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| From time to time, the Korczak´s Orphanage received free tickets to the movies for an afternoon session. For security reasons, some adults went with the group. One day, I went with a group of older children, accompanied by Korczak. The cinema was screening a Soviet film called "The Homeless". Kino Kometa. |
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| From time to time, the Korczak´s Orphanage received free tickets to the movies for an afternoon session. Here, Kino at 6 Wolska Street. |
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| Watching with Janusz Korczak the Soviet film "The Homeless". |
Watching with Janusz Korczak the Soviet film "The Homeless".
by
Pan Misha (Wasserman Wróblewski).
From time to time, the Orphanage received free tickets to the movies for an afternoon session. For security reasons, some adults went with the group. One day, I (Pan Misha) went with a group of older children, accompanied by Korczak. The cinema was screening a Soviet film called "The Homeless". This is a short summary:
In a home for adolescents, there is a group of boys who have lost their parents and families during the Revolution. With great difficulty, they are getting used to a normal life, learning to respect the laws of living in society. The young teacher puts in a lot of effort to improve the boys' standard of living under very difficult circumstances. The results are undoubtedly positive. The youngsters are studying and working in a nearby factory. All of a sudden, everything bursts like a soap bubble. The boys steal some transmission belts from the factory and sell them. They are found in a tavern, having the time of their lives. The last scene of the film: the factory hall is reminiscent of a battleground. The young teacher, leaning against suspended belts, seems to be saying to himself: "Well, we'll have to start from the beginning"!
On the way back to the Orphanage, the children walked ahead. Korczak was holding my arm. We walked a few minutes in silence, and then Korczak stopped, looking at me with his piercing, penetrating, short-sighted blue eyes and asked, "Misha, what would you do?"
A simple question, but how difficult to answer! I thought for a while and answered. "I don't believe in miracles. It would be hard to believe that the boys had really radically changed. Something must be left in them from their former lives, habits, and temptations. I suppose I would be thinking similarly to this young teacher."
The Doctor sighed deeply and said, "That's good, very good. But, as far as I'm concerned, I would not. I've experienced too many disappointments. Now I've resigned myself."
I was struck by his words - it was just not like him. I contemplated his attitude and the sadness of his face. Luckily, I managed to restrain myself and not answer his painful confession with a platitude. I wanted to contradict him, to give him concrete examples of his energy, vitality, and his plans for the future.
Three children approached us. Korczak - as if nothing had happened - asked them cheerfully how they liked the film. One girl said it was beautiful and that she cried when things were looking good. "You're silly," a boy interrupted, "I cried a bit too, but when things went wrong." "It was a good film, but sad. I prefer comedies," remarked another boy. Korczak nodded with understanding. Afterwards, he told an amusing story about laughter and tears. The rest of the way home, we talked about other things.
For a long time after, I pondered the cause of Korczak's sadness and resignation. I eventually found the answer in a letter, written by Korczak to Joseph Arnon (Pan Józek Helpern), one of his tutors who had migrated, in 1932, to what was then Palestine.
The letter was not a confession, but a bitter complaint and condemnation of Polish antisemitism and its manifestations, which undermined his every enterprise. Korczak was dismissed from two posts in a tertiary institution. Later, he secured a position running a programme on Polish Radio, from which he was also dismissed. While on air, he was not known as Henryk Goldszmit, or even by his pseudonym Janusz Korczak, but rather as "The Old Doctor" (Stary Doktor), making his identity anonymous. How early they tried to make him an old man!
In his Memoirs, Korczak wrote, "Vile, shameful years - decaying, disgraceful, deceitful. Damned! Lost the will to live. Mud - stinking mud" (Vol. IV, p.571). And yet life showed that Korczak had not resigned himself. War, ghetto, hunger, a struggle for the fate of his children, and human dignity released in him a tide of extraordinary courage and energy. Documents exhibited at the Korczak Assembly in Israel in 1989 aroused astonishment and admiration and inspired one to bow one's head in reverence for the memory of this extraordinary man - Janusz Korczak.
