s works.
6 1 The Ethos: Living with and for Children

was forgiveness (Görtzen 2007, 53). Korczak also kept statistics on court hearings,
so that he ended up with an immense amount of material at the summer camps. His
practice was and continued to be for the rest of life one of observing, noting and
studying.
At night before bedtime, Korczak told stories to the children, for example about
who slept in bed number so and so the previous year. He had a suitable way for every
child to wish him or her good night. He got to know the group as a whole and each
child individually. Of course, there were troublemakers. He did not speak to them
about morals, but took a business-like attitude: these are the conditions under which
you can participate in the camp, or else you can go home. ‘Anything but insipid
sentiment’, says Korczak, because the child will laugh at you: he or she will respect
you less for it (Korczak 2018a, 180). He took his responsibility as a group leader
and gave structure to the group, for example by dividing the tasks, but also by giving
children joint responsibility and having them take care of each other. When a small
child cried, he sent an older child to comfort him, because ‘he’d do a better job of it’
(Korczak 2018a, 176).12
Korczak also experienced the ‘practice shock’ that the children could do some
things better than he did. What did he learn from it; what did this shock bring him
as an educator, as a person? In his own words is the following:
What looks like the most beautiful assumption has to be tested. The most obvious truth,
difficult to execute in its practical application, should be examined diligently and critically.
We are significantly more experienced than children, we know a great deal that children do
not, but children know better than we do what they are thinking and feeling (Korczak 2018a,
182).

The message is clear and is clearly communicated to the educator by the children:
let go of that ‘pedagogy of good intentions’, and be open to what children have to offer
and to ask you. You cannot know children from theory; this requires practical expe-
rience, including the practice shock described by Korczak. There is really only one
way to get to know, understand and trust children, namely by constantly observing,
trying and starting over with a lot of patience and from a respectful attitude. This is
the core of the ‘pedagogy of respect’, which I will discuss in the next chapter.
Korczak returned from the summer camps as a different man: he realized that
education cannot be without guidance nor institutions (Berding 2020). The gathering
in the forest and in the footsteps of it the children’s court emerge from this period in
Korczak’s life as the institutions that made the conversation possible, which offered
possibilities for and set limits to the freedom of both children and educator. It was
the educator who took the initiative for this and guaranteed a fair course. In the next
period, that of the orphanage, from 1912 onwards, the traces of this can easily be
identified. In the orphanage, the conversation about mutual problems, quarrels and
fights also played an important role. Korczak, however, took a decisive step during
this period, perhaps the most radical step in the history of education, by connecting
public speaking and judgments in the children’s court. This ‘republican’ approach is
discussed in the next section, and, as said before, in Chap. 4 in detail.

12 On the responsibility of educators, see Wyrobnik (2017).

1.3 1912: Living Together 7

1.3 1912: Living Together

Clumsy, therefore impetuous if upset; tediously developed self-control – has made me able
to engage in team work (Korczak 1967, lv).

It was discussed in Warsaw: the well-known and beloved doctor Goldszmit would
start working in October 1912 in the newly opened Jewish orphanage Dom Sierot
at Krochmalna [Street] number 92.13 Why did he give up his promising career? An
important motive lay in Korczak’s already mentioned social involvement. He realized
that medicine alone was not enough for a full life and certainly not when it came to
children. The new orphanage, financed by well to do Jews, would be an example of
how orphans could be housed in a dignified way and be prepared for life in society.
The children, aged 7 to about 14, came from several outdated orphanages. With them,
Korczak’s only permanent co-worker in the 30 years after that, Stefania Wilczyńska,
usually affectionately called ‘Mrs. Stefa’, came to Dom Sierot (Sachs 1989; Lifton
2005; Talmage-Schneider 2015).14 The children, 107 to be precise, were orphans
and semi-orphans, and in part what we would now call ‘disadvantaged children’ or
‘at-risk youth’. At least they weren’t little darlings, as many testimonies and life
reports show (Talmage-Schneider 2015).
Initially, the organization therefore did not run smoothly. In addition, in August
1914 Korczak was called up for conscription15 and started working as a medical
doctor in Russian service at the front. He had to leave the care of the children to
Stefa, with the utmost confidence. At the front Korczak wrote his magnum opus
How to love a child, from which I already quoted in the previous section. In it he
incorporated his experiences as a general practitioner and, as we saw, his development
as an educator in the summer camps. He also wrote about what he had experienced
until then in the orphanage and that was no small feat. Korczak had decided, clearly
on the basis of his previous experiences and failures, not to run the orphanage as a
kind of sole ruler. His commitment was to involve the children in everything, and
he took a number of measures to this end (he ‘instituted’ a number of pedagogical
practices, you might say), from the seemingly very simple, such as well-stocked
bookshelves, a separate drawer for every child and a notice board, to more complex
ones, such as the duties-roster and the establishment of a parliament (for all these

