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A field of buttercups

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Janusz Korczak began his Jewish orphanage in Warsaw before the Second World War, but when the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, he and the orphans were moved to the Warsaw ghetto. Three years later the Treblinka II extermination camp was opened and each day more than 5000 Jews were shipped in freight cars from Warsaw to its gas chambers. On August 5th, 1942 Korczak was offered the chance to save himself. He declined. Later, at Treblinka, he and the children were gassed to death. This book is a moving addition to World War Two archives.

220 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1969

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Joe Hyams

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Profile Image for Gary.
1,087 reviews253 followers
August 1, 2019
By the age of 30, Janusz Korczak gave up a succesful medical practise and the possibility of family of his own to open the Our Children's Home orphanage for Jewish children in Warsaw.
When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, the orphanage was forced to move into the Warsaw Ghetto.
Three years later the Treblinka II death camp was opened and every week thousands of Jews were deported to die there.
Even when news of the genocide filtered back into the ghetto, the Jewish population there refused to believe what was happening and preffered to shut out this reality grasping for hope.
On 5 August 1942, the orphanage was evacuated from the ghetto to the death camps.
Dr Korczak was given the option of abandoning the 200 Jewish children in his care, but chose to die together with the children.

This cruel act helped to ignite the Warsaw ghetto uprisings, fuled by the cry "Remember Dr Korczak's orphans".
Two weeks after the evacuation of Dr Korczak's orphange to the death camps, the first blows were struck in the Warsaw Ghetto uprsising.
This book is a moving novelization of Dr Korczak's work in the orphanage and the story of the children who lived there, dealing with the stories of some of the children there.
It ends with a description of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
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