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A Light in the Darkness: Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and the Holocaust
The story of Janusz Korczak, the heroic Polish Jewish doctor who devoted his life to children, perishing with them in the Holocaust.
Janusz Korczak was more than a good doctor. He was a hero. The Dr. Spock of his day, he established orphanages run on his principle of honoring children and shared his ideas with the public in books and on the radio. He famously said that "children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today." Korczak was a man ahead of his time, whose work ultimately became the basis for the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Korczak was also a Polish Jew on the eve of World War II. He turned down multiple opportunities for escape, standing by the children in his orphanage as they became confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. Dressing them in their Sabbath finest, he led their march to the trains and ultimately perished with his children in Treblinka.
Albert Marrin examines not just Janusz Korczak's life but his ideology of children: that children are valuable in and of themselves, as individuals. He contrasts this with Adolf Hitler's life and his ideology of children: that children are nothing more than tools of the state.
And throughout, Marrin draws readers into the Warsaw Ghetto. What it was like. How it was run. How Jews within and Poles without responded. Who worked to save lives and who tried to enrich themselves on other people's suffering. And how one man came to represent the conscience and the soul of humanity.
Janusz Korczak was more than a good doctor. He was a hero. The Dr. Spock of his day, he established orphanages run on his principle of honoring children and shared his ideas with the public in books and on the radio. He famously said that "children are not the people of tomorrow, but people today." Korczak was a man ahead of his time, whose work ultimately became the basis for the U.N. Declaration of the Rights of the Child.
Korczak was also a Polish Jew on the eve of World War II. He turned down multiple opportunities for escape, standing by the children in his orphanage as they became confined to the Warsaw Ghetto. Dressing them in their Sabbath finest, he led their march to the trains and ultimately perished with his children in Treblinka.
Albert Marrin examines not just Janusz Korczak's life but his ideology of children: that children are valuable in and of themselves, as individuals. He contrasts this with Adolf Hitler's life and his ideology of children: that children are nothing more than tools of the state.
And throughout, Marrin draws readers into the Warsaw Ghetto. What it was like. How it was run. How Jews within and Poles without responded. Who worked to save lives and who tried to enrich themselves on other people's suffering. And how one man came to represent the conscience and the soul of humanity.
388 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2019
66 people are currently reading
621 people want to read
About the author
Albert Marrin
58 books82 followersAlbert Marrin is a historian and the author of more than twenty nonfiction books for young people. He has won various awards for his writing, including the 2005 James Madison Book Award and the 2008 National Endowment for Humanities Medal. In 2011, his book Flesh and Blood So Cheap was a National Book Award Finalist. Marrin is the Chairman of the History Department at New York's Yeshiva University.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 83 reviews
January 21, 2020
Marrin is an expert researcher. His latest book, A Light in the Darkness, has over 30 pages of notes and several pages of selected sources backing up the details contained in his book. Ostensibly, the book is a biography of Janusz Korczak, a pediatrician, author and playwright who created an orphanage for young children. This book is so much more, however. Korczak had multiple opportunities to escape the ghetto and death at the Treblinka concentration camp, but refused to the leave the children he loved. He asked if the children would be kept safe and when learning that there was no guarantee, Korczak replied, “it is best that I keep the children with me.” His life is set in direct contrast with the horrific acts of Adolf Hitler and his fellow Nazis who considered Jewish children vermin and one of the most important targets of the Nazi Final Solution. Hitler and Himmler believed that Judaism was in the children’s “blood” and “souls” and that “even the child in the cradle must be trampled down like a poisonous toad.” Hitler’s systematic method of dehumanizing the Jewish people, the mentally ill, etc. is explored at depth. The book also explores how typical Germans were caught up in the racist ideas of Hitler (and used those to justify horrible atrocities), along with how German children were sacrificed in the war in inappropriate ways (many Hitler Youth were sent to the front lines in the final days of the war). Meanwhile, Janusz Korczak’s legacy lives on in Europe and worldwide; he helped draft the United Nations’ Declaration of the Rights of the Child. A Light in the Darkness is an outstanding nonfiction book about the dangers of racism and fanaticism and about the importance of valuing children.
December 27, 2019
Oh wow. This nonfiction title packs a serious punch.
I cannot believe that this book went under the radar as much as it did. Thank you YALSA's Nonfiction Award team for bringing this book to my attention.
This book is mostly darkness, so do not expect too much light. Marrin has done his research and this title is compactly written to where it did not feel like that long of a read. The material was difficult to read at times, and I did put it down as to not harsh my holiday mellow, but overall it was engaging enough to make we want to pick it back up.
4.5 stars for sure.
I cannot believe that this book went under the radar as much as it did. Thank you YALSA's Nonfiction Award team for bringing this book to my attention.
This book is mostly darkness, so do not expect too much light. Marrin has done his research and this title is compactly written to where it did not feel like that long of a read. The material was difficult to read at times, and I did put it down as to not harsh my holiday mellow, but overall it was engaging enough to make we want to pick it back up.
4.5 stars for sure.
December 31, 2020
A very difficult book to read because of the subject matter, the atrocities of the Nazis. However, reading about true heroes like Irena Sendler and Janusz Korczack, and others who cared for children so lovingly during WW2 was very inspiring.
I was a bit surprised to find this in the young adult section of the library. This is not a book that should be used to introduce the Holocaust to younger readers. For older high school students that have at least some prior knowledge of the subject, I think it would be an excellent teaching tool.
Memorable Quotes:
(Pg.26)-“Upon returning to the orphan’s home , Korczak described what had happened (to Poland during WW1) in terms a young child could understand. “It is nice to have your own drawer or closet, for then it is absolutely your own, and a place where no one else has the right to poke about without your permission. But, unfortunately, someone stronger takes your things, and dirties the room, and will not listen to you..”
I was a bit surprised to find this in the young adult section of the library. This is not a book that should be used to introduce the Holocaust to younger readers. For older high school students that have at least some prior knowledge of the subject, I think it would be an excellent teaching tool.
Memorable Quotes:
(Pg.26)-“Upon returning to the orphan’s home , Korczak described what had happened (to Poland during WW1) in terms a young child could understand. “It is nice to have your own drawer or closet, for then it is absolutely your own, and a place where no one else has the right to poke about without your permission. But, unfortunately, someone stronger takes your things, and dirties the room, and will not listen to you..”
September 2, 2024
Just know that the first part of this book is indeed about Janusz Korczak, but a good chunk of the book is about Hitler and the rise of the Nazi party, then the Warsaw ghetto, including the Uprising, followed by a brief look at post-war Poland. While I appreciated that context, I was a bit disappointed about how much of the book was not about Janusz Korczak. In that way, the title is very much misleading. I did appreciate learning more about Korczak, as I've been introduced to him in a variety of texts and films and really wanted to know more.
January 30, 2021
My first effort at reviewing this amazing book disappeared into the ether. So much for the myth that nothing ever really goes away on the internet! I have read a number of Marrin's works, all of which range from very good to excellent. This one is magnificent. Korczack was a leading philosopher on how to teach children. He was well known, and his work probably is still in advance of most in the education field today. His work formed some of the basis for the UN declaration on the Rights of the Child.
This book took me well over a month to read because of Marrin's superb writing. It physically hurt me to read this book. I had indigestion and other issues from this book. Normally, if a book takes me a long time, it is because it is poorly written. Usually, I can stick with a well written book no matter what the subject matter. I couldn't this time. I have been fascinated with WWII and the Holocaust since I first read Anne Frank's diary. I finally got where I simply couldn't read any more about the Holocaust. However, once I saw Marrin had written about someone I knew almost nothing about, I braced myself and read it. I was drawn in immediately by how Marrin described the setting at Treblinka. It could have been from a novel. I put the book down many times because I couldn't endure any more of the horrors all too well described. Nonetheless, what took time was me needing to be able to brace myself to continue reading. Sometimes I could only manage a few pages, sometimes a whole chapter. Once I got past the almost mythologized final walk, I was able to keep going faster.
