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| "In the Saxon Garden" |
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| FOR THE CHILDREN. I was once an involuntary witness to the following confidence: "Mommy," a seven-year-old girl said to her mother, the owner of a small grocery shop, "if only you knew where I’ve been?". "Well, where?" the mother asked, rather casually, while wrapping up the sold groats. "In the Saxon Garden." |
Korczak's Saxon Garden
An Exploration of Space and Memory
by Romuald Roman Wasserman Wroblewski
Janusz Korczak’s favorite place during his childhood and youth was the Saxon Garden (Ogród Saski), where he regularly met with peers and older schoolmates. As a child, when he lived at Krakowskie Przedmieście 77 *, he surely visited the park accompanied by his mother, Cecylia, and his grandmother, Emilia. Probably, it was here, on the frozen surface of the park's pond, that he first learned how to ice-skate.
The memory of plucking flowers and the ice rink is deeply intertwined with the topography of the Saxon Garden. The exact, vivid description from Korczak’s own entries in his Ghetto Diary (Pamiętnik z getta) reads as follows:
"From the age of 7 to 14, I was continuously in love, over and over again, with a different girl. Interestingly, I remember many of them. — Two sisters from the ice-rink, a cousin. Stacha, the one in mourning, Zosia. Kolchorn, Anielka, Irenka from Nałęczów — Stefcia, for whom I used to pluck flowers from the flowerbed near the fountain in the Saxon Garden. — And the little tightrope walker; I wept over her heavy lot. I loved for a week, a month, sometimes two or three girls at the same time."
Leon Rygier, who was Henryk Goldszmit’s schoolmate during their gymnasium years, described a formative encounter with the young Korczak—who was still wearing his blue university student uniform at the time. Korczak was sitting on a bench in the Saxon Garden, completely absorbed in studying the children playing under the watchful eyes of their nannies. When Rygier questioned him on why he had chosen medicine and whether it would hinder his writing aspirations, the young Korczak responded with words that would become the ultimate manifesto of his future clinical and pedagogical methodology:
"Being a physician did not prevent Chekhov from becoming a great writer. On the contrary, it deepened his creative work. To write anything of true value, one must be a diagnostician. (...) Medicine will grant me an insight into human personality, and even into the very nature of children's play. Look at those children over there. Every single one plays differently. I want to know why."
When Korczak formally opened the Orphanage (Dom Sierot) at 92 Krochmalna Street in 1912, the Saxon Garden transformed into the primary destination for excursions and recreation for his small wards. Krochmalna Street was at that time a densely populated, impoverished, and entirely gray quarter of the Wola district, completely starved of green spaces. For the children who spent their entire days trapped in those tenement courtyards, a walk to the Saxon Garden felt like an expedition to an entirely different universe. Consequently, Korczak organized regular group walks to the park.
Within the Saxon Garden, the so-called Wilhelm Elias Rau Children's Gardens operated. These were specially designated, modernly equipped playgrounds and sports fields where trained animators organized physical games, sports, and gymnastics for youth. Korczak, as a progressive educator and a pediatrician deeply concerned with physical development and hygiene, immensely valued this space. He made certain that his podopieczni (wards) frequented it regularly to breathe and move freely. See below Korczak's article about it.
FOR THE CHILDREN.
I was once an involuntary witness to the following confidence:
"Mommy," a seven-year-old girl said to her mother, the owner of a small grocery shop, "if only you knew where I’ve been!"
"Well, where?" the mother asked, rather casually, while wrapping up the sold groats.
"In the Saxon Garden."
"And what did you do there?"
"I played, but if only you knew, Mommy, I played with real young ladies. They had such beautiful dresses and yellow shoes."
"Mommy," a seven-year-old girl said to her mother, the owner of a small grocery shop, "if only you knew where I’ve been!"
"Well, where?" the mother asked, rather casually, while wrapping up the sold groats.
"In the Saxon Garden."
"And what did you do there?"
"I played, but if only you knew, Mommy, I played with real young ladies. They had such beautiful dresses and yellow shoes."
I understood then—whom little Mania called a "real" young lady.
For a long time, I remained under the deep impression of this confidence from that poor child. Whenever I passed through the garden afterward, I would look at the children playing, hoping to catch sight of those "Manias" who would later speak with rapture of playing with "real" young ladies. I saw few of them. Not because the children refused to admit their more modestly dressed companions to their games, but because they were either not allowed into the garden at all, or they did not even dare to propose to the "real" young ladies to admit them to their shared play.
Today, in addition to children's play in the park, free games have also been organized for poor children in the vicinity of Aleje Ujazdowskie. The list is closed; a dozen or so children have been registered beyond the full capacity.
Who knows that parallel to the glittering, rich avenues run the impoverished streets of the Vistula district? Anyone who has walked on Sundays or on weekday evenings along Solec, Rozbrat, and Czerniakowska streets, and so on, knows how well-chosen this spot is. But anyone who has also visited the Old Town streets, who knows Rybaki and Mostowa streets on one side, Wola on the other, and Nowa Praga on the third, believes—or at least dreams—that in these three locations as well, organized play for poor children will come into existence.
Let children know how to play, and they will also know how to work. Let those who play at summer camps for part of their vacations spend the other two parts breathing the air of parks and squares through cheerful and healthy play.
Janusz.
This 1899 text, titled "FOR THE CHILDREN," represents one of the most vital, foundational pillars of Korczak’s universalist worldview. It bridges your recent archival discoveries into a brilliant, seamless narrative:
- The Origin of the Famous Manifesto: This article serves as the direct source of Leon Rygier’s account of the young student Goldszmit investigating the nature of children's play in the Saxon Garden. The decree—“Let children know how to play, and they will also know how to work”—stands as the absolute bedrock of his future methodology. It is his earliest radical recognition that play is a child's full-fledged developmental labor, deserving supreme respect.
- The Geography of Exclusion: With profound empathy and razor-sharp sociological precision, Korczak maps the landscape of turn-of-the-century Warsaw’s poverty. By naming specific streets—Solec, Rozbrat, Czerniakowska, Rybaki, Mostowa, and the industrial working-class district of Wola—he actively dreams of a future where children trapped in grim tenement courtyards can access sun, air, and greenery. Thirteen years later, in 1912, he would materialize this exact dream by building his historic Orphanage right there in Wola, at 92 Krochmalna Street.
- Childhood Apartheid: The poignant metaphor of the "yellow shoes" and the "real young ladies" exposes a brutal truth about class segregation, which children sensed intuitively. Little Mania feels inherently lesser because her daily reality is bounded by a dark grocery shop filled with sacks of groats, while the elite space of the Saxon Garden belongs to the wealthy. Korczak dedicated his entire life to dismantling this boundary—whether on Śliska Street or within the revolutionary pages of Mały Przegląd.
* During my own childhood and youth, it was the Saxon Garden (Ogród Saski), where I regularly met with peers and older schoolmates. As a child, when we lived at Krakowskie Przedmieście 15, Saxon Garden was the place where I played with my lovely dog Alba.
