Sie sind frei, Doktor Korczak: 1942
There are very few figures in the history of Poland who provoke such a common sympathy and admiration in every Polish heart, regardless of its owner's age or political alignment, as the Old Doctor, Janusz Korczak. He was a Jewish pediatrician, pedagogue and an early children's rights advocate. During WW2 Polish underground organization
Żegota offered him sanctuary on the "Aryan side". He turned the offer down repeatedly.
During the Grossaktion Warschau of 1942, German soldiers came to collect the 192 orphans that the Doctor was taking care of and about one dozen staff members to transport them to the Treblinka extermination camp...
Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward, holding the hand of a child, without a hat, a leather belt around his waist, and wearing high boots. A few nurses were followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar.- Ghetto eyewitness, Joshua Perle
... according to eyewitnesses, an SS officer recognized Korczak as the author of one of his favorite children's books and offered to help him escape.
Korczak refused the offer.
He went with his children to Treblinka where he was murdered on 7th August 1942.
P.S. In the first photo we see Wojciech Pszoniak as the good Doctor in Andrzej Wajda's 1990 film
Korczak.
