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| While researching in the Korczak Archive in Stockholm, I came across four typewritten pages held together by a single, aging paperclip. They were written by my father, Misza Wasserman Wróblewski, who had the profound and tragic privilege of working alongside Janusz Korczak for over a decade, even within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto. |
The Paperclip Testimony
While researching in the Korczak Archive in Stockholm, I came across four typewritten pages held together by a single, aging paperclip. They were written by my father, Misza Wasserman Wróblewski, who had the profound and tragic privilege of working alongside Janusz Korczak for over a decade, even within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto.
The manuscript is titled "Lama?"—the Hebrew word for "Why?" (לָמָה).
Finding these pages felt like an archival echo of my recent reflections on the "Math of Survival." As a scientist, I look at the Holocaust through the lens of statistics and p-values, searching for the logic behind a survival rate of near zero. My father, through these pages, was searching for a different kind of significance.
In this post, I present the full transcript of my father's testimony, including the haunting passages he chose to cross out. These "overcrossed" sentences reveal a witness struggling to find a language for an "impossible" reality—searching for the words to explain the "becoming and perishing" of a man like Korczak.
But "Lama?" was more than just my father's title. As I discovered through the testimony of his friend, Marek Rudnicki, it was also the final, whispered question of the Old Doctor himself as he dragged his feet toward the cattle cars of the Umschlagplatz.
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| The passages that my father (Pan Misza) Wasserman Wroblewski crossed out are particularly moving. Striking the fragment about the teacher from Petah Tikva—who is unable to explain 'why 6 million allowed themselves to be killed'—suggests that my father also struggled with how to speak of the Shoah to a generation that had never known such fear and helplessness. Golda Meir visited Stockholm in 1971 on her way to Helsinki. |
English Translation
(Left column)
Lama
By Misza Wasserman Wróblewski
At a meeting with representatives of the Jewish community in Stockholm, [overcrossed: Golda Meir vividly characterized the contemporary youth of Israel]. In front of a poster announcing a performance by Dzigan, two Israeli children were sounding out the syllables of the show’s title: "It’s Hard to Be a Jew." The children were astonished; they could not understand—why is it hard? Why? "Lama"?
[overcrossed: A history teacher at an agricultural school in Petah Tikva had never imagined that his greatest difficulty would be explaining to his students how, during the occupation, six million Jews allowed themselves to be killed. Time and again, their "Lama" would rise like an impenetrable wall].
I do not intend to explain these difficult and complex problems. However, I am not surprised by these children, nor by the youth. The vast majority of them were born in Israel. [overcrossed: They have a sense of dignity and strength that is given and multiplied by identification with their people, nation, and country]. They do not know the [overcrossed: twisting] labyrinths of the paths of their grandfathers and great-grandfathers, and often even their fathers—paths that rarely led to a goal. Perhaps they do not know that sometimes, long before biological death, a person can die an internal, spiritual death.
One [overcrossed: can-not] tear out or blur the painful pages of [overcrossed: Febru-ary] history. However, the generalizations that history must necessarily use can hinder a proper understanding, even blurring the actual picture. Therefore, it is worth reaching for individuals and their non-individual fates; for the people who held the banner of humanity high and with dignity in those dark times of contempt.
Among such figures is a modest yet extraordinary man, Dr. Henryk Goldszmit, known universally as JANUSZ KORCZAK. This "father of other people’s children," calmly with his flock of orphans and co- (...)
(Right column)
The capital letter C [in the Polish text, referring to "Człowieczeństwo" / Humanity] is no accident; it does not even stem solely from the author’s deep cult-like devotion to the Old Doctor, by whose side he had the good fortune to work for over a dozen years, even in the Warsaw Ghetto.
"Give me, O God, a hard life, but a beautiful and rich one"—Henryk asked in his youth, and he did not omit this dream of his youth in his "Memoirs," written just before his death. Hard as it was, that life was indeed hard; but it was, without a doubt, beautiful and rich.
