Holocaust Poem of the Day: A Pure Breath

“What matters is that all this did happen.” – Janusz Korczak

The boy pushed away sleep and,

blinking his silent eyes in the candlelight,

he listened to Korczak’s voice.

Echoing above the soldier’s

ash-muffled steps, the only

sound in the camp was

the doctor’s paper cracking

like a stiff flag in a sharp

breeze as he chiseled lead

onto what once was white.

Despite his arthritic fingers,

he had written hundreds of

pages in the ghetto;

but these were the first

curled letters of his Kaddish.

This was his last leaf of script;

the last journal entry which

would never leave his hand.

This was his voice that would rain

down with his body and

rest in the lungs of Treblinka.

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: The Last Sign of God in the World

“Now that every day brings so many strange and sinister experiences and sensations I have completely ceased to dream.” – Janusz Korczak

Below the smokestack sky

the rose pressed up from under

the concrete Treblinka wall.

It was the only color seen

from the crowded cattle car.

Korczak followed his pupils’

dry eyes as they passed

the flower and entered the camp.

The petals haunted the doctor.

They were the same red

he had seen dripping from

the children’s chapped hands.

Janusz knew the rose was

the same red as the fire that

caused hundreds of mothers

to fall on the heads of sons

and daughters they never knew.

The train stopped, the doors

opened, and the doctor led

his students into the cold

smoldering courtyard. As

his young Jews huddled and

clamped around his waist,

the crimson rose

continued to haunt his eyes.

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: With His Children

“The world knows nothing of many great Poles.”- Janusz Korczak

Some children high stepped, others

had to be dragged by their armbands,

but most of them, free

from the crucible orphanage walls,

blindly obeyed the doctor.

“They don’t want you, just the children!”

He never replied to the pleading few.

He only broke step twice with his troop--

the first was to make sure the children followed;

the second was to hand a stack of papers

to a coughing soot-haired youth-- the

one child in the crowd that day not being

forced to march. Then, the doctor

resumed his pace as caboose of the line.

The ghetto sea thinned as the

hazy box car opened its doors--

for every child that entered the train,

ten people lost their voices.

When the doctor was the only one left

to walk through the sliding doors,

the solitary thing that could be heard

was the ticking of a pocket watch

lying in the corner of the cattle car.

Tick! Tick! Tick!

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: The Assistant’s Diary: August 4th, 1942

“For in the hour of reckoning I am not inside a solitary cell of the saddest hospital in the world but surrounded by butterflies and grasshoppers, and I can hear a concert of crickets and a soloist high up in the sky- the skylark.” – Janusz Korczak

The doctor has been writing fewer pages

as the calendar has pared its months.

What was once an opus of aspirations

has become a ghetto diary--

recording occurrences of the day.

His thoughts are becoming weak.

The eloquent script used to pen

A Child’s Right to Respect

is now a collection of

abandoned words-- he knows

his energy can no longer

be wasted on literary devices.

I see the doctor has finished for tonight.

I hope to get them done quickly

so I may also sleep.

Amidst the children’s

cacophony of coughs,

the typewriter keys popped

with every staggered finger stroke

like moist maple wood in a flame.

These are the last words

the ink embossed on the page:

“I am watering the flowers. My bald head in the window. What a splendid target.

“He has a rifle. Why is he standing and looking on calmly?

“He has no orders to shoot.

“And perhaps he was a village teacher in civilian life, or a notary, a street sweeper in Leipzig, a waiter in Cologne?

“What would he do if I nodded to him? Waved my hand in a friendly gesture?

“Perhaps he doesn’t even know that things are- as they are?

“He may have arrived only yesterday, from far away…”

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: A Hundred Stars

“People are naïve and good-hearted. And probably unhappy.”- Janusz Korczak

He strolled through

sidewalk slush to

collect donations used

to support his children;

they were contributions

needed to prevent his Jews

from being forgotten.

With his daily persistence, he

eagerly received tattered marks

from ghetto inmates without

concern for his reputation; 

this is what King Matthew

would have done.

At night, by the light

of a hundred blue stars glowing

from frayed threads wrapped

around the sleeping children,

he would write in his journal

with a pencil sharpened at both ends.

