 The official invitation from the Secretariat of Ein Harod, dated April 20, 1937—fully coordinated with the Jewish Agency (Sochnut)—was Korczak´s tangible, institutional weapon in this fight. An identical certificate allowing permanent settlement in Mandate Palestine and work with the children in the kibbutz was also extended to his closest collaborator, Stefania Wilczyńska, following her longest, multi-month stay in 1938–1939. |
The Fire of Life, the Mechanics of Aliyah, and Demystifying the Myth of "Korczak's Depression"
When analyzing the profound anguish that echoes in Janusz Korczak’s late letters to Pan Józek, we must categorically reject the prevailing biographical consensus that views the Doctor merely as a resigned old man sunk in clinical apathy. This is a glaring oversimplification. Despite the undeniable episodes of melancholy, physical exhaustion, and the bitter balance sheet of disillusionments that he openly admits, a powerful, fierce, and creative fire of life burned within Korczak until the very end. The Old Doctor was never a man to hide from the world in moments of crisis. The most definitive proof of his immense vitality and his active search for a way out of the existential trap lies in his formalized efforts toward a radical "change of climate"—meaning the moral and social climate of a free Galilee.
The official invitation from the Secretariat of Ein Harod, dated April 20, 1937—fully coordinated with the Jewish Agency (Sochnut)—was his tangible, institutional weapon in this fight. An identical certificate allowing permanent settlement in Mandate Palestine and work with the children in the kibbutz was also extended to his closest collaborator, Stefania Wilczyńska, following her longest, multi-month stay in 1938–1939.
At this juncture, however, we must uncompromisingly dismantle the contemporary biographical myth that attempts to paint Wilczyńska’s journey back to Poland in May 1939 as a sentimental "return to her children," while diagnosing Korczak with a paralyzing depression. Kicińska, in her biography „Pani Stefa”, points to a heavily mythologized dialogue that allegedly took place in Ein Harod right before her departure in May:
Fejga: – You promised to stay.
Stefa: – My children are there. (1939, En Charod)
When this literary postcard is confronted with hard archival data and the actual calendar of the Doctor's achievements, a completely different reality emerges. The assertion that Stefa "returned to take care of her children" is a historical absurdity—after more than a year of total absence from Warsaw, upon her arrival in May 1939, she encountered a completely new rotation of wards at the Orphans' Home, children she physically did not even know. Furthermore, a direct witness of those days, my father Pan Misza, who frequently visited her, documented a solid fact: before her migration, Stefa, much like Korczak, had formally detached herself from the Orphans' Home, left her job there, and moved into her own private apartment in the Wola district (on a side street off Wolska Street). Her journey to Warsaw in May 1939 was therefore a temporary, kind of administrative and family visit, not a permanent return to her former duties.
The ultimate refutation of Korczak's supposed "paralyzing depression" is the titanic, almost unbelievable volume of his work throughout 1938 and 1939. A man trapped in clinical apathy does not manage such a multifaceted surge of productivity!
Let us review the hard facts of 1938:
- Radio and Press: From March 1938, Korczak delivers his legendary radio talks on loneliness, which are printed concurrently in the weekly magazine „Antena”. Simultaneously, he publishes in three different periodicals in Hebrew and Yiddish. The magazine „Dziecko i matka” (Child and Mother) regularly features his essays.
- Education and Literature: He conducts lectures for the Frajhajt organization in Zielonka near Warsaw. In May 1938, his monumental book „The Stubborn Boy...” about Louis Pasteur is published. From July to mid-August, the Old Doctor broadcasts his "Spoken Novel" in 15 radio episodes. By the close of the year, he publishes another novel, „People are Good”.
- Recognition and Medical Practice: On the occasion of his 60th birthday, a highly flattering tribute was published in „Przegląd Społeczny”. In October, he delivers major public lectures, donating all proceeds to the Orphans' Home. Most fascinatingly, Korczak continues his active medical practice—listed in the official registry of physicians as a pediatric specialist operating from 8 Złota Street under the telephone number: 98-620.
This staggering momentum continues unabated into 1939:
- His new tale, „The Three Expeditions of Hershek”, is published. In January, he broadcasts three more radio lectures, and his talks are compiled and published in book form as „Pedagogika żartobliwa” (Playful Pedagogy).
- In May 1939—precisely when hagiographers claim he was paralyzed by depression—he publishes a vital educational essay titled „Lekkomyślność” (Recklessness) in the quarterly journal „Szkoła Specjalna”.
- In June, he pens the first part of a new novel, „Religia dziecka” (The Religion of the Child). The period from June to the end of August brings the summer idyll we know from his letters to Arnon: salt baths in Druskininki and, thereafter, "reading" 20 new children during the Gocławek camp.
What superficially appeared to be "depression" was, in truth, the utter physical exhaustion of a 60-year-old body fighting tirelessly on five fronts simultaneously.
We must reiterate a fundamental historical truth with absolute clarity: in the summer of 1939, nobody in Europe truly anticipated the outbreak of war at that exact moment—not the Polish government, not Korczak, and certainly not Stefa. Everyone lived with the perspective of a normal autumn. The Doctor's handwritten words in his letter to Gilead on August 22 stand as a monumental, historically important proof: “I do not want you to write back to me if we are to see each other.” A similar letter was sent at the same time to Józek Arnon-Halpern. Korczak was fully planning his autumn flight via LOT airlines to Tel Aviv for late September or early October to teach the children of Galilee how to fly kites and make Bengal lights.
It was the sudden, brutal explosion of the global apocalypse on September 1, 1939, that ruthlessly shifted the human and political climate, ending the alleged "years of crisis and depression" and commencing a time of ultimate, heroic combat. The war permanently sealed the borders, trapping both educators in the occupied city and forcing them to once again become an inseparable part of the Orphans' Home, fighting for survival.