Let me correct that last sentence. Marrin was even more careful on that final walk than on the rest of this superb book. He knew he knew he was up against mythology and was determined to give the facts, not fiction, but without throwing out the real truth of the mythology, that love and dignity will overcome determined organized barbarity. He succeeded.
Marrin also wrote a great deal about another figure in history, who impacted Korczack's murder: Hitler. He spent enough space to make sure his audience would know just who Hitler was and what he was responsible for.
The one part of the whole story that felt just slightly skimped on was the uprising of the Jews in Warsaw. I suspect that Marrin knew perfectly well it has been written about frequently and so he did not waste his own time on what has already been done well by others. Much of what occurred after the uprising was new to me. I did not know that Hitler not only murdered the Warsaw Jews, he murdered the City of Warsaw, literally. Hitler ordered that all material that was useful or priceless be saved...other than Jewish and Polish lives of course. For example, "Himmler's wife got two priceless violins and four accordions" p.296. After this immense act of theft (that filled 23,000 freight cars), the Nazis then destroyed the City itself. They methodically took apart and demolished the entire city which had been considered one of the most beautiful capitals of the world, they blew up buildings and razed 93% of the city. With incredible irony, one of the few buildings that survived was Dom Sierot, the building that housed Korczack's orphanage. The Warsaw that exists today is almost completely a new city.
One thing I haven't seen discussed anywhere else was what happened to the children of top Nazis. The older children often revered their parents to the end of their lives. For example Gudrun Himmler "who died in 2018, still worked to keep the Nazi flame alive." p.314. However, younger descendants went in the opposite direction. Two descendants of Goring have decided they "didn't want any more Gorings.” p.315 They both had themselves sterilized.
Marrin went on to show how links from Hitler's racial hatred has impacted areas such as the Middle East which welcomed refugees from Nazi Germany and allowed them to shape much of the propaganda that has poisoned Arabic hatred of Jews.
He finished though by remembering the title of this book "A light in the Darkness". His last paragraph states "we can learn from the past, grow and become better people. Irena Sendler understood this, and she ended her interview on an upbeat note. The Polish Angel admired the Old Doctor. (One of Korczack's many nicknames) As if his spirit spoke from her heart, she said, "the world can be better if there's love, tolerance and humility." p. 334.
If you are new to the history of the Holocaust, do not start with this book. If you are particularly sensitive, you likely should skip this book. Do not read this book before bedtime or during meals. But if you read it, you will gain great sensitivity towards what makes up a person's soul. Janusz Korczack may have been murdered, but he and his children will be remembered forever. Highly recommended for the right person.
This book took me well over a month to read because of Marrin's superb writing. It physically hurt me to read this book. I had indigestion and other issues from this book. Normally, if a book takes me a long time, it is because it is poorly written. Usually, I can stick with a well written book no matter what the subject matter. I couldn't this time. I have been fascinated with WWII and the Holocaust since I first read Anne Frank's diary. I finally got where I simply couldn't read any more about the Holocaust. However, once I saw Marrin had written about someone I knew almost nothing about, I braced myself and read it. I was drawn in immediately by how Marrin described the setting at Treblinka. It could have been from a novel. I put the book down many times because I couldn't endure any more of the horrors all too well described. Nonetheless, what took time was me needing to be able to brace myself to continue reading. Sometimes I could only manage a few pages, sometimes a whole chapter. Once I got past the almost mythologized final walk, I was able to keep going faster.
Let me correct that last sentence. Marrin was even more careful on that final walk than on the rest of this superb book. He knew he knew he was up against mythology and was determined to give the facts, not fiction, but without throwing out the real truth of the mythology, that love and dignity will overcome determined organized barbarity. He succeeded.
Marrin also wrote a great deal about another figure in history, who impacted Korczack's murder: Hitler. He spent enough space to make sure his audience would know just who Hitler was and what he was responsible for.
The one part of the whole story that felt just slightly skimped on was the uprising of the Jews in Warsaw. I suspect that Marrin knew perfectly well it has been written about frequently and so he did not waste his own time on what has already been done well by others. Much of what occurred after the uprising was new to me. I did not know that Hitler not only murdered the Warsaw Jews, he murdered the City of Warsaw, literally. Hitler ordered that all material that was useful or priceless be saved...other than Jewish and Polish lives of course. For example, "Himmler's wife got two priceless violins and four accordions" p.296. After this immense act of theft (that filled 23,000 freight cars), the Nazis then destroyed the City itself. They methodically took apart and demolished the entire city which had been considered one of the most beautiful capitals of the world, they blew up buildings and razed 93% of the city. With incredible irony, one of the few buildings that survived was Dom Sierot, the building that housed Korczack's orphanage. The Warsaw that exists today is almost completely a new city.
One thing I haven't seen discussed anywhere else was what happened to the children of top Nazis. The older children often revered their parents to the end of their lives. For example Gudrun Himmler "who died in 2018, still worked to keep the Nazi flame alive." p.314. However, younger descendants went in the opposite direction. Two descendants of Goring have decided they "didn't want any more Gorings.” p.315 They both had themselves sterilized.
Marrin went on to show how links from Hitler's racial hatred has impacted areas such as the Middle East which welcomed refugees from Nazi Germany and allowed them to shape much of the propaganda that has poisoned Arabic hatred of Jews.
He finished though by remembering the title of this book "A light in the Darkness". His last paragraph states "we can learn from the past, grow and become better people. Irena Sendler understood this, and she ended her interview on an upbeat note. The Polish Angel admired the Old Doctor. (One of Korczack's many nicknames) As if his spirit spoke from her heart, she said, "the world can be better if there's love, tolerance and humility." p. 334.
If you are new to the history of the Holocaust, do not start with this book. If you are particularly sensitive, you likely should skip this book. Do not read this book before bedtime or during meals. But if you read it, you will gain great sensitivity towards what makes up a person's soul. Janusz Korczack may have been murdered, but he and his children will be remembered forever. Highly recommended for the right person.
January 8, 2021
(Some spoilers included) Personally, the book "A Light in the Darkness" by Albert Marrin was a unique and interesting book. I say this for various reasons. Multiple times throughout the book, Janusz Korczak shows his love and dedication for his orphans. He drops his medical career that he has been reaching towards all his life to help the orphans, he only ever uses respect towards the orphans, and he declines many chances of escape (in WW2). In doing so he shows his dedication towards them. He made a big impact on the world by teaching all adults to show respect, love, and dignity towards all children. If you are interested in reading about WW2 and about how Janusz Korczak stood by his orphans throughout his whole life, you should consider reading A Light in the Darkness.
January 16, 2020
This book explores the history of World War II and the Holocaust from Poland's perspective. Because Korczak and his orphans only appear during some parts of the narrative, the title is misleading, but even through this is not a strong biographical source, it is an absolutely excellent book about the narrative of the Holocaust and the horror that Polish Jews in particular experienced. This is well-researched, thoroughly cited, and filled with vivid details and clear historical explanations.
In the chapter about Hitler and Germany, this author clearly explains Hitler's rise to power and delves into aspects of his leadership and the Holocaust that usually receive less attention, such as Hitler's hatred and contempt towards Christianity and Jesus, his Darwinian influences, the specific horrors of his eugenics system, and the way that Germany's push for Aryan procreation led to birthing centers in which complete strangers conceived children together. The women lived at these centers until they gave birth, and they usually placed the babies for adoption. This source is incredibly thorough and detailed, and it also provides international context to some social issues, explaining the roots of anti-Semitism and exploring America's leading role in eugenics-by-sterilization.
