He Refused to Leave Them: The Unthinkable Choice of A Man, Who Walked with His Orphans into Treblinka Rather Than Save Himself

Janusz Korczak (born Henryk Goldszmit) surrounded by his orphaned children. Credits: Ghetto Fighters' House Archive

There are people whose story cannot leave you indifferent, but moves you and shows you the true measure of what it really means to take care of others. Janusz Korczak, born Henryk Goldszmit in 1878 in Warsaw, was one of those people. A doctor, writer, pedagogue and officer in the Polish army, he devoted himself to children and with them, to protect them, he remained until the end.

In 1912 he realized his dream and founded a Jewish orphanage, the House of Orphans of Warsaw, a refuge for the most unfortunate children who had nothing left. He was convinced that children were not the property of adults, but people with rights... he believed in shared responsibility in fact in his institution there were assemblies, a small internal court, even a newspaper written by the boys.

But like all beautiful things, this experience also comes to an end.

In November 1940 the Nazis locked over 400,000 Jews inside the Warsaw Ghetto and obviously the children were not spared either, the orphanage was transferred there. Korczak who could have saved himself and abandoned everything chose to remain with them in that hell, trying in every way to keep his children alive, as new orphans kept arriving.

We arrive at 1942, the Nazis begin the mass deportations of orphanages to the extermination camp of Treblinka.

Here lies the crossroads that separates words from actions... in those final moments Korczak was offered several times by the Nazis the possibility to save himself, he only had to abandon those children and he would have been free, yet he refused faithful to his ideas and words.

He was well aware of what destiny they were going to face, and instead in an attempt to give them a last "happy" moment, he lied to the children saying they were going on a trip and led them to the wagons, with a composed and orderly march, with a disconcerting calm. He had one last opportunity in front of the wagons yet he boarded that train with them. And in Treblinka he died, in the gas chambers together with his children.

In an era in which surviving meant taking advantage of every loophole, he refused the most human instinct: to save himself, he remained consistent with his ideas throughout his life. If he had escaped, he would have denied everything he had lived for.

The more I read stories like this, the more one thing strikes me: courage is not always doing something heroic, sometimes it is a simple, ordinary gesture, like staying. Staying when it would not be blameworthy to leave, I mean would anyone have condemned you for choosing yourself on that occasion?

History is full of death, violence and destruction. But every now and then it also leaves examples that cause a lump in the throat, and force us to ask ourselves what we would have done in his place when faced with the possibility of getting out of that situation.