White Niura´s experiments at Korczak´s summer camp at Goclawek.

Pan Misza with his sister Niura (Chana) on Krakowskie Przedmiescie street in Warsaw (Close to Miodowa Street).

Letter from Pan Misza to the Rector of Warsaw University in which he describes his financial situation. It states that from his meager salary at Korczak's orphanage, he gives money to his sister, who was in even more difficult financial circumstances: I work as a tutor at the Orphanage at 92 Krochmalna Street, earning 75 złoty a month. I'm a student at the Free Polish University. I also contribute 20 złoty to support my sister, a sixth-year chemistry student at the University of Warsaw, who is in need. Student number 40634.

In the book The Good Doctor of Warsaw, Elizabeth Gifford describes Niura, Misza, and Misza´s future wife, Sophia. The entire novel is based on the true accounts of Misha and Sophia, and on the life of one of Poland's greatest men, Dr Janusz Korczak. Here Niura just finished Chemistry Club at Goclawek during late Summer 1939.

My aunt Niura came to Warsaw a year after my father, directly after graduating from high school in her hometown of Pinsk. She was the genius of the family and passed high school in no time. Of course, upon arrival and the time after, my father, Pan Misza, helped her.

In Warszawa, she started to study Chemistry at the University. She was called White Niura because her hair colour was blond, almost white, and this was because another Niura, dark-haired, was studying Chemistry simultaneously.

Of course, she visited Korczak's orphanage at Krochmalna 92. But she also visited a summer camp in Goclawek. She was active there and probably called Panna Niura there.

What did she do there among the children?

She tried to get them interested in chemistry and did simple chemistry experiments. They included a volcanic eruption (with baking soda and vinegar), a milk and caramel coloring experiment that shows surface tension, and a "baking soda bomb" that demonstrates how gas creates pressure. Other simple experiments were creating invisible ink or making sugar crystals*.

Korczak was always happy when Panna Niura came to the summer camp. He knew that the children and teachers there were often bored.

Korczak recognized that children get bored during the summer, and that's why the children from the summer camp in Gocławek took trips to nearby towns, including Świder. There was water and a river there, which Korczak so missed.

At all places, summer camps where Janusz Korczak worked as a young educator, Wilhelmówka and Michalówka, there was always a lake or river where children almost daily bathed and played.

*After the war, my aunt Niura worked, among other jobs, as a chemist in a sugar beet processing plant where beets are processed into sugar.