At my library, this book is catalogued as juvenile nonfiction, but I believe that it is better suited to a YA audience, given its non-graphic but consistent references to sexual matters and this book's vivid descriptions of the violence that Jews suffered during the war, particularly in Warsaw and Treblinka. Although some Holocaust books for young readers generalize and omit especially graphic details, this one brings the violence to life in a reader's imagination with horrific mental images. This book is full of graphic anecdotes and details, and even though this is all true and important historical information, I would never have been able to get through this book when I was the target age for it.
I know that this is an incredibly privileged thing to say, considering that babies and children were among those witnessing and suffering this horrific violence when it happened, but parents should be aware of how unflinchingly direct and graphic this book is. It may be best, with younger or especially sensitive children, for parents to preview this or read it with their children. This book is full of heart-wrenching tragedy, explicitly described horrors, and enough devastating torment to traumatize even a child who is spared from living through any of it.
In the chapter about Hitler and Germany, this author clearly explains Hitler's rise to power and delves into aspects of his leadership and the Holocaust that usually receive less attention, such as Hitler's hatred and contempt towards Christianity and Jesus, his Darwinian influences, the specific horrors of his eugenics system, and the way that Germany's push for Aryan procreation led to birthing centers in which complete strangers conceived children together. The women lived at these centers until they gave birth, and they usually placed the babies for adoption. This source is incredibly thorough and detailed, and it also provides international context to some social issues, explaining the roots of anti-Semitism and exploring America's leading role in eugenics-by-sterilization.
At my library, this book is catalogued as juvenile nonfiction, but I believe that it is better suited to a YA audience, given its non-graphic but consistent references to sexual matters and this book's vivid descriptions of the violence that Jews suffered during the war, particularly in Warsaw and Treblinka. Although some Holocaust books for young readers generalize and omit especially graphic details, this one brings the violence to life in a reader's imagination with horrific mental images. This book is full of graphic anecdotes and details, and even though this is all true and important historical information, I would never have been able to get through this book when I was the target age for it.
I know that this is an incredibly privileged thing to say, considering that babies and children were among those witnessing and suffering this horrific violence when it happened, but parents should be aware of how unflinchingly direct and graphic this book is. It may be best, with younger or especially sensitive children, for parents to preview this or read it with their children. This book is full of heart-wrenching tragedy, explicitly described horrors, and enough devastating torment to traumatize even a child who is spared from living through any of it.
February 27, 2021
When this was good, it was very good (4 or maybe 5 stars)
The book is in a beautiful package. Many pictures that added so much texture. An unrelenting look at a horrible time. (It's very hard to read in places.) Incredibly well researched.
My small issue was : it's not really about what the title says. It's much more broadly about the Warsaw ghetto of which Korczak was an interesting part, but he sometimes feels just like a bit player in this story.
My bigger issues is : when he talks about other genocides, and talks about the Arabs using a lot of Nazi talking points to talk about why there is trouble in Palestine, it felt very misguided and not at all the full picture of the genocide that is being inflicted on Arab citizens. In a way, Marrin proves his own point, that by dehumanizing people it is easier to live with the genocide.
The book is in a beautiful package. Many pictures that added so much texture. An unrelenting look at a horrible time. (It's very hard to read in places.) Incredibly well researched.
My small issue was : it's not really about what the title says. It's much more broadly about the Warsaw ghetto of which Korczak was an interesting part, but he sometimes feels just like a bit player in this story.
My bigger issues is : when he talks about other genocides, and talks about the Arabs using a lot of Nazi talking points to talk about why there is trouble in Palestine, it felt very misguided and not at all the full picture of the genocide that is being inflicted on Arab citizens. In a way, Marrin proves his own point, that by dehumanizing people it is easier to live with the genocide.
July 31, 2020
Though clearly, engagingly written and well-researched, the book does advertise itself as focusing on one particular topic, while in reality is far broader in its coverage. There is also some minor but unfortunate editorializing and fairly clear biases borne out in choices made in the writing (e.g. I think there are ways to talk about the insularity of Orthodox Jewish shtetl communities without leaving something of an uncomfortable victim blaming taste). Obviously no one is free from bias in our viewpoints, and how they effect what we choose to pass over, as well as what we choose to include and in what style, but it's somewhat unfortunate that it comes across as blatantly in a nonfiction work by an award-winning author aimed particularly at young people.
May 23, 2022
I truly hope Hitler and all his minions are burning in Hell today.
January 12, 2025
Marrin opened my eyes to the more obscure horrors of Nazi actions during the Holocaust, particularly the lesser-known atrocities such as the inhumane medical experiments, the exploitation of forced labor, and the systemic persecution of disabled individuals and the atrocious disregard for infants (taking them as target practice), which are often overshadowed by the more widely discussed elements of mass extermination.
I also appreciated the focus on highlighting the individuals who aided in the saving of jews even while their lives were put on the line. The mistreatment of children was overwhelmingly heartbreaking and unbelievable. The book managed to carefully explain and describe the horrible conditions the victims were subjected to and even presented shards of Nazi ideology, allowing us a glimpse into how deeply Hitler had(has) his followers brainwashed for his racist agenda. Wild how they could do what they did and attempt to justify it!
This exploration of such harrowing details not only deepened my understanding of the Holocaust but also underscored the sheer scale of inhumanity involved, reminding us of the importance of confronting these painful truths so that we never forget the depths to which such ideologies can drag humanity.
I also appreciated the focus on highlighting the individuals who aided in the saving of jews even while their lives were put on the line. The mistreatment of children was overwhelmingly heartbreaking and unbelievable. The book managed to carefully explain and describe the horrible conditions the victims were subjected to and even presented shards of Nazi ideology, allowing us a glimpse into how deeply Hitler had(has) his followers brainwashed for his racist agenda. Wild how they could do what they did and attempt to justify it!
This exploration of such harrowing details not only deepened my understanding of the Holocaust but also underscored the sheer scale of inhumanity involved, reminding us of the importance of confronting these painful truths so that we never forget the depths to which such ideologies can drag humanity.
March 24, 2021
This book was amazing! Janusz Korczak was an incredible man and learning about his life and his story was so interesting and inspiring. This book was heavy but highly informative and interesting. I really loved it and felt that Marrin did a fantastic job. I loved the contrast between Korczak and Hitler. I also loved how he went into the aftermath of the war and all the families who had ties to Hitler. Highly recommend for anyone interested in WWII history.
January 24, 2020
An exceptionally well-written and thoroughly researched narrative. Korczak and his orphans are often peripheral or absent as Marrin discusses the Holocaust in broader scope, emphasizing Poland as the epicenter. Particularly interesting and unique is how Marrin contrasts Korczak, a Polish pediatrician whose orphanage was founded on his progressive philosophy about the rights of children to be individuals with Hitler's indoctrination of children to be used as tools for his Reich.
April 29, 2020
Book 22: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
A Light in the Darkness: Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and The Holocaust. By Albert Marrin.
If you’re interested in learning more details about one of the most horrific times in our history, I recommend this book to you. Maybe save it for after quarantine, especially if you’re already suffering from insomnia.
NOTABLE PASSAGES:
The numbers [Hitler] destroyed are astounding. Only 11% of Jewish children aged 16 and under survived in countries occupied by his armies. The Nazi’s were so thorough that, in 1945, a Russian-Jewish solider wept when he came upon an 8-year-old girl in a Polish town. She was the first Jewish child he’d seen in advance of more than 1,000 miles.