13 It is a miracle that this building (present address Jaktorowska 6), which now houses a beautiful

exhibition on Korczak, has survived the demolition of Warsaw. The famous author Isaac Bashevis
Singer lived in the same street, on number 10, and has written about it in his memories A day of
pleasure (Singer 1969).
14 Stefania Wilczyńska was born on May 26, 1886 in Warsaw, and together with Korczak and the

orphans from Dom Sierot was murdered in Treblinka on August 5 or 6, 1942. In recent years there
is, especially in her homeland, a growing interest in her person and work; it is evident that she was
more than the stereotype ‘woman behind a great man’.
15 All in all, Korczak served, as a medic, in three wars: the Russian-Japanese war of 1905, the First

World War (1914–1918) and the Polish-Soviet war (1919–1921). As Medvedeva-Nathoo (2018b,
332) writes: ‘Then, in 1939, the winds of the Second World War swept across Europe – for Korczak
the fourth and last war.’.
8 1 The Ethos: Living with and for Children

matters and more, see Korczak 2018a, 190–250, and for a practical translation to
our time Berding et al. 2010; Berding 2013). The most appealing, however, was the
children’s court, which I now want to briefly consider.
The children’s court16 is unique in the history of education (Görtzen 1992). Never
before had there been such a way of working with children for a just community, at a
time when even most adults did not have any (political) rights. The children’s court
took a step beyond the already revolutionary approach to the ‘gatherings in the forest’
during the summer camps. The uniqueness of the children’s court lies in the idea of
the ‘mediation’ between (interests of) people that is typical of the ‘republican’ form
of living together.17 The essence is the recognition of mutual interests, wishes and
motives, as well as the recognition that everyone has the right to pursue what seems
best to him, but that this also has its limits. Those limits lie in the pursuit of others, who
also want the best. Korczak’s work with the children’s court was aimed at taking the
confrontation of interests, wishes and opinions out of the ‘private’ sphere—where
the ‘law of the strongest’ prevails—and making it public. Disagreement, quarrels
and conflicts between some individuals always have an effect on the community—
positive or negative—but as long as the community does not ‘see’ it, it cannot judge
it. With the children’s court, Korczak introduced public speaking and judgments
about matters that seemingly concern only a few individuals, but in reality, affect
the entire community. That is his unique contribution to thinking about and actually
doing education (Berding 1994; Berding 2018).
In the 1920s and 1930s, the living conditions for the Jews became increasingly
acute due to the increasing anti-Semitism. Korczak and his orphanage also suffered
from this. However, that did not stop him from working on many different fronts
at the same time. With his help, a second, non-Jewish orphanage, Nasz Dom (Our
Home), opened its doors in 1919 and Korczak was appointed as a lecturer at the Insti-
tute of Special Pedagogy in Warsaw. It was also important that a piece of land, called
‘Różyczka’ (‘Little Rose’), was made available to the orphanage just outside the city,
so that it now had its own holiday colony (Vucic 2018, 522). Korczak was asked to
become an expert in legal proceedings concerning children, and overall became a kind
of national education authority. His name will always remain connected as initiator
and co-editor to the world’s first independent children’s newspaper, ‘Mały Przegl˛ad’
(Little Review). The editorial team, consisting of children and with the editorial
address at Dom Sierot, had a network of child correspondents all over Poland, who
reported on what children were going through. Their stories were published in Little
Review, often with a short response from Korczak himself (Lifton 2005, 176–180).
The children’s newspaper can also be regarded as an important educational institu-
tion, and as a means of communication between children and their educators. It is

16 In the new edition (Korczak 2018a, 207) it is translated as ‘collegial court’, but this has the
disadvantage that the core idea—a court consisting of children—disappears out of sight. I therefore
will continue to use ‘children’s court’.
17 I want to stress that ‘republican’ throughout this book does not refer to any political party, but

to the (ancient) idea of the ‘res publica’, the common cause or good. It is very meaningful that
Korczak’s orphanage Dom Sierot was known as the ‘children’s republic’.
1.3 1912: Living Together 9

one of the many ways in which Korczak was involved with language on a daily basis:
he wanted to share as much of it as possible with the children.
Conditions worsened in the 1930s; the orphanage had to survive, and Korczak’s
work increasingly consisted of scraping together the necessary resources, not
only money but also food. When Nazi Germany invaded and occupied Poland in
September 1939, Korczak and his children entered the last phase of their lives and
work.

1.4 1942: (To) the Bitter End—And Beyond

I am sixty-four (Korczak 1967, li).

