KORCZAK Janusz

Biography:

Janusz Korczak hoped above all to contribute to the well-being of children. His many books, manuals and newspaper articles are pedagogical references for the education of children. He opened and managed a model orphanage based on his positive vision of children, organized as a self-managed society for and by children, according to principles of justice, fraternity and equal rights and duties. He has helped other orphanages apply this model. He also formulated the basic principles of children's rights in 1929, which were embodied in the UN Declaration of the Rights of the Child in 1989, 60 years later. In 1937, he was awarded the Golden Laurel by the Polish Academy of Literature for his body of work. In 1942, he insisted on accompanying children from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.