Aryan vs. Jewish Blood:
Hitler believed some [races] were less evolved than others. ... The Aryan race, however, does not exist. Properly used, the term “Aryan” refers to a family of related languages spoken by half the world’s people and has nothing to do with one’s physical, mental, or moral qualities. Hitler also held that members of each race share a common blood, which carries the “race soul,” or the race’s unique qualities from generation to generation. It followed that blood mixing with lesser races amounted to blood poisoning, undermining racial purity and thus the ability to survive in the struggle for existence. … These notions defy scientific fact. Blood has nothing to do with the genes which are the parts of cells that determine which qualities living beings inherit from their parents. Terms like Aryan blood, superior blood, and inferior blood are biologically meaningless. But Hitler believed otherwise and for him, Jewish blood was the most dangerous substance in the universe.
Education:
Going to school became a daily ordeal. It started with the teachers. Traditionally, regarded as positive role models for the young, teachers now used boorish insults. … When, for example, a Jewish student entered the classroom, her teacher pointed at her and said, “Go to the back of the class; you are not one of us anymore.” The back of the room was called Israel. If a Jew raised his hand to answer a question, the teacher might say, “Put you hand down; Jews have no business in a German class.” … Classmates followed their teacher’s example, shunning the Jews, making nasty remarks, even assaulting them.
Eugenics and Women:
Adolf Hitler believed in Eugenics. It fit so neatly into his racist and totalitarian ideology. Through positive Eugenics, he meant to use state power to create what he called the “God Man,” or a master race of Aryan supermen. Through negative Eugenics, he aimed to get rid of those deemed sub-humans.
Women were essential to the success of the Nazi Eugenic program. … The Führer thought women inferior to men. They were, he declared, “by nature, creatures of emotion, and thus incapable of thinking logically.” For that reason he banned them from being judges and lawyers. … The education of women, as Hitler saw it, was undermine and a waste of time, so the Nazis limited the enrollment of women in universities to 10% of the student body. At age 10, girls had to join the Young Maidens League. At age 14, they moved onto the League of German Maidens. Both groups focused on building healthy bodies through hiking, sports and calisthenics. Since nature created women as breeding machines, healthy bodies meant healthy babies. To make sure women kept breeding to the utmost, the government closed birth control clinics and outlawed abortion as a crime against the race. Nazi judges punished anyone who performed abortions with heavy fines and up to 15 years of hard labor in prison.
Hitler urged Germans of “good stock” to marry early and have as many children as possible. In response, propagandists created a cult of motherhood. An official slogan announced, “Every woman must present a child to her beloved Führer.” … Posters depicted blond, blue-eyed mothers breastfeeding adorable blond, blue-eyed babies. … Hitler compared childbearing to warfare. He declared, “Every child that a woman brings into the world is a battle, a battle waged for the existence of her people.”
Group leaders urged members of the “League of German Maidens” to serve Hitler with their wombs. As the slogan went, “You can’t all get a husband, but you can all be mothers.” … Teenagers ran away from home without telling their parents of their plan not donate a child to the Führer. … Historians estimate that 20,000 babies were born this way during the Hitler years.
Legal Sterilization
From 1907 to 1964, Some 63,643 Americans were legally sterilized. …. Nazi German’s law for the prevention of hereditarily diseased offspring took effect on July 14, 1933. Known as The Sterilization Law, it set up 200 eugenics courts to rule on cases submitted by hospitals, social service agencies, and private physicians. Alcoholics, epileptics, people born with physical deformities, those with hereditary blindness and deafness, the intellectually disabled, all were to be sterilized. … The Gestapo also hunted gay men. … As a rule, gay men wound up in concentration camps where they had to wear a pink triangle of shame on their clothes and were forcibly sterilized. Officially known as, “Neutered Beings,” sterilized people did not have the right to marry. Within 6 years of the laws passage, 400,000 German men and women were sterilized in the name of racial purity.
Racial Hygiene:
These pediatric words were hellish places. Their doctors conducted ghastly experiments on children with down syndrome. For example, Replacing their spinal fluid with air. After a child’s death, his or her Brain was sent to a laboratory for further study. ... During what some called freak shows, they saw children awaiting death, often by starvation. In one word, a pediatrician turned killer, referred to disable children as “these creatures.” ... Other patients were overdosed on the sedative Luminal, were given poisons, or were suffocated. Afterward, parents received a notice saying their child had died of natural causes and the body had been cremated for health reasons. Approximately 5,000 German children were murdered for reasons of “racial hygiene.”
The Warsaw Ghetto:
Understandably, the ghetto attracted visitors. Big buses took German tour groups through it to see how degraded the Jews were.
When asked what she hoped to become, a little girl said, “I’d like to be a dog, because the Germans love dogs and I wouldn’t have to be afraid that they’d kill me.“
Humor to lift spirits:
A teacher asks a pupil, “What would you like to be if you were Hitler’s son?“ He answers, “An orphan.”
Hitler: “Why did the Jews provoke this war?”
Death Squads:
The worst massacre by shooting, took place on Sept. 29-30, 1941 at Babi Yar. … Executioners needed 36 hours to murder 33,771 men, women, and children. Shooters kept up such a hectic pace that back up teams had to relieve them every two hours or so. Children were prime targets because nothing can destroy a people so thoroughly as the killing of its youngest. In Hitler’s ideology, children embodied renewal because they carried their races’ traits in, as he liked to say, their blood and their souls.
Some of the shooters found killing people at close range too awful to bear. … Possibly hundreds of distraught men, resigned and volunteered for combat duty, seeking suicide by Russian bullets.
Injured German Soldiers:
To end their suffering, German medics may have killed hideously maimed, brain damaged, and mentally traumatized troops. Although historians have no solid proof of this, we know that nurses told friends that they gave lethal injections to “our own men.”
Treblinka Extermination Camp:
Once everyone was dead, slaves opened the rear door to ventilate each chamber and remove the bodies. A gruesome sight greeted them. A former slave wrote, “The victims held onto one another. They all stood up right and were like a single block of flesh. Because of their death agonies, blood and excrement covered their bodies and the chamber’s floor, making it slippery.”
Heroes:
From the look of her, Irena Sendler, at 4’10” was not an imposing figure, yet looks are only skin deep. … “My parents taught me ,” she wrote. “That if a man is drowning, it is irrelevant what is his religion or nationality; one must help him.” … Sewn into her bra were small pocket, in which she his vials of Typhus vaccine. To show her solidarity with Jewish people, she put on Star of David armband the moment she passed the checkpoint at the gate. … Because swiftness meant lives, she recruits 25 Polish social workers to help get as many children as possible out of the ghetto.
Historians have found no record of nuns turning away any child. … The Polish clergy paid dearly for the love of God and their fellow humans. The Nazis killed 289 nuns for sheltering Jewish children. … Of the nearly 1 million Jewish children alive in Poland in 1939, barely 5,000 survived the Nazi terror. Historians estimate that nuns rescued 1,200 of these.
The Doctor and His Orphans’ Last Walk:
Quietly, without fuss of tears, 192 children forms a column, all in their best clothes, holding a favorite storybooks, a diary, a toy, a doll. … “This was no march to the carriages, but a mute protest against the murderous regime.”
Hitler: For Hitler, the eternal struggle of races was the law of existence, and only the superior race had the right to live. Germany’s defeat, he told aides, had nothing to do with his ideas or actions. Defeat merely proved the German people unworthy of his genius. “Germany,“ he said as if in a trance, “was probably never mature and strong enough for the task I intended it to perform.” … Ordering mass murder gave him pride, not shame. To be sure, he claimed, humanity owed him eternal gratitude for what he had done.
