מאָשקע/modyf. משה מאַך זיך נישט וויס n – Mojsze, Pretend You Know Nothing
INTERPELATION.
In Yiddish: Mejsze mach zych nyszt wysen.
In Polish: Gadaj zdrów (Talk all you want / It's like talking to a brick wall).
Is it known to the councilors of the capital city of Warsaw that for a month now Mały Przegląd has been demanding the removal of barbed wire from the Krasiński Garden?
Mały Przegląd asks with absolute firmness whether the councilors will raise this matter at the session, because public opinion is deeply shaken and outraged—and things might turn sour?
We wait impatiently for an answer, and we enclose greetings to the whole family and bows.
Archival Commentary: The Fight for a Sliver of Green and the Satirical Bite
This short text from the fourth issue, dated November 5, 1926, exposes a real topographical tragedy of pre-war Warsaw. The Krasiński Garden, along with the Saxon Garden, was among the absolute favorite places of Janusz Korczak and the children from the adjacent Jewish quarter. In this severely overcrowded, northern part of the city, there was a desperate lack of green spaces. The children literally had nowhere to breathe, and the fact that the city administration cordoned off their tiny slivers of freedom with barbed wire sparked genuine outrage.
The phonetically written phrase "Mejsze mach zych nyszt wysen" (in classical Yiddish: Mojsze, makh zikh nisht visn) translates literally to: “Mojsze, pretend you know nothing about it”—the Yiddish equivalent of playing dumb. The editorial team deliberately pairs this idiom with the Polish phrase "Gadaj zdrów" ("it's like talking to a brick wall"). Korczak and the children act as formal petitioners lodging an "interpellation" to the Warsaw City Council to protect the playground, while simultaneously mocking the soullessness of adult bureaucracy: We are submitting an official petition, but the city councilors will just "pretend they know nothing," leaving us to futilely "talk to a brick wall."
Debunking the Myth: Did Korczak Know Yiddish?
A swarm of false myths has surrounded Korczak’s alleged "ignorance" of the Yiddish language. Many superficial biographers swear that the Doctor did not know it at all, attempting to forcefully cram him exclusively into the framework of Polish culture. This also stems from an old class prejudice of the assimilated intelligentsia, who dismissed Yiddish as a "slum jargon." The truth, as I have documented on my blog, is quite different: Korczak understood Yiddish perfectly by ear. While he did not speak it in elite salons or write his books in it, he learned it methodologically directly from working-class children (as recorded by Paulina Appenszlak at the orphanage on Franciszkańska 2). He had to know it, and he did, in order to listen to the children's grievances during summer camps in Michałówka or at Krochmalna Street. The very subtitle of this Interpellation serves as direct, hard proof of his comprehension. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
P.S. The Living Speech of Pan Misza and Khane Kostek
My father, Pan Misza, who worked for many years as an educator alongside Janusz Korczak in the Orphanage, carried the vibrant, juicy folklore of the Warsaw Jewish street through the horrors of the war. Whenever he heard a complete absurdity or wanted to dismiss something as utter "nonsense!", he would use another, exceptionally rare Yiddish idiom: "A zajur af Hane Kostek!" (A yor oyf Khane Kostek! – אַ יאָ r אויף חנה קאָסטעק).
In Jewish Warsaw, "Khane Kostek" was a synonym for a quarrelsome, lower-class woman—the ultimate archetype of perpetual bad luck and constant complaining. The phrase functioned as an ironic curse: “May such a [bad] year fall upon Khane Kostek, but not upon us,” or “What you are saying makes as much sense as wishing a good year to Khane Kostek.” It is tangible proof that the circle of educators around Korczak breathed the authentic, unpolished speech of Muranów and Wola, rather than just the dry theories found in textbooks.
