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| “Words are plants, the writer is a gardener... Fate has assigned me the painful role of a gardener whose bouquets consist of thistles and nettles.” |
A Manifesto of Mercy: Korczak’s Secret Appeal for the Children of 39 Dzielna Street.
Words are plants, the writer is a gardener
who arranges them into flowerbeds and wreaths. – Fate has assigned me the painful role of a gardener whose bouquets consist of thistles and nettles.Rebellious against this bitter destiny, this time I wish
to offer the Audience a bouquet of lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots.Subject: the defense of the Orphanage at Dzielna 39, which public opinion unjustly and wrongfully names a slaughterhouse for children and an inquisition.Honor to the crew that did not abandon ship during
the terrible storm.An informational lecture /without punishment*/ will take place
on date..... at hour...... in the hall
Among the fragmentary typescripts rescued from the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto, this short, undated document stands out as a tragic yet fierce testament to Janusz Korczak’s tactical brilliance and unwavering moral courage.
Featuring blank spaces for a date, time, and location (“on date..... at hour...... in the hall”), this page is not a retrospective memoir. It is a surviving draft of a critical placard or a confidential invitation to a high-level emergency assembly inside the ghetto.
The Slaughterhouse and the Inquisition
The target of public outrage was the infamous Main Boarding House for Foundlings and Orphans at Dzielna Street (historically operating under CENTOS). This institution was the ultimate collection point for the most desperate victims of the ghetto—infants and children found dying on the sidewalks, skeletal, naked, and ravaged by typhus. Because the mortality rate inside these overcrowded rooms was agonizingly high, the desperate, terrified populace of the ghetto began to whisper a brutal verdict: they called the shelter a "children's slaughterhouse" and an "inquisition."
This public shunning threatened to completely cut off the institution from what little community funding and volunteer aid remained.
A Gardener Defying Fate
Korczak refused to let these children be condemned by public opinion. He stepped forward to activate his immense social authority, drafting this invitation to summon the ghetto’s most influential figures—intellectuals, Council officials, and wealthy patrons—to an "Informational Lecture."
His introductory words are pure Korczakian poetry, laced with bitter reality:
“Words are plants, the writer is a gardener... Fate has assigned me the painful role of a gardener whose bouquets consist of thistles and nettles.”
For months, Korczak’s official reports to CENTOS had been forced to consist only of "thistles and nettles"—the cold, sharp statistics of death and starvation. But for this specific meeting, he rebels against his bitter lot. He promises his audience a symbolic bouquet of "lilies of the valley and forget-me-nots"—an appeal to their raw humanity, a plea to remember that beneath the horrific conditions, these were still human children who deserved a fighting chance at survival.
Honor to the Crew
Furthermore, the text is a desperate, public shield thrown over the heavily criticized staff: “Honor to the crew that did not abandon ship during the terrible storm.” Korczak used his voice to remind the ghetto that the nurses, doctors, and caretakers working inside the hell of Dzielna were not executioners; they were heroic individuals who refused to desert their posts while everyone else turned away in horror.
This document, preserved by my father, Pan Misza, reveals the exact machinery of ghetto survival: an unwritten code where an "informational lecture" was weaponized not to discuss theory, but to force the influential elite to look into the eyes of the most vulnerable and extend a saving hand before the storm devoured them all.