A Light in the Darkness: Janusz Korczak, His Orphans, and The Holocaust. By Albert Marrin.
If you’re interested in learning more details about one of the most horrific times in our history, I recommend this book to you. Maybe save it for after quarantine, especially if you’re already suffering from insomnia.
NOTABLE PASSAGES:
The numbers [Hitler] destroyed are astounding. Only 11% of Jewish children aged 16 and under survived in countries occupied by his armies. The Nazi’s were so thorough that, in 1945, a Russian-Jewish solider wept when he came upon an 8-year-old girl in a Polish town. She was the first Jewish child he’d seen in advance of more than 1,000 miles.
Aryan vs. Jewish Blood:
Hitler believed some [races] were less evolved than others. ... The Aryan race, however, does not exist. Properly used, the term “Aryan” refers to a family of related languages spoken by half the world’s people and has nothing to do with one’s physical, mental, or moral qualities. Hitler also held that members of each race share a common blood, which carries the “race soul,” or the race’s unique qualities from generation to generation. It followed that blood mixing with lesser races amounted to blood poisoning, undermining racial purity and thus the ability to survive in the struggle for existence. … These notions defy scientific fact. Blood has nothing to do with the genes which are the parts of cells that determine which qualities living beings inherit from their parents. Terms like Aryan blood, superior blood, and inferior blood are biologically meaningless. But Hitler believed otherwise and for him, Jewish blood was the most dangerous substance in the universe.
Education:
Going to school became a daily ordeal. It started with the teachers. Traditionally, regarded as positive role models for the young, teachers now used boorish insults. … When, for example, a Jewish student entered the classroom, her teacher pointed at her and said, “Go to the back of the class; you are not one of us anymore.” The back of the room was called Israel. If a Jew raised his hand to answer a question, the teacher might say, “Put you hand down; Jews have no business in a German class.” … Classmates followed their teacher’s example, shunning the Jews, making nasty remarks, even assaulting them.
Eugenics and Women:
Adolf Hitler believed in Eugenics. It fit so neatly into his racist and totalitarian ideology. Through positive Eugenics, he meant to use state power to create what he called the “God Man,” or a master race of Aryan supermen. Through negative Eugenics, he aimed to get rid of those deemed sub-humans.
Women were essential to the success of the Nazi Eugenic program. … The Führer thought women inferior to men. They were, he declared, “by nature, creatures of emotion, and thus incapable of thinking logically.” For that reason he banned them from being judges and lawyers. … The education of women, as Hitler saw it, was undermine and a waste of time, so the Nazis limited the enrollment of women in universities to 10% of the student body. At age 10, girls had to join the Young Maidens League. At age 14, they moved onto the League of German Maidens. Both groups focused on building healthy bodies through hiking, sports and calisthenics. Since nature created women as breeding machines, healthy bodies meant healthy babies. To make sure women kept breeding to the utmost, the government closed birth control clinics and outlawed abortion as a crime against the race. Nazi judges punished anyone who performed abortions with heavy fines and up to 15 years of hard labor in prison.
Hitler urged Germans of “good stock” to marry early and have as many children as possible. In response, propagandists created a cult of motherhood. An official slogan announced, “Every woman must present a child to her beloved Führer.” … Posters depicted blond, blue-eyed mothers breastfeeding adorable blond, blue-eyed babies. … Hitler compared childbearing to warfare. He declared, “Every child that a woman brings into the world is a battle, a battle waged for the existence of her people.”
Group leaders urged members of the “League of German Maidens” to serve Hitler with their wombs. As the slogan went, “You can’t all get a husband, but you can all be mothers.” … Teenagers ran away from home without telling their parents of their plan not donate a child to the Führer. … Historians estimate that 20,000 babies were born this way during the Hitler years.
Legal Sterilization
From 1907 to 1964, Some 63,643 Americans were legally sterilized. …. Nazi German’s law for the prevention of hereditarily diseased offspring took effect on July 14, 1933. Known as The Sterilization Law, it set up 200 eugenics courts to rule on cases submitted by hospitals, social service agencies, and private physicians. Alcoholics, epileptics, people born with physical deformities, those with hereditary blindness and deafness, the intellectually disabled, all were to be sterilized. … The Gestapo also hunted gay men. … As a rule, gay men wound up in concentration camps where they had to wear a pink triangle of shame on their clothes and were forcibly sterilized. Officially known as, “Neutered Beings,” sterilized people did not have the right to marry. Within 6 years of the laws passage, 400,000 German men and women were sterilized in the name of racial purity.
Racial Hygiene:
These pediatric words were hellish places. Their doctors conducted ghastly experiments on children with down syndrome. For example, Replacing their spinal fluid with air. After a child’s death, his or her Brain was sent to a laboratory for further study. ... During what some called freak shows, they saw children awaiting death, often by starvation. In one word, a pediatrician turned killer, referred to disable children as “these creatures.” ... Other patients were overdosed on the sedative Luminal, were given poisons, or were suffocated. Afterward, parents received a notice saying their child had died of natural causes and the body had been cremated for health reasons. Approximately 5,000 German children were murdered for reasons of “racial hygiene.”
The Warsaw Ghetto:
Understandably, the ghetto attracted visitors. Big buses took German tour groups through it to see how degraded the Jews were.
When asked what she hoped to become, a little girl said, “I’d like to be a dog, because the Germans love dogs and I wouldn’t have to be afraid that they’d kill me.“
Humor to lift spirits:
A teacher asks a pupil, “What would you like to be if you were Hitler’s son?“ He answers, “An orphan.”
Hitler: “Why did the Jews provoke this war?”
Death Squads:
The worst massacre by shooting, took place on Sept. 29-30, 1941 at Babi Yar. … Executioners needed 36 hours to murder 33,771 men, women, and children. Shooters kept up such a hectic pace that back up teams had to relieve them every two hours or so. Children were prime targets because nothing can destroy a people so thoroughly as the killing of its youngest. In Hitler’s ideology, children embodied renewal because they carried their races’ traits in, as he liked to say, their blood and their souls.
Some of the shooters found killing people at close range too awful to bear. … Possibly hundreds of distraught men, resigned and volunteered for combat duty, seeking suicide by Russian bullets.
Injured German Soldiers:
To end their suffering, German medics may have killed hideously maimed, brain damaged, and mentally traumatized troops. Although historians have no solid proof of this, we know that nurses told friends that they gave lethal injections to “our own men.”
Treblinka Extermination Camp:
Once everyone was dead, slaves opened the rear door to ventilate each chamber and remove the bodies. A gruesome sight greeted them. A former slave wrote, “The victims held onto one another. They all stood up right and were like a single block of flesh. Because of their death agonies, blood and excrement covered their bodies and the chamber’s floor, making it slippery.”
Heroes:
From the look of her, Irena Sendler, at 4’10” was not an imposing figure, yet looks are only skin deep. … “My parents taught me ,” she wrote. “That if a man is drowning, it is irrelevant what is his religion or nationality; one must help him.” … Sewn into her bra were small pocket, in which she his vials of Typhus vaccine. To show her solidarity with Jewish people, she put on Star of David armband the moment she passed the checkpoint at the gate. … Because swiftness meant lives, she recruits 25 Polish social workers to help get as many children as possible out of the ghetto.
Historians have found no record of nuns turning away any child. … The Polish clergy paid dearly for the love of God and their fellow humans. The Nazis killed 289 nuns for sheltering Jewish children. … Of the nearly 1 million Jewish children alive in Poland in 1939, barely 5,000 survived the Nazi terror. Historians estimate that nuns rescued 1,200 of these.