[overcrossed: Korczak was born a Jew, was a Jew, and never hid his Jewish origins. Someone might say he was a Pole. After all, he was born in Poland, spoke and wrote in Polish, was active in Poland, and throughout various changing historical periods, he adapted his dreams and struggled to give them real shape within the Polish reality. A pointless dispute]. He answered the question himself. He answered with his life. Life itself also answered that question.
As a five-year-old boy, he first encountered the so-called "Jewish problem." His beloved canary died. Henryk wanted to organize a funeral and place a cross on its grave. The janitor’s son did not allow this, explaining rather brutally that since the canary belonged to a Jew, the bird itself was a Jew. This episode likely triggered many a "Lama" (why?) in this [overcrossed: exceptionally sensitive child of the salon].
His "idyllic and angelic" childhood did not last long. At the age of eleven, he lost his father. The family became impoverished. The young high school student gave private lessons. Through this, he encountered children from various backgrounds. Not without difficulty, he was admitted to medical school. As a student, he tried his hand at writing. His sharp columns enjoyed great popularity. He submitted a work to a publicized literary competition. According to the rules, a pseudonym had to be provided. Kraszewski’s novel lay on the table: "About Janusz Korczak and the Beautiful Sword-bearer's Daughter." The young man, for the first time, signed his (...)
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| Just like the teacher in his story, my father, Pan Misza, too, was searching for a language to describe this 'impossible' reality |
...his work as Janusz Korczak. Under this pseudonym, he would later become better known than as Henryk Goldszmit. [overcrossed: I draw attention to this minor detail to emphasize that this was not a deliberate change of name intended to mask his Jewish origins].
Youth is the "sculptress who carves an entire life"... and Henryk’s teenage years coincided with a period when the echoes of the "Spring of Nations" and national uprisings had not yet faded. Antisemitism was not yet a programmed slogan of the reactionaries. Thus, Goldszmit did not feel the hardships associated with his background. He observed the world with curiosity and reflection, breathing freely with a full chest.
The persistent thought of the necessity to find the meaning of life and his place in this less-than-perfect world did not leave the thinking and feeling young man. Hence his escapes to the poor at Powiśle. A deep contemplation of the human fate, the misery of children from the social depths. Slowly, a decision matured to stand in the ranks of those fighting for a better tomorrow for the children of the poor... and thus young Henryk stepped into the 20th century.
After the collapse of the 1905 revolution, all of Russia, and thus also the part of Poland under its partition, fell into the power of the "Black Hundreds." [overcrossed: The infamous "beat the Jews, save Russia" became the slogan of the day]. The new situation was exploited on Polish soil by the "Endecja" /National Democracy/. Young Goldszmit finished his medical studies during this time. He worked as a physician. Medical practice taught Korczak that it is impossible to treat a child's body when the soul is suffering.
[overcrossed: In the haze of antisemitism, when the Polish street did not want him, and he was a stranger to the Jewish one and did not really know it], the young social activist joined the work of the "Help for Orphans" Society. It was a Jewish philanthropic organization that, at that time, planned to build a modern orphanage and move the Jewish orphanage there from Franciszkańska Street.
Korczak first encountered Jewish children at summer camps in Michałówek. Against the backdrop of his observations and experiences there, the "Joski, Mośki, and Srule"—charming to this day—were later born. Defying antisemitic moods, faithful to his humanistic ideals, Korczak noted there: "The Polish expression 'smutno' (sad) means 'smutno' in Jewish too; and when a Jewish or Polish child is sad, they express it with the same word." But the world was not yet ripe for the lofty dreams of this incorrigible optimist, who bestowed Mośkos from Krochmalna with the same sincere [overcrossed: care] as the Józeks and Franeks from "Our Home" in Bielany.
[overcrossed: Anxiety remained, however, with the orphaned Jewish child. Why? Often smiling, he would repeat: "Is it good to be a child? – So-so, not very... I know, however, that it is worse to be a Jewish child, and worst of all to be a poor Jewish orphan... He never started a family of his own. A slave, he wrote, has no right to have children. And what of a Jew in Poland under the Russian partition?]
