Janusz Korczak

Janusz Korczak, the pen name of Henryk Goldszmit , was a PolishJewish educator, childrens author, and pediatrician known as Pan Doktor or Stary Doktor . After spending many years working as director of an orphanage in Warsaw, he refused freedom and stayed with his orphans when the institution was sent from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp, during the Grossaktion Warsaw of 1942.

Korczak was born in Warsaw in 1878 or 1879 into the family of Jzef Goldszmit, a respected lawyer from a family of proponents of the haskalah, and Cecylia ne Gbicka, daughter of a prominent Kalisz family. Born to a Jewish family, he was an agnostic in later life who did not believe in forcing religion on children. His father fell ill around 1890 and was admitted to a mental hospital where he died six years later onApril 1896. Spacious apartments were given up on Miodowa street, then witojerska. As his family financial situation worsened, Henryk, still while attending the gymnasium , begun to work as a tutor for other pupils. In 1896 he debuted on the literary scene with a satirical text on raising children, Wze gordyjski.

Source: Wikipedia