The Doctor and His Orphans’ Last Walk:
Quietly, without fuss of tears, 192 children forms a column, all in their best clothes, holding a favorite storybooks, a diary, a toy, a doll. … “This was no march to the carriages, but a mute protest against the murderous regime.”
Hitler: For Hitler, the eternal struggle of races was the law of existence, and only the superior race had the right to live. Germany’s defeat, he told aides, had nothing to do with his ideas or actions. Defeat merely proved the German people unworthy of his genius. “Germany,“ he said as if in a trance, “was probably never mature and strong enough for the task I intended it to perform.” … Ordering mass murder gave him pride, not shame. To be sure, he claimed, humanity owed him eternal gratitude for what he had done.
June 21, 2020
Light in Darkness by Albert Marrin, 388 pages. NON-FICTION Alfred A. Knopf (Penguin Random House), 2019. $20.
Content: Language: PG-13 (8 swears); Mature Content: G; Violence: R
BUYING ADVISORY: ADULTS – OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
This is a history of the violence inflicted on the Warsaw Ghetto and the Jews of Poland. Woven throughout the chronological telling of the violence is the story of an amazing humanitarian named Janusz Korczak. Korczak loved children and helped run an orphanage, which he tried to protect during the Holocaust. Eventually, Korczak and his orphans were claimed by Nazi hatred. Even though Korczak had influential friends who tried to help him escape, he wouldn’t leave his children.
This is a hard and horrifyingly graphic telling of the violence exacted on the Polish Jewish people. I loved everything about Korczak, but his story was a small part of this account. I’ve never read such a violent unrelenting telling of the Holocaust. I’m not saying this book doesn’t have its place but it’s a brutal read. The content includes torture, cold-blooded murder of children and babies, horrible degrading abuse, graphic descriptions of death and other appalling acts of violence.
Reviewer, C. Peterson
https://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2020...
Content: Language: PG-13 (8 swears); Mature Content: G; Violence: R
BUYING ADVISORY: ADULTS – OPTIONAL
AUDIENCE APPEAL: AVERAGE
This is a history of the violence inflicted on the Warsaw Ghetto and the Jews of Poland. Woven throughout the chronological telling of the violence is the story of an amazing humanitarian named Janusz Korczak. Korczak loved children and helped run an orphanage, which he tried to protect during the Holocaust. Eventually, Korczak and his orphans were claimed by Nazi hatred. Even though Korczak had influential friends who tried to help him escape, he wouldn’t leave his children.
This is a hard and horrifyingly graphic telling of the violence exacted on the Polish Jewish people. I loved everything about Korczak, but his story was a small part of this account. I’ve never read such a violent unrelenting telling of the Holocaust. I’m not saying this book doesn’t have its place but it’s a brutal read. The content includes torture, cold-blooded murder of children and babies, horrible degrading abuse, graphic descriptions of death and other appalling acts of violence.
Reviewer, C. Peterson
https://kissthebook.blogspot.com/2020...
April 8, 2023
This book is more of an overview of WW2 and the Holocaust in Warsaw (including the two uprisings against the Nazis during the war) than a dedicated account of Janusz Korczak's life. Korczak is certainly covered, but this material probably represents no more than 20% of the book. There is a big section detailing Hitler's racism against Jews and there is a lot of information about life and death in the Warsaw ghetto. It s an informative account, especially for those who might be unfamiliar with the dark depths of Nazi brutality in Poland during WW2.
August 2, 2019
More than just a biography of Korczak, this history focuses on Janusz Korczak, the Nazi repression of the Jews of Warsaw, and the rise and expression of racism in Germany before and during WWII. Marrin recounts details of events in a compelling narrative and deals with legends and assumptions by comparing eyewitness accounts of accounts. An excellent book for research and for gripping reading.
Read
June 22, 2021Very good read, but a bit of false advertising. There’s very little info about Mister Doctor here, so that was incredibly disappointing.
December 25, 2019
This one was a 4.5 for me, maybe even a 5, due to the incredibly thorough research that the author did before/while writing the book and because of its unique approach to its subject matter. There are more than 30 pages of resource notes as well as a list of selected references. The fact that the author has taken great pains to weave in songs and poems drawn from primary documentation during the Holocaust added even more authenticity and pathos to these pages torn from history. I also liked how he approached his topic by contrasting Janusz Korczak, a Polish pediatrician who started an orphanage based on the rights of children to be individuals on their own merit, with Adolf Hitler, who famously supported indoctrination of children so that they could be used for his own means and that of his political party. Much has been written about WWII and the Holocaust, but very little has addressed this particular difference of even Korczak himself. As he always does with his nonfiction, author Albert Marrin provides background on the topic first, in this case, describing the increasing hatred fomented against the Jews in Poland as well as the prejudices many Jews had toward the Poles. As violence escalates and Hitler comes into power, Warsaw, where much of the book's actions take place, becomes increasingly unsafe for Jews, who are eventually moved into a ghetto before most of them are transported to Treblinka. The war took a toll on Korczak, but he refused to leave his children behind even though he had several chances to escape. When the children were deported, he was in the front of the line, leading them to the trains with their heads held high, even though he surely must have known their final destination. Containing several photographs, this book isn't easy to read because of its subject matter and the descriptions of the horrors inflicted on Warsaw as well as the efforts some citizens took in order to survive and even rebel against the Nazi regime, but it's an important book since it reminds readers exactly what greatness and compassion look like. During times that are particularly bleak and hopeless, it is important to be reminded that there is light in the darkness and that one person can provide that light. Clearly, the book has much to recommend it, and its contents both haunt and inspire me several days after finishing it.
January 21, 2020
Divided into six parts, this heavily researched nonfiction title about one of my heroes, the Polish-Jewish educators and writer, illuminates his life as one of the shining beacons in the darkness during the Holocaust. Korczak, perhaps a lesser known figure in Polish history to many Americans, ran an orphanage and wrote books for educators working with children as well as fictional works for young readers. His life depicted a compassionate, insightful, and sacrificial individual. Though Korczak was originally planning to be a children’s doctor, he made a decision at a certain point to become director of an orphanage because “The only hope for humanity lay in bettering the lives of children” (p. 22).
Heavily documented with footnotes, I found myself often flipping to the back of the book in order to discover what source was being referred to. Those interested in the Holocaust, Poland during WWII, or Korczak himself, will do well to attend to these notes. The mark of a well-done nonfiction work for young readers is its level of research; this book is excellently documented and represents a rich resource for those wanting to discover more on the topic.
In addition to chapters about Korczak and an in-depth juxtaposition of the doctor and Hitler, for example, Marrin also offers a thorough account of what happened in the Warsaw ghetto, what its Jews went through, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the tragic consequences of the Nazi’s destruction of Warsaw. In other words, young readers interested in Poland and WWII will not be disappointed in this book, and educators are encouraged to consider including this in language arts and social studies curriculum for units on the Holocaust.
The only thing I would have wished for is more on Korczak himself, though the content about the Warsaw Ghetto and WWII in Poland overall is certainly useful contextual information for understanding Korczak’s significance and work in Poland.
Heavily documented with footnotes, I found myself often flipping to the back of the book in order to discover what source was being referred to. Those interested in the Holocaust, Poland during WWII, or Korczak himself, will do well to attend to these notes. The mark of a well-done nonfiction work for young readers is its level of research; this book is excellently documented and represents a rich resource for those wanting to discover more on the topic.
In addition to chapters about Korczak and an in-depth juxtaposition of the doctor and Hitler, for example, Marrin also offers a thorough account of what happened in the Warsaw ghetto, what its Jews went through, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the tragic consequences of the Nazi’s destruction of Warsaw. In other words, young readers interested in Poland and WWII will not be disappointed in this book, and educators are encouraged to consider including this in language arts and social studies curriculum for units on the Holocaust.