The First World War broke out. Goldszmit, as a doctor, was drafted into the army. The entire burden of work at the Orphans' Home fell onto the shoulders of Stefania Wilczyńska, a wise, brave woman, the Doctor's long-term, irreplaceable collaborator. The front, the wounded, the dead, fraternizing with death daily. The difficult, responsible work of a doctor. The thought of the child did not leave Korczak even here. In the din of battle, amid the groans of the wounded, the outline of the peer court code was born, which was to teach children how misunderstandings and conflicts could be resolved peacefully, without physical violence.
Poland's regaining of independence in 1918 and the several following years can be considered a period of a renaissance of hope and action. The Doctor exerted himself threefold. He prepared new books, printed articles in various magazines, perfected the educational system in orphanages, and organized joint summer camps for Jewish children from Krochmalna and Polish ones from Pruszków. In all his... (...)
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| The act of crossing out these lines reveals the internal conflict of a witness: how to convey the magnitude of the tragedy without succumbing to the 'Lama?'—the unanswerable 'Why?' that haunted both the victims and those who had to tell their story later. |
...appearances, lectures, and books, a sense of injustice toward the child dominates. Even the titles of some of his works are telling: "How to Love a Child," "The Child's Right to Respect," "Rules of Life." In his view, the world absolutely required reform, and to reform the world meant reforming education. Although there were many people of bright thought at that time, Korczak felt lonely, and not without reason. He thus abandoned his medical practice and shut himself away in the Orphans' Home to build a better life there for a flock of children pulled out of poverty. An ideal children's republic was created here: self-government regulated life, a peer court stood guard over order and justice, and human labor was raised to a high rank. Seven good years were given as a gift from fate to the 107 permanent residents of the Orphans' Home, only to later return to a normal, merciless life, but now with a love for truth, justice, and the conviction that the world can be better and that this, again, depends only on people.
In Poland, the atmosphere of racial hatred thickened incessantly. Picketing of Jewish shops under the infamous slogan "Don't buy from a Jew," bench ghettos at universities, and finally pogroms—this was the aftermath of the antisemitism raging over the Vistula in the 1930s.
Many former residents of the Orphans' Home emigrated to Palestine. Fears for the fate of the flock of orphans entrusted to him gripped the Doctor. Many of yesterday’s dreams vanished; [overcrossed: there was an agony of faith and hope]. [overcrossed: My] "Lama?"—knocked within his weary brain. "What is disappointment?" Korczak wondered. "A statement that [overcrossed: we have succumbed to a reckless illusion...]" In one of his letters to a former resident who had settled in Palestine, he wrote: "...We are set for yesterday, you for tomorrow. We—monuments and graves; you—cradles and already the clear gaze of children who are more conscious and alert. We lived with illusions for so long..."
In the life-worn but still vital Doctor, the decision to leave for Israel matured. [overcrossed: "There, where the worst person will not spit in the face of the best just because he is a Jew."]
Korczak went to Palestine twice. Twice, for six weeks each time, he worked in a kibbutz children's home in Ein-Harod. While in Ein-Harod, he longed for his children from Krochmalna, for Warsaw, where he had spent almost his entire life. In Warsaw, he was again consumed by longing for Ein-Harod. With strong emotional involvement, he spoke about his impressions of Palestine. I asked him once how he saw the problem of coexistence between Jews and Arabs. The Doctor compared Palestine to a rope whose ends are held, one in the hand of a Jew, the other—an Arab. Each pulls the rope toward their side. The rope tightens, but it brings the opponents closer to each other. At the moment when the tension weakens, and the Jew and Arab are already close to each other, someone from the outside cuts the rope, and the "game" starts anew.
The year 1939. Ominous black clouds swirled over Poland. Catastrophe approached. How could he, in the hour of trial, leave the Home to its fate. He thus remained in Warsaw. Along with the children, he found himself behind the ghetto walls on Śliska Street, where the Orphans' Home had been moved. Life in the home flowed normally on the surface. During the day, the Doctor, in the role of a great almsgiver, through pleas and threats, secured the means to support his children. In the evening, he collapsed like a felled tree onto his bed in the isolation room for the sick. At night, he woke to carry out the buckets from the sick and... hurriedly wrote his "Diary." So hurriedly, because "homo rapax" [predatory man] was winning all along the line.
