Korczak – Orphans’ Home – Summer Colonies in Gocławek – Poniatówka and Świder.

The destination for bath excursions for children at Korczak´s summer camp at Gocławek was the bustling Brothers Kozłowski Beach and the neighboring free municipal beach, known today as Poniatówka. The photo was taken during this actual period.

The destination for bath excursions for children at Korczak´s summer camp at Gocławek was the bustling Brothers Kozłowski Beach and the neighboring free municipal beach, known today as Poniatówka. The photo was taken during this period.

"Poniatówka in the 1960s. I worked there in 1966 as the youngest lifeguard in Poland, 16 years old. During that summer, I saved three children from drowning. I learned that when children drown, they do not scream; they do not wave their hands... My next job, as a docker, was already in Sweden, starting in 1967. So I have been continuing to work for the next 60 years."

Historical Letter Excerpt Translation: "In the 1920s and 1930s, the closest and most popular beach that children could reach directly by tram line 24 from the Gocławek loop (opened in 1925) without having to cross the river to the left bank was the Brothers Kozłowski Beach (and neighboring it, closer to the bridge, the free municipal beach, today's Poniatówka). This text comes directly from a letter regarding Różyczka – the summer holiday center and farm of Janusz Korczak's Orphans' Home, which was located in Gocławek (at 1 Klasztorna Street)."

Janusz Korczak's summer colonies are most often associated with Michałówka, Wilhelmówka, or Zofjówka. Yet, suddenly, a name like Poniatówka (our Warsaw beach) appears in this lineup. For me personally, this is a very special place – it was there, in 1966, that I took on my first official job in Poland, being at the time the youngest lifeguard in the country at just 16 years old. History likes to come full circle, because as it turns out, Poniatówka was a remarkably important spot on the map of summer joys for the pre-war charges of the Old Doctor.

When Janusz Korczak (and Orphans Society Dom Sierot) accepted the donation from the Cohn family and established "Różyczka" (Little Rose) – a satellite holiday center and farm for the Orphans’ Home located in Gocławek at 1 Klasztorna Street – he had one serious reservation: the lack of an immediate swimming area on-site. All the summer colonies where he had worked as a counselor in his youth had easy access to water, which he so sorely missed on the sun-baked grounds of Gocławek. To ensure the children escaped summer boredom, two completely different types of excursions to the water were organized, perfectly illustrating the contrasts in travel at the time.

On one hand, there were the grand, exciting, but less frequent trips, actually always regarded as excursions by train to Świder, where wild nature, pine forests, and safe "waist-deep" water in a little river of the same name awaited the children. However, getting to the train to Świder required a longer walk from the colony buildings to the railway station Wawer. This 24-kilometer journey by rail (train with whistling locomotives) was a true holiday for the children – loud singing echoed through the carriages, and the children, with the help of their counselors, counted down the stations, waiting for the cue: "We are getting off at the seventh station!". Since rail transport was more expensive and the Orphans' Home budget was always tight, Korczak and Stefania Wilczyńska had to calculate these costs meticulously.

For this reason, as I learned directly from a pre-war letter containing instructions for former educators, the children from "Różyczka" were regularly sent in the completely opposite direction – to the beach in Warsaw. This was a logistically much simpler and, above all, cheaper daily alternative. Dormitory students and counselors led the groups to the nearby Gocławek tram loop, opened at the intersection of Grochowska and Olszynki Grochowskiej streets in 1925. To reach the end stop of the tram line at Gocławek, as my father, Pan Misza, used to recall, it was an incredibly pleasant march through fragrant, green meadows all the way to the tram stop.

From there, the direct municipal tram line number 24, connecting Gocławek with Plac Trzech Krzyży (Three Crosses Square), offered excellent travel conditions. The route along Grochowska Street to the Poniatowski Bridge itself was about 5 kilometers long. The electric trams of that era covered this distance efficiently, making the entire journey take only 15–20 minutes. The immense advantage of this connection was that the tram brought the passengers right to the entrance of the bridge viaduct, allowing the children to reach their destination, the beaches of the riverbank of the Wisła, without the kinky trouble of crossing over to the left bank of the river.

Most importantly for the institution's budget, tram communication was incomparably cheaper than the railway. A ride for children and school youth cost only 15 groszy for a discounted ticket (while adults paid 25 groszy), which, with large groups, allowed for very substantial savings and permitted regular trips to the Wisła sand.
The destination for these bath excursions was the bustling Brothers Kozłowski Beach and the neighboring free municipal beach, known today as Poniatówka. After the summer, returning by tram to Warsaw meant the end of holiday freedom for the children and – as a ward named Dorcia wrote in "Mały Przegląd" (The Little Review) in October 1929 – re-entering school duties and a "new life." Yet, the proximity to Poniatówka Beach allowed Korczak to fulfill his most important goal: giving the children sun, swimming, and carefree happiness on every hot summer day.

The destinations for the bath excursions, Świder and Brothers Kozłowski Beach and the neighboring free municipal beach, known today as Poniatówka, were described by Dom Sierot ward named Dorcia, who wrote about it in "Mały Przegląd" (The Little Review) in October 1929.