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| From the Parisian feuilleton, through the fears of 12-year-old Henryk, to the harrowing Ghetto Diary of 1942 – the wheel of history and Korczak's method of documentation came full circle with perfect, hard precision. |
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| Korczak (1901): A Diary Ennobles and Teaches. |
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| In the novel “Józki, Jaśki i Franki” (1911), the fate of the boys' diaries perfectly shows how Janusz Korczak tested his pedagogical approach in practice. |
DIARY.
(A Talk).
The editor of one of Paris's most widely circulated daily newspapers delighted his readers for months with feuilletons written by chimney sweeps, messengers, caretakers, seamstresses, maids, small artisans and merchants, café boys, beggars, etc. He would choose some ordinary fellow or a young rascal, draw him into a conversation, and finally say:
— Would you like to describe this or that detail from our conversation? Come to the editorial office, you will earn a dozen or so francs.
And the accidental contributor went, sweated over it, the editor also worked hard, but the column was excellent—often witty, rich in unusual turns of phrase, often completely unknown general expressions and words from city slang; a column always bursting with life, truth, was ready after a couple of hours. The next day, all of Paris read this unusual work with immense interest.
I cited this example to prove that the observations, remarks, and details of the life of even the simplest person are extremely interesting; they reveal a certain fragment of existence, and I will say more—they are a treasure for a journalist, a novelist, or a researcher of social life phenomena. In every human environment, distinct and unknown features of life develop, and getting to know them is of extraordinary importance. How many times does a novelist undertake distant journeys and devote long months to research before setting out to the actual work of writing.
The more intelligent and observant a person is, the easier it is for them to catch the characteristic details of the life of their surroundings, and their diary, if they wrote it, could be more interesting and instructive. Such a diary, given to a writer, could be an invaluable material for them.
But that is only the first thing. Let us go further: a diary written by parents would be a precious keepsake for a child; a series of such notebooks would constitute the history of entire generations, preserve good deeds and family aspirations, and be a faithful picture of the parents' efforts in raising and educating children, binding the present with the past, and serving as reading material for your children when they grow up.
Furthermore, a diary for the person who writes it is a pleasant memory of past years, of better years, because they were the years of youth. How many small, or even more important, events of life fade away and vanish without a trace. Writing preserves these details of life and later presents them clearly reflected in your imagination.
And one more thing: a diary ennobles and teaches us. A daily review of what was done during the day is an account of our actions, an account of what good, useful, or bad things we have done. Omitting our bad deeds feels dishonest to us; it is a kind of hiding the bad, a desire to present oneself in a better light. This conviction does not leave us even when we have decided not to show our diary to anyone and even to burn it before death. So, slowly, slowly, a desire creeps into us not to do things that we could not note down in our written evening confession.
And our learned diary teaches us perseverance, peace, and balance; when we review the events of past years, we see how little attention should be paid to those minor sufferings of life, temporary unpleasantness, and passing worries. We see that what worried us very much years ago has today even slipped from our memory, leaving not a trace.
So everyone should write a diary. I will add here that I have been writing a diary for ten years and today it has become such a habit that I could not fall asleep without writing at least a few lines about the past day.
But I do not demand the same accuracy from everyone; let them note their impressions every few days, even only when some more important event occurs in the family life, but a diary—a small history of events, a brief review of the family's sorrows and joys—should be found in every home.
I will also add that writing a diary wonderfully develops the ease of expression, the so-called style. This is very important for youth; writing just a few dozen lines of a diary will ensure that writing a letter, a note, or a correspondence to a paper will not be hard work, but a trivial matter.
I write these words in the conviction that many of our readers will begin writing their diaries and will turn to us for guidance, which we will gladly provide. Just one general remark: one should not touch upon matters in a diary that are too painful or too unpleasant for ourselves, because the necessity, repeating from time to time, of placing oneself at the pillory of future readers' judgments might discourage us from a good thing. This especially concerns young people, who describe the innermost secrets of their hearts in their initial enthusiasm and then burn the diary out of fear that these great secrets of the heart might catch the eyes of parents or guardians.
G.
*******
Analytical Commentary on the Novel "Józki, Jaśki i Franki"
In the novel “Józki, Jaśki i Franki” (1911), the fate of the boys' diaries perfectly shows how Janusz Korczak tested his pedagogical approach in practice. The attempt to involve children in writing showed the natural evolution of children's enthusiasm—from great zeal to a clash with harsh reality. Initially, upon hearing about the distribution of notebooks, immense enthusiasm broke out. Boys signed up with the educator en masse, but the requirement to write a text "as a trial" drastically verified these desires. Most of the boys abandoned writing after just a few days, and their notebooks ended up ruined or lost, with only a few pages written. For Korczak the educator, however, this was not a failure. This whole action was proof to him that a child needs freedom, not an imposed duty.