I feel old whenever I recall the past, years and events gone by. I want to be young, so I make
plans for the future. What shall I do after the war? (Korczak 2018b, 267).18

The end came in the summer of 1942. The orphanage was already housed in the
so-called small ghetto of Warsaw at that time and terrible conditions prevailed. On 5
or 6 August, the orphanage was evacuated, in the context of the complete destruction
of the Jews of Warsaw by the Nazis. All inhabitants had to line up; leading the way
were Korczak and Stefa and a child with the green flag of the orphanage.19 A few
eyewitness accounts tell that the march to the railway station (‘Umschlagplatz’) was
very dignified. From there, trains took them to the Treblinka extermination camp,
some 60 kms northeast of the city. It has been said that when Korczak, Stefa and the
approximately 200 children were gassed in Treblinka, ‘a legend’ arose and ‘a martyr’
was born (Chiel 1975, 364). This view played an important role in the creation of
the image of Korczak after World War II. He was a hero, because he had rejected the
opportunity to escape.20 He was a saint, you could even hear, in some quarters.21
This first phase of the reception of Korczak’s work with its picture of him as a
saint began—not surprisingly—in Germany, in the late 50s. A copy of the diary that
Korczak had kept in the ghetto during the occupation and the final period, and which
had been bricked into a wall by his secretary Igor Newerly, was retrieved (Korczak
2018b, 257–330).22 Former students and pupils from the orphanage who had left
or escaped long before, began to tell their stories. It took several more years for a
general awareness of the destruction of the Jews and other minorities to surface. In

18 This is taken from Korczak’s diary (aka ‘ghetto diary’ or ‘memoirs’) which he kept from May till

August 4, 1942, the day (or two days) before the orphanage’s inhabitants were marched away.
19 The green flag comes from the King Matt stories, and is still used by many korczakian youth

groups around the world.

20 It is, up to this date, unclear whether Korczak really was offered freedom, by the side of the train,

by a Nazi officer, who allegedly had read his children’s books, as some narratives suggest (see
Lifton 2005, 351; Medvedva-Nathoo 2018a, ix).
21 ‘For the world today, Janusz Korczak is a symbol of true religion and true morality’, Pope John

Paul II, quoted in Joseph 1999.

22 See Newerly (1967) for an account of the history of this copy.
10 1 The Ethos: Living with and for Children

addition, the dichotomy between the East and the West played a role in Germany.
It is noteworthy that the first publications on Korczak include texts by East German
educators, for whom Korczak was the communist educator par excellence.23 Others
saw him primarily as a representative of the so-called laissez-faire pedagogy. In
the 1970s, Korczak was even drawn into the camp of the so-called anti-pedagogy
(Berding 1990).
After the attention for Korczak as a person, a second phase began when an
interest arose in his pedagogical ideas: important works were translated into several
languages, and foundations and societies were set up in several countries to spread
his ideas. Also, Korczak’s name and fame was spread via plays, and later feature
films.24 Much has been published in the form of translations, but even (much) more
in the form of studies of his life and works, and also a number of books for younger
and older children are devoted to him.25
From the 1970s, the professional fields of youth care, primary education and
childcare became familiar with Korczak’s pedagogy, marking a third phase. This
has led to many publications, workshops and lectures given and practical support
provided in developing Korczak-inspired practices. An International Korczak Society
was created in 1978 by the Polish government. This coincided with the UNESCO
Year of the child, which was also declared the Year of Korczak. Many national
societies joined the independent International Korczak Association (IKA). The IKA
organizes international meetings and conferences, and strives to influence policies
for youth care and education on the international level.26 Korczak’s life and legacy
are researched both at academic and professional levels.27

1.5 Conclusion

Although Korczak knew many happy days, most of his life was one of hardship, and
much suffering. He was fully aware of the fragility of life, and was very sensitive
to the needs and sufferings of others, especially children. His formative years in the
summer camps, and the subsequent 30 years of living with orphaned children made
him a children’s advocate, who stood up for their rights. His influence extended
widely beyond the orphan’s home in Warsaw, at first and already during his lifetime,

23 For a retrospective of the reception of Korczak and his pedagogy in Germany, see Engemann-

Reinhard (2013).
24 Two famous examples of these are Korczak and the children, by Erwin Sylvanus, 1957 (or.

German), and Korczak, the film by the Polish director Andrzej Wajda, from 1990.
25 To name just a few, from three different languages: Bernheim (1989), Stoffels (1996), Meirieu

(2012), and most recent Shepard (2015), and Gifford (2018).

26 The IKA is on Facebook.
27 In many countries academic and professional research on Korczak is being done within institutions

for higher learning, as part of research and/or teaching programmes (see, i.e. Tsyrlina-Spady 2018);
in some, such as Poland and Israel there are research institutions exclusively devoted to his life and
work.
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