Janusz Korczak and Maximillian Kolbe: Shared Ethical Legacy of Two Martyrs of the Death Camps of World War II
Jacek Mostwin, M.D., DPhil, Professor of Urology, Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions
Janusz Korczak (the pen name of Henryk Goldszmyt), born 1878, was a Jewish pediatrician in Warsaw: pedagogue, writer, public figure and children’s advocate. He devoted his life to the care of children and orphans. He had served as a doctor in the Polish army during World War I. He ran a popular radio program advocating for children’s rights. He was decorated by the Polish government. His books were widely read. He travelled to Palestine during the 1930s to the kibbutzim. He ran an orphanage in Warsaw, forced to relocate to the Jewish ghetto by the Nazis in 1940. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1942, he declined offers of sanctuary so as not to abandon the 196 children under his care. He went with them to the Treblinka concentration camp. He died there with them at the age of 64.
Maximillian Kolbe was born in Poland to a German father and a Polish mother. He became a Franciscan priest, writer, publisher and monastic administrator. He obtained a doctorate in philosophy at the Pontifical University in Rome, then ran several publishing presses of religious periodicals from Franciscan monasteries which he established in Poland. In Japan in the1930s, he established a monastery in Nagasaki, which survived the atomic bombing. In Poland just before the War, he started a radio station. After 1939, he continued to publish and provided medical care in his monastery hospital. He declined German citizen rights, though he could have had them because of his father’s origin. He was arrested by the Nazis February 1941 and sent to Auschwitz. He died six months later when he volunteered to take the place of a man condemned to death as a part of a retribution by prison staff for an escaped prisoner, later found hiding in another part of the camp .
Each man was highly educated and dedicated to his chosen vocation, emphasizing the care and protection of others. Each man was free to save his own life. Each went voluntarily to his death at the hands of his captors, Kolbe to save a family man, Korczak to stay with his children. Because of their martyrdom, each man has been highly celebrated in his own tradition, Korczak at Yad Vashem and Treblinka, Kolbe canonized a saint in 1985. The life and legacy of each man endures and grows beyond their lifespan.
Beyond their hagiographies, there is a confluence of events and decisions that has intertwined their life histories and inseparably mixed their ashes. This common fate and the decisions that led to it form the focus of this presentation. We will first consider their individual lives: the background, traditions and ethical values that can be viewed from the perspective of their final decisions. Then we will consider the relationship of their religious and medical vocations as backgrounds of their choices. Though different, they open new possibilities for appreciating the closeness of religion and medicine, and also their two religious traditions, underscoring common ground and deeply shared values.
Janusz Korczak (the pen name of Henryk Goldszmyt), born 1878, was a Jewish pediatrician in Warsaw: pedagogue, writer, public figure and children’s advocate. He devoted his life to the care of children and orphans. He had served as a doctor in the Polish army during World War I. He ran a popular radio program advocating for children’s rights. He was decorated by the Polish government. His books were widely read. He travelled to Palestine during the 1930s to the kibbutzim. He ran an orphanage in Warsaw, forced to relocate to the Jewish ghetto by the Nazis in 1940. When the ghetto was liquidated in 1942, he declined offers of sanctuary so as not to abandon the 196 children under his care. He went with them to the Treblinka concentration camp. He died there with them at the age of 64.
Maximillian Kolbe was born in Poland to a German father and a Polish mother. He became a Franciscan priest, writer, publisher and monastic administrator. He obtained a doctorate in philosophy at the Pontifical University in Rome, then ran several publishing presses of religious periodicals from Franciscan monasteries which he established in Poland. In Japan in the1930s, he established a monastery in Nagasaki, which survived the atomic bombing. In Poland just before the War, he started a radio station. After 1939, he continued to publish and provided medical care in his monastery hospital. He declined German citizen rights, though he could have had them because of his father’s origin. He was arrested by the Nazis February 1941 and sent to Auschwitz. He died six months later when he volunteered to take the place of a man condemned to death as a part of a retribution by prison staff for an escaped prisoner, later found hiding in another part of the camp .
Each man was highly educated and dedicated to his chosen vocation, emphasizing the care and protection of others. Each man was free to save his own life. Each went voluntarily to his death at the hands of his captors, Kolbe to save a family man, Korczak to stay with his children. Because of their martyrdom, each man has been highly celebrated in his own tradition, Korczak at Yad Vashem and Treblinka, Kolbe canonized a saint in 1985. The life and legacy of each man endures and grows beyond their lifespan.
Beyond their hagiographies, there is a confluence of events and decisions that has intertwined their life histories and inseparably mixed their ashes. This common fate and the decisions that led to it form the focus of this presentation. We will first consider their individual lives: the background, traditions and ethical values that can be viewed from the perspective of their final decisions. Then we will consider the relationship of their religious and medical vocations as backgrounds of their choices. Though different, they open new possibilities for appreciating the closeness of religion and medicine, and also their two religious traditions, underscoring common ground and deeply shared values.