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On the left side of the photograph is the circular building of the Hygienic Society. In the background, hotels, Europeiski, and Bristol. |
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| On the right side of the photograph is the circular building of the Hygienic Society. In the background, across the Vistula River—seemingly as an extension of Karowa Street—stood Korczak’s gymnasium on Brukowa Street, which is now Okrzei Street. |
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| The building of the Hygienic Society in May 2026. |
From My Own World of Memories: Janusz Korczak’s 1923 Lecture at 31 Karowa Street in Warszawa.
It took me many years to realize that the lecture hall of the Hygienic Society on Karowa Street in Warsaw—where I often went in the 1950s for children's morning matinees—was the very same hall where Janusz Korczak delivered his pre-war lectures. It is a beautiful, high-ceilinged room with a balcony, quietly preserving the echoes of long-lost ideals.
On March 4, 1923, inside the building of the Polish Hygienic Society at Karowa 31, Janusz Korczak gave a lecture entitled "The World of a Child's Memories." From my childhood memories, I vividly remember my father, "Pan Misza" (Michał Wróblewski / Waserman), constantly repeating Korczak’s teachings on the vital importance of a "hygienic lifestyle". After the war, my father began every single day exactly as he did during his time as a ward and staff member at the Orphans' Home: with mandatory morning calisthenics. This simple, daily routine was a living, physical footprint of Korczak’s discipline, which my father carried through the hell of the ghetto and the war into our post-war home.
An Oasis of Public Health: Karowa 31
The Warsaw Hygienic Society (later the Polish Hygienic Society) was founded in 1898 on the initiative of a group of passionate social activists, hygienists, and educators. Their goal was singular—to promote public health, maternal protection, and child hygiene within society. For Korczak, a pediatrician and educator, it was the perfect and most prestigious platform in the capital.
Built between 1913 and 1915, the building at Karowa 31 miraculously survived World War II and still stands today. It housed a rich library with a reading room, modern scientific and practical research laboratories, and the aforementioned amphitheater-style lecture hall.
Pre-war photographs of this area show the home of the Warsaw Hygienic Society with the rear of the Visitandines Church on the left, and the silhouettes of the luxurious Hotel Europejski and Hotel Bristol in the background. On the right side of the photograph, you can see the circular building of the Hygienic Society itself. In the background of the image, across the Vistula River—seemingly as a direct extension of Karowa Street—stood Korczak’s gymnasium on Brukowa Street (now renamed Okrzei Street). It was in this interconnected setting that Warsaw’s intelligentsia gathered to listen to the Old Doctor.
A Silent Witness to Crisis: The Poster and 1923 Hyperinflation
The surviving poster advertising this specific lecture is a fascinating historical artifact. What immediately catches the eye is the admission cost printed at the very bottom: 2100–3000 Polish marks. This astronomical sum hides a harsh and dramatic economic reality from early 1923. Poland was experiencing a catastrophic financial crisis and galloping hyperinflation, just before Władysław Grabski’s currency reform and the introduction of the złoty. The currency was losing value by the day—in March 1923, 3,000 marks was by no means a fortune; it was merely equivalent to the price of a few loaves of bread or a modest restaurant dinner. These tickets, sold at locations like the Workers' Bookstore on Wspólna Street 17, were purely charitable. Every bit of proceeds from the lecture was destined to help rescue the youngest.
The event was organized by the "Nasz Dom" (Our Home) Society. A care and educational facility for working-class children had already existed in Pruszków since November 15, 1919, founded by Maryna Falska, Janusz Korczak, and Maria Podwysocka. In 1923, the official "Nasz Dom" Society was established with the overriding goal of organizing permanent material aid for the Pruszków institution.
The Marshal’s wife, Aleksandra Piłsudska, became actively involved in the society’s work and fundraising, including through lectures like this one on Karowa Street. Thanks to these combined efforts, the tickets bought "with a generous hand" by Warsaw residents, and the unwavering backing of trade unions, immense funds were soon raised to purchase a plot of land in the Bielany district. This paved the way for the construction of their legendary new home shaped like an airplane, designed by architect Zygmunt Tarasin in close consultation with Janusz Korczak. In 1928, "Nasz Dom" could finally spread its wings and move from Pruszków to Bielany.
Korczak’s March 1923 presentation on Karowa Street was one of those small bricks used to build the safe haven of the Bielany airplane—a world that, just a decade and a half later, would brutally collide with the nightmare of war.