The only thing I would have wished for is more on Korczak himself, though the content about the Warsaw Ghetto and WWII in Poland overall is certainly useful contextual information for understanding Korczak’s significance and work in Poland.
December 27, 2021
I became interested in Janus Korczak after reading about him last year. I was hoping to learn more about his educational technique and philosophy, but this turned out to be the wrong book for that purpose. However, I'm not at all regretful for having purchased and read this book.
The author juxtaposes the life of the beloved Korczak with the lives of the Nazi leaders who forced him and the orphans under his care to the Treblinka death camp. In setting up the book this way, the reader (intended for a YA audience) can accurately understand opposing world views of Nazism and those of Korczac, who was ultimately inspired by the Jewish tradition.
I feel that the book's greatest aspect is its treatment of Poland and its people, who including Catholics who lived their faith and sheltered Jews and also Nazi collaborators who were vicious anti-Semites. The tragic end of Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto and the entire city's eventual destruction are difficult to read, but emotionally affecting.
It's a deep book, nuanced but accessible, beautiful and tragic, but it spells out a clear choice. Do we see children and as beautiful in their own uniqueness or as tools or puppets of adults in power? Korczac representing the former and Nazism representing the latter. A Light in the Darkness is a must read that brings into focus the choices we must make about educating the young and assuring a better future for humanity.
The author juxtaposes the life of the beloved Korczak with the lives of the Nazi leaders who forced him and the orphans under his care to the Treblinka death camp. In setting up the book this way, the reader (intended for a YA audience) can accurately understand opposing world views of Nazism and those of Korczac, who was ultimately inspired by the Jewish tradition.
I feel that the book's greatest aspect is its treatment of Poland and its people, who including Catholics who lived their faith and sheltered Jews and also Nazi collaborators who were vicious anti-Semites. The tragic end of Warsaw's Jewish Ghetto and the entire city's eventual destruction are difficult to read, but emotionally affecting.
It's a deep book, nuanced but accessible, beautiful and tragic, but it spells out a clear choice. Do we see children and as beautiful in their own uniqueness or as tools or puppets of adults in power? Korczac representing the former and Nazism representing the latter. A Light in the Darkness is a must read that brings into focus the choices we must make about educating the young and assuring a better future for humanity.
May 16, 2023
Fascinating, detailed information. I was profoundly moved by the words of Janusz Korczak, defender of children, who not only loved but respected them and and advocated for the recognition of their full humanity. During a time of extreme suffering, starvation, murder, and uncertainty, he not only sought to meet their material needs (at great cost to himself) but also invested in their emotional and spiritual development and created contexts for autonomy. I mean, the man helped them put on a /play/ about mortality so all of the children could have some kind of context for the horrors they were enduring.
I have spent the last decade trying to convince adults to see children as full human beings in their own right, not as potential futures but active agents, and to abstain from all violence toward them. I have pushed and pushed for a mindset of total respect, a rejection of power and dominance as a framework for parenting, an understanding of children's feelings as legitimate. And all this time here was Janus Korczak saying all the same things but a thousand times more bravely. I don't know whether to feel encouraged or exhausted. After all this time, just like Hitler's regime, it is still so common to view children as tools made for shaping. 5 stars, partly for the book and partly for the person quoted so frequently.
I have spent the last decade trying to convince adults to see children as full human beings in their own right, not as potential futures but active agents, and to abstain from all violence toward them. I have pushed and pushed for a mindset of total respect, a rejection of power and dominance as a framework for parenting, an understanding of children's feelings as legitimate. And all this time here was Janus Korczak saying all the same things but a thousand times more bravely. I don't know whether to feel encouraged or exhausted. After all this time, just like Hitler's regime, it is still so common to view children as tools made for shaping. 5 stars, partly for the book and partly for the person quoted so frequently.
May 30, 2020
This wasn’t what I initially expected, which was a comparison of Janusz Korczak and Adolf Hitler along with their ideologies. While this is the beginning and microcosm upon which this perspective of WWII hinges, it is more the specific framework Marrin uses to share a particular perspective of the War. On one hand you have the old doctor, Korczak, who is an educator, writer, and runs an orphanage in Warsaw. He is also Jewish, and his ideology regarding children is beautiful and became the fundamental document for the Declaration of the Rights of the Child (UN). Contrast this with whom Marrin calls the hater - Adolf Hitler - and his philosophy of racism, bigotry, and the use of children as tools to further the endless war of mighty crush the weak.
You meet these two men, and then you pull back into the War and Warsaw. Investigate how it is transformed into a Ghetto, and why Hitler’s ideology hooked so many and which people fought to help. What was life like? Which philosophy wins out? With a splendid array of primary source documents and a straightforward account that leaves no stone unturned, Marrin takes an unflinching look at what happens when the polar opposites of what mankind can be meet. Include copious source notes and a bibliography. Highly recommended.
You meet these two men, and then you pull back into the War and Warsaw. Investigate how it is transformed into a Ghetto, and why Hitler’s ideology hooked so many and which people fought to help. What was life like? Which philosophy wins out? With a splendid array of primary source documents and a straightforward account that leaves no stone unturned, Marrin takes an unflinching look at what happens when the polar opposites of what mankind can be meet. Include copious source notes and a bibliography. Highly recommended.
September 5, 2022
"When I approach a child, I have two feelings: Affection for what he is today and respect for what he can become."
"Children are not the people of tomorrow but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously, and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be–the unknown person inside each of them is our hope for the future."
"In what extraordinary circumstances would one dare to push, hit or tug an adult? And yet it is considered so routine and harmless to give a child a tap or stinging smack or to grab it by the arm. The feeling of powerlessness creates respect for power. Not only adults but anyone who is older and stronger can cruelly demonstrate their displeasure, back up their words with force, demand obedience and abuse the child without being punished. We set an example that fosters contempt for the weak. This is bad parenting and sets a bad precedent."
– Janusz Korczak (1878-1942)
He made sure children in the ghettos ate when no one else did. He said they deserved many rights that too many deny them due to their age, and therefore declared they lack value as a human. He lived his values. He took care of them to the end, dying with them.
"Children are not the people of tomorrow but are people of today. They have a right to be taken seriously, and to be treated with tenderness and respect. They should be allowed to grow into whoever they were meant to be–the unknown person inside each of them is our hope for the future."
"In what extraordinary circumstances would one dare to push, hit or tug an adult? And yet it is considered so routine and harmless to give a child a tap or stinging smack or to grab it by the arm. The feeling of powerlessness creates respect for power. Not only adults but anyone who is older and stronger can cruelly demonstrate their displeasure, back up their words with force, demand obedience and abuse the child without being punished. We set an example that fosters contempt for the weak. This is bad parenting and sets a bad precedent."
– Janusz Korczak (1878-1942)
He made sure children in the ghettos ate when no one else did. He said they deserved many rights that too many deny them due to their age, and therefore declared they lack value as a human. He lived his values. He took care of them to the end, dying with them.
July 23, 2024
Tragic and Still Relevant!
Very detailed and well researched book on the Holocaust. It is the true story of a well respected educator, doctor and director of an "orphan home" who continues his devotion to the Jewish children he is in charge of despite great personal risk and sacrifice! He demonstrates calmness, faith and hope so that the children will not panic when staring death in the face. Several times he is given the opportunity to spare himself, leaving the children to be taken to the gas chambers. Each time he refuses and marches calmly and courageously hand in hand as they face the end result.
