Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit born in 1878 or 1879, physician, writer and educator. He was born in Warsaw, the son of an assimilated Jewish famly.

Korczak’s father was a successful attorney who became mentally ill when Korczak was eleven. This was a heavy blow to the family’s financial situation and a trauma that cast its shadow over Korczak throughout his life.

Even while still a student of medicine at Warsaw University, Korczak was drawn to circles of liberal educators and writers in Poland. When he entered medical practice, he did his best to help the poor and those who suffered the most, at the same time he began to write.

His first books, Children of the Streets (1901) and A Child of the Salon (1906) aroused great interest. In 1904 he was drafted into the Russian army as a doctor, and was posted to East Asia.

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