The rhythm of the Home's work was not disrupted, however. The Circle of Useful Entertainments even developed theatrical activity. Among others, Rabindranath Tagore's "The Post Office" was performed. The performance took place on July 18. Little Abrasza, with burning black eyes, played the role of the dying Indian boy, Amal. I was at that performance. Amal's death made a shattering impression on the audience. The adults [overcrossed: remained] motionless, and the children [overcrossed: whimpered/sobbed] loudly.
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| This is where page 4 ends. I have compiled these sheets myself, but unfortunately, there is no page 5. As the pages were only held together by a paperclip, the continuation has likely been lost over time. My father breaks off his text just as he promised to explain the process of Janusz Korczak’s 'becoming and perishing.' We are left with an open question—an echo of the 'Lama?' that resonates through the entire document. |
...sobbed. When the Doctor was asked why this particular play was chosen, he turned pale and, with a grimace of pain, replied: when one cannot fight, one must learn to look death calmly in the eye...
Wednesday, August 5, 1942. The Hitlerites burst into the house shouting "alles herunter" [everyone down/out]. The children lined up in a column. At the head was the Doctor. Mrs. Stefa [Stefania Wilczyńska] closed the procession. The march to the Umschlagplatz took place without turmoil. With contempt, the Doctor rejected an SS-man’s offer to stay behind. He helped load the children into the wagons. The children were calm because, after all, the Doctor and Mrs. Stefa were with them. Henryk Goldszmit was the last to enter the wagon. As befits a father, he went to his death along with the flock of his Jewish children. [overcrossed: as their inseparable part... he confessed his truth.]
[...and his] employees entered the final stage of their journey leading to the extermination camp in Treblinka. This proud, wordless protest traveled around the world, alarmed public opinion, moved human hearts and consciences, and became a legend.
Korczak's legendary death was a logical conclusion, an inevitable consequence of a life devoted entirely to the work and struggle for the welfare of the child.
X X X
Let us try to gather a handful of knowledge about Henryk Goldszmit, to understand Him, and perhaps not only Him...
He was born in Warsaw into an assimilated, wealthy, intellectual family. He was given the name Henryk after his grandfather Hersz—a doctor. The child was raised in the spirit of Polish culture, upon Polish customs and traditions. [overcrossed: One can even surmise that later, for a long time, he identified with the country in which he was born, grew up, and considered his own.]
When news of the child's birth reached the Chief Rabbi of Paris, a friend of the Goldszmit family, he wrote in his well-wishes that the boy would grow up to be a great man in Israel.
The Jewish nation can undoubtedly be proud of its son, the "father of other people's children"—who lived beautifully and, in a human way, died an inhuman death along with them... Korczak's achievements in the field of theory and practice of education, and His literary legacy, have become the property of the world. His books are translated even into Japanese, not to mention English, French, Hebrew, Russian, or German.
Who exactly was Janusz Korczak? How did he win the fame and sympathy of the world? I will limit myself to providing certain facts from his biography, so that the reader may understand the process of t h e b e c o m i n g a n d t h e p e r i s h i n g of this M a n.
Marek Rudnicki shared with me during my visit to Paris:
"On the recommendation of the community council (read Jedenrat), I worked at the Umschlagplatz, where the overcrowded cattle trains departed for Treblinka. Because of that, I witnessed the penultimate stage of the final journey.
Doctor Korczak was terribly tired. What was he thinking about? I do not know. He looked at me and said, 'This is the end.' Then he added, 'Why?'
This question, directed mostly at himself, has followed me for the rest of my life. As I mentioned, he was incredibly weary. He wasn't holding any child in his arms; he simply didn't have the strength for it. His eyes were filled with tears. Over and over again, he whispered, 'Why? Why? Why?'"
