rblyl
(deleted)
|
![]() Posted: Post subject: A Hero from another Tribe..... |
|
|
5th of August 1942, German soldiers came to collect the 192 orphans and one dozen staff to take them to Treblinka extermination camp. Korczak had been offered sanctuary on the "Aryan side" of Warsaw but turned it down repeatedly, saying he could not abandon his children. The children were dressed in thier best clothes, and each carried a blue knapsack and a favorite book or toy. Joshua Perle, an eyewitness, described the procession of Korczak and the children through the ghetto to the deportation point to the death camps: "..A miracle occoured. Two hundred children did not cry out. Two hundred pure souls, condemed to death, did not weep. Not one of them ran away. None tried to hide. Like stricken swallows they clung to their teacher and mentor, to thier father and brother, Janusz Korczak, so that he might protect and preserve them. Janusz Korczak was marching, his head bent forward holding the hand of a child...A few nurses followed by two hundred children, dressed in clean and meticulously cared for clothes, as they were being carried to the altar...On all sides the children were surrounded by Germans, Ukrainians, and this time also Jewish policemen. They whipped and fired shots at them. And the very stones of the street wept at the sight of the procession." ...Korczak boarded the trains with the children and was never heard from again.
Korczak was one of the first pediatricians who changed the general attitudes of teachers and parents towards students and children. His general concept was that any child has his own way, his own path, on which he embarks immediately following birth, The role of the parent or a teacher is not to impose other goals in a child, but to help a child achieve their own goals. His book 'How to Love a Child' begins with the following sentence, "You are saying 'children are annoying', you clarify 'you need to always kneel to thier perceptions'. You are wrong. Because you need to tip-toe to thier perceptions and ideals." (Unknown Author on Korczak)
**maybe we can't stop death, although I would like to find a way to..but we can give a loving presence for those around us who are facing it. That may be the best and only thing we can do?
|
|
