Janusz Korczak accompanied the children from his Warsaw orphanage to Treblinka in 1942.
Korczak was the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit, a Polish-Jewish physician, educator, writer, and children’s-rights advocate. He directed an orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw and developed educational practices that emphasized children’s dignity, participation, and responsibility.
During the German occupation, the orphanage was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. In August 1942, German authorities deported the orphanage’s children and staff during the Grossaktion Warsaw, the mass deportation of Jews from the ghetto. Korczak reportedly received opportunities to escape but refused to abandon the children.
The deportees were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp, where Korczak and the children were murdered. Accounts differ over some details of the deportation procession, but his decision to remain with the children is firmly established in Holocaust history. Korczak’s writings and educational ideas continued to influence international discussions of children’s rights after his death.