Dr Janusz Korczak Print Page

Memorial Stone on the grave of Aron Borberg contains a tribute in memory of Dr Janusz Korczak who perished with his staff and 200 Jewish orphans in the gas chambers at Treblinka in August 1942. Dr Korczak was a friend of Aron Borberg and his wife Dora. 

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, was a Polish- Jewish educator, children`s author and pediatrician , and known as Pan Doktor ("Mr. Doctor") or Stary Doktor ("Old Doctor"). After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when the institution was transported to the Treblinka extermination camp in 1942.

On 5 or 6 August 1942, German soldiers came to collect the orphans (there is some debate about the actual number but believed to be in the vicinity of 200), and about one dozen staff members, to transport them to Treblinka extermination camp. Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the “Aryan side” by Zegota (underground Polish Resistance)  but turned it down repeatedly, saying that he could not abandon his children. On 5 August he again refused offers of sanctuary, insisting that he would go with the children. He stayed with the children all the way until the end.

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