Holocaust Poem of the Day: Warsaw Epidemic

“I used to write at stops, in a meadow under a pine tree, sitting on a stump. Everything seemed important and if I did not note it down I would forget. An irretrievable loss to humanity.” – Janusz Korczak

The sun peeled the

gray from clouds,

burning their pewter lining.

Mid-day February and

sick students were having

troubled afternoon naps.

Their dry heaves echoed

in the doctor’s ears-- he had

nothing to cure a cough,

no antidote for a fever.

The flu flooded the ghetto

like a forgotten fog.

The children lay tightly

curled in their cots-- they

lay pale, restlessly immobile.

With every turning groan,

their clothes ruffled like wet paper.

Some orphans cried but

nobody made a sound.

Many prayers are silent.

Below the venting glass

panes, standing on the sleet

encrusted sidewalk, soldiers

laughed while slurping soup-

Korczak’s stomach twisted

as he heard uneaten broth

splash and sizzle in the snow.

The fragrant steam slid

through cracked windows;

he listened as his children

sniffed and moaned. He had

no bowls to scrape with

spoons they did not possess.

About Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak was an elderly doctor who cared for countless children at an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. Born Henryk Goldzmit in 1878, Korczak first made a name for himself in Poland as a pediatrician, writer, and children’s rights advocate. Korczak would later change his name to shield himself from the growing anti-Semitism of the time. He wrote autobiographical novels at the turn of the century as well as founding the first children’s newspaper, The Little Review, and he had a radio program as “the Old Doctor.” Later, he gave up his medical practice to establish the first progressive orphanages in Warsaw. From that point until the beginning of the Nazi occupation of Warsaw, Korczak wrote about children and for children. Korczak was 64 when he began writing Ghetto Diary (Yale University Press: New Haven (CT), 2003). Refusing numerous attempts at freedom, Korczak died with his children at Treblinka.