Janusz Korczak

Henryk Goldszmit, writing as Janusz Korczak, trained as a pediatrician and became known as Pan Doktor—Mr. Doctor—to the children he served. In 1919 he drafted a children's constitution, an early attempt to codify rights for the young. He spent years running an orphanage in Warsaw, building a world where children had voice and structure. When the Germans forced the orphanage into the ghetto, friends urged him to flee Poland. He refused and moved in with his orphans. On 7 August 1942, during the Grossaktion Warschau, the entire population of the institution was deported to Treblinka. He went wit…