Two weeks earlier, Adam Czerniakow (Chairman of the Jewish Council in the ghetto), decided to take his own life, by swallowing a potassium cyanide pill. Before swallowing the pill he wrote two letters, one to his wife, and one to the Jewish Council saying:
They are demanding that I kill the children of my people with my own hands.
There is nothing for me to do but die
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Last pages of Janusz Korczaks Ghetto Diary
August 4, 1942
I have watered the flowers, the poor orphanage plants, the plants of the Jewish orphanage. The parched soil breathed with relief.
A guard watched me as I worked. Does that peaceful work of mine at six o’clock in the morning annoy him or move him?
He stands looking on, his legs wide apart.
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| During the last three months of his life, Korczak was working on a manuscript that has become known as the Ghetto Diary. The diary survived thanks to my father Misza Wasserman Wróblewski. He was working outside the ghetto on August 5h, when he returned in the evening he found entire orphanage empty. There was still unfinished tea and coffee on the tables. My father went up to Korczak’s room. Korczak’s spectacles were still on his desk. My father gathered Korczak’s papers a.o. this Diary and threw them into a suitcase together with his spectacles. |
All the efforts to get Esterka released have come to nothing. I was not quite sure whether in the event of success, I should be doing her a favor or harm her.
“Where did she get caught?” somebody asks. Perhaps it is not she but we who have gotten caught (having stayed).
I have written to the police to send Adzio away: he’s mentally underdeveloped and maliciously undisciplined. We cannot afford to expose the house to the danger of his outbursts.
For Dzielna Street—a ton of coal, for the present to Rózia Abramowicz. Someone asks whether the coal will be safe there.
In reply—a smile.
A cloudy morning. Five thirty. Seemingly an ordinary beginning of a day. I say anna:
To Hanna:
Good morning
In response, a look of surprise.
I plead:
Smile
They are ill, pale, lung-sick smiles.
You drank, and plenty, gentlemen officers, you relished your drinking—here’s to the blood you’ve shed— and dancing you jingled your medals to cheer the infamy which you were too blind to see, or rather pretended not to see.
My share in the Japanese war. Defeat—disaster. In the European war—defeat—disaster. In the World War. . . .
I don’t know how and what a soldier of a victorious army feels. . . .
The publications to which I contributed were usually closed down, suspended, went bankrupt.
My publisher, ruined, committed suicide.
And all this not because I’m a Jew but because I was born in the East.
It might be a sad consolation that the haughty West also is not well off.
It might be but is not. I never wish anyone ill. I cannot. I don’t know how it’s done.
Our Father who art in heaven. . . . This prayer was carved out of hunger and misery. Our daily bread. Bread.
Why, what I’m experiencing did happen. It happened.
They sold their belongings—for a liter of lamp oil, a kilogram of groats, a glass of vodka.
When a young Pole kindly asked me at the police station how I managed to run the blockade, I asked him whether he could not possibly do “something” for Esterka.
You know very well I can’t
I said hastily:
Thanks for the kind word
This expression of gratitude is the bloodless child of poverty and degradation.
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I am watering the flowers. My bald head in the window. What a splendid target. He has a rifle. Why is he standing and looking on calmly? He has no orders to shoot.
Korczak Orphanage at 16 Sienna Street is marked with * Empty spaces between the houses as are result of the Luftwaffe bombings in September 1939. |
I am watering the flowers. My bald head in the window. What a splendid target.
He has a rifle. Why is he standing and looking on calmly?
He has no orders to shoot.
And perhaps he was a village teacher in civilian life, or a notary, a street sweeper in Leipzig, a waiter in Cologne?
What would he do if I nodded to him? Waved my hand in a friendly gesture?
Perhaps he doesn’t even know that things are—as they are?
He may have arrived only yesterday, from far away. . . .
 Original page from the Korczak Ghetto Diary. It was typed by one of the Orphanage workers on both sides of the paper. Korczak´s wartime writings, the diary, and spectacles were saved by my father Pan Misza (Michal Wasserman Wroblewski). |
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Ponura, przygnębiająca jest literatura pamiętnikowa. Artysta czy uczony, polityk czy wódz wchodzą w życie, niosąc pełnię ambitnych zamierzeń, mocnych, zaczepnych i gładkich poruszeń, żywy mobilizm działania. Wspinają się w górę, zwalczają przeszkody, zwiększają zasięg wpływów, zbrojni w doświadczenie i liczbę przyjaciół, coraz owocniej i łatwiej, etap po etapie zmierzają do swych celów. Trwa to lat dziesiątek, czasem dwa, trzy dziesiątki. A potem...
Potem już zmęczenie, potem już tylko krok za krokiem, uparcie w raz obranym kierunku, już wygodniejszym gościńcem, z mniejszym zapałem i z przeświadczeniem bolesnym, że nie tak, że zbyt mało, że daleko trudniej samotnie, że przybywa już tylko biel włosów, więcej zmarszczek na gładkim dawniej i zuchwałym czole, że oko słabiej już widzi, krew wolniej krąży, a nogi niosą z wysiłkiem.
Cóż? – Starość.
Jeden opiera się i [nie] dopuszcza, pragnie po dawnemu, nawet szybciej i silniej, by zdążyć. Łudzi się, broni się, buntuje się i miota. Drugi w smutnej rezygnacji zaczyna nie tylko zrzekać się, ale nawet cofać.
– Już nie mogę.
– Już nawet nie chcę próbować.
– Nie warto.
– Już nie rozumiem.
– Gdyby zwrócono mi urnę spopielonych lat, energię strwonioną w błądzeniach, rozrzutny rozmach dawnych sił...
Nowi ludzie, nowe pokolenie, nowe potrzeby. – Już jego drażnią i on drażni – zrazu nieporozumienia, a potem i stale już nierozumienie. Ich gesty, ich kroki, ich oczy, białe zęby i gładkie czoło, choć usta milczą...
Wszystko i wszyscy wokoło, i ziemia, i ty sam, i gwiazdy twoje mówią:
– Dosyć... Twój zachód... Teraz my... Twój kres... Twierdzisz, że my [nie] tak... Nie spieramy się z tobą – wiesz lepiej, doświadczony, ale pozwól samodzielnie próbować.
Taki jest porządek życia.
Tak człowiek i zwierzęta, tak bodaj drzewa, a kto wie, może nawet kamienie, ich teraz wola, moc i czas.
Twoja dziś starość, a pojutrze zgrzybiałość.
I coraz spieszniej krążą wskazówki na tarczy zegarów.
Kamienne sfinksa spojrzenie zadaje odwieczne pytanie:
– Kto rano na czterech nogach, w południe raźnie na dwóch, a wieczorem na trzech.
Ty na kiju wsparty, zapatrzony w gasnące, chłodne promienie słoń[ca], które zachodzi.
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| Korczak´s wartime writings, the diary, and spectacles were saved by my father Pan Misza (Michal Wasserman Wroblewski). |