The photos included add to the telling of this horrible evil and are absolutely haunting! I also found it chilling that just hours after finishing the book, I read online of white supremacist Neo-Nazi hate groups spreading anti Semitic messages and flyers around Nashville, TN. I strongly feel that this kind of evil could happen again if we don't collectively remain vigilant and stand against hatred and discrimination in all of it's forms because if we passively accept it as status quo, one day it COULD be one of us or our loved ones or peer group being taken away in the night, never to be seen again!
Very detailed and well researched book on the Holocaust. It is the true story of a well respected educator, doctor and director of an "orphan home" who continues his devotion to the Jewish children he is in charge of despite great personal risk and sacrifice! He demonstrates calmness, faith and hope so that the children will not panic when staring death in the face. Several times he is given the opportunity to spare himself, leaving the children to be taken to the gas chambers. Each time he refuses and marches calmly and courageously hand in hand as they face the end result.
The photos included add to the telling of this horrible evil and are absolutely haunting! I also found it chilling that just hours after finishing the book, I read online of white supremacist Neo-Nazi hate groups spreading anti Semitic messages and flyers around Nashville, TN. I strongly feel that this kind of evil could happen again if we don't collectively remain vigilant and stand against hatred and discrimination in all of it's forms because if we passively accept it as status quo, one day it COULD be one of us or our loved ones or peer group being taken away in the night, never to be seen again!
December 13, 2019
Incredible story about Poland before, during, and after World War II, which might be an overlooked aspect of the war for younger readers. Of course the details can be fairly graphic at times when describing certain parts of the war and the Holocaust (including how children were murdered). This tribute to Janusz Korczak and his outright refusal to leave the children in his charge at the Warsaw ghetto, even when offered a way to escape himself, is yet another testament to the bravery and empathy of humans in the face of pure evil. Marrin goes to great lengths to explain how Hitler came to develop the Final Solution and his views of war and life to younger readers who cannot comprehend how a human being could become as evil as Hitler was. Marrin also explains how racism develops and spreads, and why the Nazis focused so much on murdering children. Marrin also addresses the controversial views of the non-Jewish Polish people during this time period. Very in-depth and will encourage a great deal of reflection and critical thinking. An incredible amount of research went into writing this book, and Marrin fairly treats all aspects of the topics covered.
January 27, 2025
While I wasn't totally ready for darkness I was to experience by reading this book, I am glad that I went for it. It was an engaging book, even with the heavy material of Warsaw history I was really not familiar with.
Marrin really brings the reader to feel like his feet are on the ground with the Poles/Jews of that time.
I came away from this book knowing a lot more about Korczak, Hitler and the precious youth of WW2, in various facets. The mindsets of the SS and Wehrmacht and their atrocious actions are a mirror to the Zionist soldiers of today.
It is important reading. It writes of the raising of Warsaw, and because of our images of Palestine today, it is a little easier to imagine, sad to say.
We haven't learned, as 1 human race, to do better, especially to the children.
I don't know if we ever will. It seems I'm in a world where hate is trying to become the norm, and that is a dangerous place to be.
As the book described how Hitler was in his last weeks/days I exclaimed only 'Yeah, it's because of all that hate in you'. He believed hate was our natural state of being. But it is destructive, even unto itself.
Marrin really brings the reader to feel like his feet are on the ground with the Poles/Jews of that time.
I came away from this book knowing a lot more about Korczak, Hitler and the precious youth of WW2, in various facets. The mindsets of the SS and Wehrmacht and their atrocious actions are a mirror to the Zionist soldiers of today.
It is important reading. It writes of the raising of Warsaw, and because of our images of Palestine today, it is a little easier to imagine, sad to say.
We haven't learned, as 1 human race, to do better, especially to the children.
I don't know if we ever will. It seems I'm in a world where hate is trying to become the norm, and that is a dangerous place to be.
As the book described how Hitler was in his last weeks/days I exclaimed only 'Yeah, it's because of all that hate in you'. He believed hate was our natural state of being. But it is destructive, even unto itself.
January 5, 2020
One of the 5 finalists for this year's YA Excellence in NF award.
It is another sobering Holocaust story - and yet, we must read them. We must never forget. We must not let things like this happen again (although they *are* happening again AND our current elected official has taken Hitler's "Make Germany Great Again" slogan and made it his own - I did not know that until I read this book... I now despise the MAGA phrase even more.)
Anyway, this is the story of a man who was unique in the way that he viewed children and how they should be treated - with love, kindness, respect, and dignity. He ran and orphanage and did it with these principles. He refused to leave his (192!!!) orphan children through all the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto, even when he could have gotten out through the connections that he had. Oh, the atrocities committed against the Jews and Warsaw. It is a travesty.
It is another sobering Holocaust story - and yet, we must read them. We must never forget. We must not let things like this happen again (although they *are* happening again AND our current elected official has taken Hitler's "Make Germany Great Again" slogan and made it his own - I did not know that until I read this book... I now despise the MAGA phrase even more.)
Anyway, this is the story of a man who was unique in the way that he viewed children and how they should be treated - with love, kindness, respect, and dignity. He ran and orphanage and did it with these principles. He refused to leave his (192!!!) orphan children through all the horrors of the Warsaw Ghetto, even when he could have gotten out through the connections that he had. Oh, the atrocities committed against the Jews and Warsaw. It is a travesty.
August 21, 2020
This was hard to read, I mean in the sense of heart-wrenching and disturbing. How someone can be so evil as Hitler was disturbs me.
Hitler saw young minds as “blank slates” easily “inscribed”.
“A youth will grow up before which the world will shrink back. A violently active, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth – that is what I am after. Youth must be all these things. It must be indifferent to pain. There must be no weakness or tenderness in it. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride. . . of beast of prey. . . I shall eradicate the thousands of years of human domestication. Then I shall have in front of me the pure and noble natural material. With that I can create the new order.”
I learned some more about him and his actions I was unaware of. Reader's need to add this to their Holocaust book list. You won't be disappointed, but be prepared for its impact.
Hitler saw young minds as “blank slates” easily “inscribed”.
“A youth will grow up before which the world will shrink back. A violently active, dominating, intrepid, brutal youth – that is what I am after. Youth must be all these things. It must be indifferent to pain. There must be no weakness or tenderness in it. I want to see once more in its eyes the gleam of pride. . . of beast of prey. . . I shall eradicate the thousands of years of human domestication. Then I shall have in front of me the pure and noble natural material. With that I can create the new order.”
I learned some more about him and his actions I was unaware of. Reader's need to add this to their Holocaust book list. You won't be disappointed, but be prepared for its impact.
March 23, 2021
Korczak was an exemplary man who had wonderful views on child development and was recognized for this around the world. His belief that children were valuable in and of themselves was in direct contrast to Hitler's view of children as tools of the state.
For me, this is one of the most valuable books I have read on the Polish Holocaust, particularly the Warsaw ghetto and also anti-Semitic attitude that prevailed there. THAT is what made it so easy for the Germans to come in and wipe out whole villages, or consolidate the Jewish population into a small area of a city that might be largely Jewish. There was even explanation of the acceptance of Jewish oppression by the Russians who came in at the end of the war to impose the communist system when the Home Guard was depleted after fighting Nazis.
For me, this is one of the most valuable books I have read on the Polish Holocaust, particularly the Warsaw ghetto and also anti-Semitic attitude that prevailed there. THAT is what made it so easy for the Germans to come in and wipe out whole villages, or consolidate the Jewish population into a small area of a city that might be largely Jewish. There was even explanation of the acceptance of Jewish oppression by the Russians who came in at the end of the war to impose the communist system when the Home Guard was depleted after fighting Nazis.
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