Janusz Korczak (1879-1942) is one of the legendary figures to emerge
from the Holocaust. A successful pediatrician and well-known author in
his native Warsaw, he gave up a brilliant medical career to devote
himself to the care of orphans. Like so many other Jews, Korczak was
sent into the Warsaw Ghetto after the Nazi occupation of Poland. He
immediately set up an orphanage for more than two hundred children. Many
of his admirers, Jewish and gentile, offered to rescue him from the
ghetto, but Korczak refused to leave his small charges. When the Nazis
ordered the children to board a train that was to carry them to the
Treblinka death camp, Korczak went with them, despite the Nazis' offer
of special treatment. His selfless behavior in caring for these
children's lives and deaths has made him beloved throughout the world;
he has been honored by UNESCO and commemorated on postage stamps in both
Poland and Israel.
Korczak's grimly inspiring ghetto diary is now available in paperback
for the first time, accompanied by a new introduction by Betty Jean
Lifton, the author of the biography of Korczak.