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How to love a child | International M.A. in Education

How to love a child

 
In honor of Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel

 

Dr. Henryk Goldszmit was born in July, 1878, to a wealthy Jewish family in Warsaw. At the age of five, so his diary recalls, he had some hard thoughts about the world he was born into:

“I revealed to Grandma in an intimate conversation my daring plans to change the world... the plan was to get rid of all the money in the world. How, and to where, and what to do next, I did not know... The problem was far more complicated and difficult: If only there would no longer be dirty, worn-out, hungry children with whom I wasn't allowed to play in the yard.”

 

At the age of 20, he began to study medicine in Warsaw, and after completing his studies he worked as a doctor in a children's hospital. He lived in the hospital's complex and cared for the children around the clock. He received patients from the poor working-class neighborhood without charging them a fee and sometimes even gave them money for medicine. In the early 20th century, he traveled throughout Europe researching childcare practices. In London, as recorded in his diary, he made a decision to never have a family of his own, but rather to dedicate his life to caring for children.

 

In 1912, together with Stefania Wilczyńska, he established a Jewish orphanage in Warsaw. It was a very unusual educational institution that was run by a democratic children's parliament and a children's court. Each of the orphans had the right to summon any of the house occupants who had harmed him or committed an offense; even the orphanage director was not immune from being put on trial.

 

Goldszmit wrote books on pedagogy; one of the best known is How to Love a Child. He believed that an educator's words can only impact a child if the educator maintains "spiritual hygiene" - a true inner belief in the child's inner good. He is the source of the famous saying, "There is no bad child; there is a child who feels bad and therefore takes out his frustration."

 

During the years he ran the orphanage, he wrote children's books under the pen name Janusz Korczak. He founded the first newspaper for children and youth in Poland which was written entirely by children. In addition, he had his own top-rated radio show, in which he addressed children directly and talked to them as equals. However, racial segregation and the boycotting of Jewish businesses in the 1930s included pressure on the Polish media, eventually leading to both the newspaper and the radio program being shut down.

 

After the orphanage was moved to the Warsaw ghetto, Goldszmit moved in with the children, refusing to abandon them despite repeatedly received offers of safe sanctuary on the Aryan side. When the German soldiers suddenly appeared in early August 1942, ordering an evacuation of the building in which the orphanage was housed, Wilczyńska and Goldszmit told the children that they were taking them for a walk outside the ghetto to see fields, forests, and flowers. Each child was asked to take a favorite toy or book with them. The children and the staff marched from the orphanage to the deportation point. Goldszmit marched at the head of the group, holding the youngest children in his arms. The children, along with Wilczyńska and Goldszmit, were all murdered in the Treblinka death camp.

 

Goldszmit’s literary legacy includes social journalism, articles and pedagogical essays, works of fiction, and children’s stories. His educational approach continues to serve as an inspiration for many educators worldwide. His diary includes the following brief prayer: "Give me, God, a hard but beautiful, rich, and noble life." 

It seems that his prayer was answered.

 

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