The following is a talk Lillian gave at the British Columbia Legislature on May 10, 2018
Distinguished Guests,
Since it is in the spirit of Korczak’s ideology that all our work is done we hope never to lose sight of his message, the core of which is:
To fight for the rights of children and their well-being.
To respect and cherish them. To acknowledge and support them.
As many of you may know by now Korczak’s entire life was devoted to children. He was a children’s rights champion who looked after orphans, went to court to fight for them. In the times when children were supposed to be seen not heard, Korczak found venues which gave children a voice… He ran a radio program in which he encouraged young people to express their ideas, thoughts and feelings and speak freely about their problems.
He published a little review for the children by the children about children. He looked after children imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Second World War.
His books and stories reflected his message on how to love a child that went out to society at large and recorded ideas that are still relevant in modern times. And I quote in translation from the Polish what Korczak wrote a long ago as 1933:
“What a tragedy is our contemporary life and how shameful of this generation which is passing onto its children a chaotic world.”
“This type of a world is frightening and it is a world which we cannot allow. So it should be forbidden to leave a messy world such as this to our children.”
Furthermore he writes “To repair this world one should first of all begin by repairing the well-being of its children.”
But what has changed?
Today there are many wars, terror reigns, displacement and chaos. Even in the peaceful countries children sense this though the messages on the social media. Students whom I talk to about the Holocaust often ask me how can they distill the truth from fake news?
And how will these children grow up into decent, happy and undamaged human beings in today’s world where anti-Semitism and ethnic cleansing are on the rampage again . How will being in the zones where wars rage, shape their lives?
And I know what it is like to be a war child, in the war zone, pursued, discriminated against and deprived of all human rights. I lived in the Warsaw Ghetto form 1940 to 1942. Dr. Korczak was an old man then, I was a young child forbidden to go to school. I had to be separated from my parents in order to survive in hiding under false papers. I lost my identity as a daughter, a Jew, a child. I lost my right to live because Hitler sentenced every Jewish European child to death.
I know injustice and the dire consequence of racism.
I came out of my childhood experience into adulthood derailed and confused suffering from an unhealed trauma.
After the war there were no Korczaks who would listen to us child survivors, no counselors and our parents were far too busy building new lives.
But in some way I was lucky. My Korczak was my father, who knew the old doctor and loved his ideology which my father practiced on me when he taught me that I had rights as a human being.
After the war, I was also lucky to have come to Canada where we could be free and safe where I was able to pursue an education with the help of understanding teachers, find friends and make a life for myself. In this climate I was slowly able to find healing, though never completely and even that took a very long time. But I was able to regain some part of myself I had lost during the war. And I never take this for granted but am thankful every day for the gifts I have been given in this country.
My father’s stories of Korczak whom he had loved so well and what I had learned form them about kindness, empathy and love for another human being helped me get by the difficult years.
But I often wonder with horror what Dr. Korczak would think of our world today if he could see and hear the daily news?
We need people like him to soothe the suffering of children, assuage their loneliness, feelings of rejection and fear. We need to work hard to make our children understand that despite the evil there is also kindness and respect, opportunities for the betterment of their lives unhampered by prejudice, racism and hate and above all war.
There are wonderful Canadians, and people form other nations who have come aboard and are dedicated to children’s causes and involved in the process of working with children and on their behalf: the professionals, the planners, government officials, social workers and teachers, all involved today and everyday with the welfare of children.
This is progress, and I am looking at it through the eyes of one who has regained hope.
In conclusion I would like to read to you a poem, written by Richard Mirabel, a Polish poet who lived in Korczak’s time, knew him and I believe even helped him with the publication of the Little Review.
Part 4 – from In Memoriam to Janusz Korczak
by Richard Mirabel
He is not gone
believe me
I have seen him outside those gates
Guiding his brood to an open market place
full of ripe fruits and the smell of flowers
I have found him in the smile
of one who beaten down
was lifted up by the friendly hands
of a nameless passerby
I have seen him
in his Orphan’s Home
in deep thoughts
lost
confused
alone
And you
may find him
in the forgotten love
of your fellow Man
that Every Man