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| The property at 2 Franciszkańska Street was leased (rented) by the "Help for Orphans" Society. Here is the 2-4 Franciszkańska building. Number 2, where the orphanage was placed, is the part of the building in the shadow and close to the Church of St. Francis. |
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| The property at 2 Franciszkańska Street was leased (rented) by the "Help for Orphans" Society. Here is the 2-4 Franciszkańska building. Number 2, where the orphanage was placed, is the part of the building in the shadow and close to the Church of St. Francis. |
The author was Paulina Appenszlak, and she wrote it on October 1, 1943, in "W drodze," published in Jerusalem. Below is the English translation of the text written by Paulina Appenszlak on October 1, 1943.
I was 8 or 9 years old at the time, and Korczak went by the name of Doctor Henryk Goldszmit. He wore a black tie tied into a bow and had a thick, reddish mane of hair when I first saw him with two three-year-old children held on his lap. It was at the Orphanage on Franciszkańska Street—that famous Orphanage in Warsaw which later became Korczak's home, while his only family became hundreds of orphans. The doctor, young at the time, resembled Judym—because it was precisely during those days that the Judyms of the world walked the streets of Warsaw—and he would appear every day at 5 o'clock to examine and play with the children. Through my geography and natural science teacher and her sisters, Julia and Stefania Wilczyńska—two elegant young ladies from a wealthy, assimilated home who had just returned from completing their studies in Switzerland with feverish minds packed with a mission to bring education, one of whom was hired at a middle-class boarding school for girls—I became friends with the Orphanage. With a group of young girls, we would come first for communal games with the children, and later, as we grew older, to organize amateur theater plays, garden patches, help with homework, and so on. At 5 o'clock, we would sit in a large hall around a table; each of us received a tin mug of warm milk and two buns. Korczak, Julia and Stefania Wilczyńska, we outsider children, and the children from the Orphanage formed a perfectly harmonious company. We quickly grew accustomed to the poor Polish spoken by the orphans; Korczak would repeat certain Yiddish words to learn them by heart. He was then a young, highly promising Polish writer whose first book, Child of the Drawing Room (Dziecko salonu), had triggered an abundance of discussion. I could not explain one thing to myself: why was he not disgusted by children with large scabs on their shaved skulls? And I watched in silent admiration as he held close and kissed those tiny, scabbed little creatures.
