Janusz Korczak, Warszawa

Warsaw’s Janusz Korczak memorial depicts the pediatrician, educator, and children’s author among children beneath a tree shaped like a menorah. It recalls his commitment to children’s rights and his decision to remain with his orphanage during the Nazi deportations to Treblinka.

Here, the memorial honors Janusz Korczak, the Warsaw physician and educator who wrote for children under a name adopted from Henryk Goldszmit. The sculptural group places Korczak among children beneath a dead tree whose dry limbs form a menorah shape. The tree rises seven metres and is carved from granite, while the human figures are cast in bronze.

A modest fountain and plaques for the donors sit behind the monument. It was unveiled on the first of June 2006, Children’s Day, after its foundation stone was laid in 2003. Korczak made children’s dignity the work of his life.

In 1919, he set out a charter of children’s rights, and his homes for young people used a parliament, court, rules, and a newspaper to teach civic responsibility. When the Nazis forced his Warsaw orphanage into the ghetto, he went with the children rather than leave them. German forces deported the institution’s children and staff to Treblinka in August 1942.

Korczak died with them. This monument’s gathering of children is therefore not decorative: it holds together his work, his principles, and the choice that defined his final days.