This was his lull of huddled peace

when he could record,

not yet a Kaddish for his children,

rather a prayer: to be able

to live through another day.

By morning, his smudged plea

had faded from the page.

Ink was precious--

its permanence was reserved

for lists marked by the SS.

Beyond the orphanage,

the only people who knew

the names of his flock

wore swastikas

stamped on their sleeves.

So long as his children

were carried on a clipboard

titled “Treblinka” he would

never let the executioner’s pen

forget the name Korczak.

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: Children’s Games

“Everything else has its limits, only brazen shamelessness is limitless… I wish I had nothing, so that they might see it for themselves, and that would be that.” – Janusz Korczak

Playing jacks was all she would do.

Every day.

Occasionally the doctor

would step on a jack. He

always picked them up

and returned them to

the little girl. Every time,

he noticed her hands seemed

colder than the pointed metal.

She gradually lost them all

despite his efforts to find them.

Small rocks from gutters

proved to be adequate substitutes--

they were easier on feet as well.

When she lost the pink rubber ball,

the only thing for her to do was sleep.

The guard knew what he was doing.

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: Without His Mother to Light the Candles

“Two o’clock in the morning. Silence.” – Janusz Korczak

The violin slid through his fingers,

singing through every shaking note.

The bow frayed under his bony hand

while the strings pitched and swayed

across the paper’s faded bars.

He played every night

through the span of a candle.

Melting light rolled down the stem and

swept across the table; he began to weep.

Once the wax dripped off the edge and

onto his bare knee, the tears ceased,

the music stopped; his voice whispered,

“Shalom.”

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: Door to Door and Back

“The children are living in constant uncertainty, in fear.” – Janusz Korczak

He slid through the hallway

on the soles of his blistered feet,

ignoring the usual volunteers.

It was the cracks, like veins in

forest green and gray marble,

that reminded the doctor of why

he left every day to collect donations--

like the children the cracks

grew both higher and deeper.

Korczak eased down the stairs.

The reality of the railing was that

each time he leaned on it

for support it became looser--

without reinforcements it would break.

Slightly winded from his descent,

the doctor approached the fragile

Krochmalna Street door and listened.

Once the muffled clicking

of an officer’s shoes passed,

he grasped his thinning coat,

braced himself for the

hypothermic Warsaw winter,

and walked into stinging snow.

Drifts muted his footsteps,

silence enveloped the ghetto--

as soundless as a still clapper.

Not a single ringing coin

echoed in the hush--

each mother had her

own children to sustain.

Cracks in the wall had grown

by the time the doctor returned.

He had nothing to fill them.

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.

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: Sleep

“Loneliness does not hurt. I value memories.” – Janusz Korczak

For the first time,

the doctor fell asleep

while the children

tossed in their cots.

Tonight, he refused to listen

to their muffled moans.

They were his children but

they were not his memories.

Korczak had been in bed

for the past two days.

His mother never strayed

far from the bedroom lintel.

His father stopped in irregularly,

as fathers will do, forcing him

to sit up or walk around

to get the fever out of his system.

On the third day Korczak’s

mind returned from its trip.

Before he could sit up in bed

his father walked into the room,

dropped a set of clothes on his lap

and said, “Get up!

It’s time to go for a walk.”

The doctor could still taste

the soda ice and pineapple juice

when he reached for a piece of paper.

In a blurry half-sleep he wrote:

“I feel old whenever I

reminisce about the past,

the bygone years and events.

I want to be young,

so I make plans for the future.”

He knew they could no longer make plans.

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.

Holocaust Poem of the Day: Without Rest

“It has been a long time since I have blessed the world.

I tried to tonight. It didn’t work.” – Janusz Korczak

With eyes that rebuked sleep,

the doctor peered over

the piles of sleeping rags.

The dust-frosted window

framed the ghetto’s stove--

the weather, a cold oven,

baked a pan of water the

day before. The children’s

heavy slumber breaths

dripped off the walls.

Last night’s journal pages

floated in a smeared cloud,

the paper thicker than the roof.

No glow echoed

through the window--

the moon extinguished 

since occupation began.

A young boy rolled over,

opened his swollen

shadowed eyes, and

watched Korczak think

from across the room.

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.