From the Parisian feuilleton, through the fears of 12-year-old Henryk, to the harrowing Ghetto Diary with its last entry on August 4, 1942 – the wheel of history and Korczak's method of documentation came full circle with perfect, hard precision.
This text is an absolute methodological and biographical foundation for my entire series on Janusz Korczak's "Pedagogical Tree." It reveals an incredible fact: in January 1901, the young Henryk Goldszmit (signing as G.) publicly confesses that he has been writing his own intimate diary for ten years ("I have been writing a diary for ten years and today it has become such a habit that I could not fall asleep without writing at least a few lines"). This means he began keeping it as a small boy of merely 11–12 years old, around 1891, which perfectly coincides with the period of his father's mental illness and the beginning of the family drama.
What is more, already in this student text from 1901, Korczak defines keeping a diary not as a form of literary vanity, but as:
- A sociological and diagnostic tool: Recording the lives of "ordinary people" (seamstresses, caretakers, children) as the most valuable treasure for a social researcher.
- A pedagogical "Observation Notebook": Proposing that parents write diaries to preserve educational methods for future generations.
- An evening confession: The diary as a moral mirror that restrains a person from doing bad things, because they would be ashamed to write them down in the evening.
From here, a straight and direct path leads to the later observation notebooks of children at summer camps, their own diaries, to the "Dormitory Resident's Notebook," and finally to his own harrowing Ghetto Diary of 1942.
The Birth of Korczak's Documentation Method
This remarkably early text is an absolute methodological and biographical foundation for the entire series on Janusz Korczak's "Pedagogical Tree." It reveals an incredible fact: in January 1901, the young Henryk Goldszmit (signed with the initial G.) publicly confesses that he has been writing his own intimate diary for ten years ("I have been writing a diary for ten years and today it has become such a habit that I could not fall asleep without writing at least a few lines"). This means he began keeping it as a boy of merely 11–12 years old, which perfectly coincides with the onset of his father's mental illness and the family's financial collapse.
Furthermore, already in this student text from 1901, Korczak defines keeping a diary not as a form of literary vanity, but as:
- A sociological and diagnostic tool: Recording the lives of "ordinary people" (seamstresses, caretakers, maids) is the most valuable treasure for a social researcher.
- A pedagogical "Observation Notebook": The proposal that parents write diaries to preserve educational methods and bind the past with the present.
- An evening moral confession: The diary as an internal pillory that restrains a person from doing bad things, because they would be ashamed to write them down before sleep.
The Parisian Trace and the Birth of the "Mały Przegląd" newspaper System
The most fascinating part, however, is the very introduction to the article, where the young student Goldszmit admires a Parisian editor who engages in conversation and employs people of the street—chimney sweeps, messengers, seamstresses, and children. It is precisely here, in January 1901, that the original concept and brilliant system are born in Korczak's mind—a system that a quarter of a century later, in 1926, he applied when creating "Mały Przegląd" (The Little Review).
Korczak precisely copied and improved this model. Since young children from poor Warsaw neighborhoods had unique, profoundly interesting observations but often could not write well yet, the Doctor transferred the Parisian mechanism to the soil of Muranów and Wola. He utilized the resources of the adult, professional newspaper "Nasz Przegląd" (Our Review)—it was from there, from the adult editorial office, that a professional stenographer (and later the trained secretary Igor Newerly) came to "Mały Przegląd". He recorded live, literally and without censorship, the torrent of words, accounts, and emotions of children who could not yet hold a pen in their hands.
In this way, the raw, authentic "excellent column" full of urban slang, which the young student dreamed of in 1901, became a weekly reality of a one-of-a-kind newspaper created by children and for children. From the Parisian feuilleton, through the fears of 12-year-old Henryk, to the harrowing Ghetto Diary of 1942 – the wheel of history and Korczak's method of documentation came full circle with perfect, hard precision.
PS. Written on October 20, 2026 - my cousin Tessa´s birthday. Her mother, Chana, a chemistry student at Warsaw University, used to visit my father, Pan Misza, at Korczak´s Orphanage, 92 Krochmalna Street.
