Dom Sierot

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Orphans of the Dom Sierot in Kroglichnastraße 92 (1940)

The Dom Sierot (Polish for orphanage) is an orphanage opened in 1912 under the direction of the educator Janusz Korczak in Warsaw for Jewish children.

history

In 1911 Janusz Korczak took over the management of the Dom Sierot orphanage in Warsaw, which was designed according to him and financed by the Jewish development association “Help for Orphans”. On October 7, 1912, 85 children, some of them neglected, moved into the large and very modern building at 92 Kromalna Street in Warsaw . Korczak saw this as an opportunity to try out new pedagogical methods. He received board and lodging for this, but no payment. He was actively supported by Stefania Wilczyńska, who was also unpaid . At that time, the home was considered exemplary, especially in view of the inhumane circumstances in other orphanages. It attracted international visitors, also due to Korczak's fame.

After Germany's attack on Poland in 1939, as part of the anti-Semitic ideology of the Nazis, Warsaw Jews were forced to move into the ghetto . This also applied to Korczak and his orphanage at the end of 1940. Immediately after the Nazi regime occupied Warsaw, Jewish children were banned from school. There is evidence that from December 4, 1939, Jewish children were secretly educated in the Sierot Cathedral because they were forbidden from attending public schools.

In August 1942, as part of actions to so-called "have final solution " to about 200 children at the orphanage by the SS in the Treblinka extermination camp accommodated. Although Korczak knew that this would mean death, he did not want to leave the children in the lurch and, like the teacher Stefania Wilczyńska, insisted on going with them. He had previously turned down various offers to escape from the ghetto. There they were presumably gassed in early August.

A total of around 500 children passed through the Dom Sierot. Quite a few of them helped as (young) adults as educators in the Dom Sierot and other orphanages, especially in the ghetto.

Self-management

The Korczak biographer Friedhelm Beiner estimates that from 1912 "... self-administration aids and methods were developed and tested, which aim in the direction of a democratic educational community ." By 1918 at the latest, there was already a parliament, a home newspaper, notice boards and a rule book , as well as "Measures to secure privacy and private property".

Home parliament

The home parliament called Korczak Sejm (= name of the Polish parliament). Korczak himself wrote:

“... The Sejm has twenty members. Five children form a constituency; whoever got four votes becomes a member of parliament. All the children vote, but only someone who has never received a complaint for dishonesty can become a member of parliament; the dishonest (theft, fraud) have the right to rehabilitation. The Sejm approves or rejects the laws that the Judicial Council [unclear exactly who the Judicial Council is] enacts. The Sejm passes resolutions on the extraordinary calendar days and grants someone the right to a souvenir postcard [For work for the community, children were given thematically illustrated postcards; for the orphans of great (material) value!]. If the Sejm is powerful enough to decide on the compulsory removal of a pupil from the institution, it should strive to ensure that the admission of new children and the discharge of older ones, and even of the staff, depend on its decision. Caution is advised here; the limits of the competence of the Sejm can only be extended slowly; there can be many limitations and caveats, but these must be expressed clearly and openly. This is the only way we can hold elections and avoid that self-administration becomes a gimmick and we mislead ourselves and the children. Such a game would be tasteless and harmful at the same time. "

Comradeship Court

The comradeship court was headed by student judges who were elected by lot from all residents who had not been convicted themselves in the recent past. Both children and educators could be charged. According to Korczak, the dish was a great success despite numerous weaknesses. Many children showed up voluntarily and in the first year a total of 3500 cases were processed. A court newspaper provided regular information on cases, proceedings and judgments.

After a few years of trial, the court ruled on the basis of provisions of the judicial council, which took over the process in unclear cases. In addition, adults as well as children could be displayed. Korczak, for example, reports 5 voluntary self-disclosures on his part.

Korczak was convinced: “The Comradeship Court (also known as the Collegiate Court) secures the child's right to appeal and prosecution, to conflict resolution and to fair justice.” The court was based on a code of 109 paragraphs that defined the court's scope , whereby part of the paragraphs was forgiving, part punishing. The preceding motto of the dish was:

“When someone has done something bad, it is best to forgive them and wait for them to improve. But the court must protect the quiet so that the strong do not make life difficult for them [...] It ensures that the big one does nothing to the little one and the little one does not disturb the elderly; that the clever one does not take advantage of the stupid and does not make fun of him; that the quarrelsome does not torment others or that he, too, is not harassed; that the happy doesn't make stupid jokes about the sad. The court must make sure that everyone has what he needs, that there are no unhappy and angry people ... "

Initially, however, some children complained to Korczak about the lax judgments and he also admitted that the educational experiment “comradeship court” was not yet fully developed. In the beginning, in particular, judges did not appear in court, beat each other or gave too lax punishment against their friends, while other children reported every little thing (Korczak referred to litigation), never came to court or simply ignored their sentence.

Korczak's orphans

Korczak's Orphans is an opera in three acts composed by Adam B. Silverman with a libretto by Susan Gubernat . Several opera houses have performed the opera, including the Opera Company of Brooklyn (OCB) , the Lebanon Opera House in New Hampshire and the New York City Opera .

See also

Web links

Commons : Dom Sierot  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d e f Janusz Korczak, Friedhelm Beiner: How do you love a child . In: Friedhelm Beiner (Ed.): Janusz Korczak Complete Works . tape 4 . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh, ISBN 978-3-579-02343-4 , p. 249, 285, 312 f .
  2. ^ A b Silvia Ungermann: The pedagogy of Janusz Korczak. Theoretical foundation and practical implementation. 1896-1942 . Gütersloher Verlagshaus., Gütersloh 2006, ISBN 978-3-579-05232-8 , pp. 489-510 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Aleksander Lewin: It really was like that. The last years of life and the legacy of Janusz Korczak . In: Friedhelm Beiner (Ed.): Janusz Korczak Complete Works . tape 17 . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1998, ISBN 3-579-02343-8 , p. 11 f., 90 f., 137 f .
  4. ↑ a b Friedhelm Beiner: Janusz Korczak - pioneer of a democratic education? In: Volker Bank, Renate Hinz, König, Eckard, Lassahn, Rudolf, Andreas Nießeler, Birgit Ofenbach, Barbara Schneider-Taylor and Takahiro Tashiro (eds.): Pädagogische Rundschau . tape 66 . Gütersloher Verlagshaus, Gütersloh 1990, p. 10, 67-80 .
  5. ^ A b Janusz Korczak: Self-administration in the school . In: Elisabeth Lax-Höfer, Friedhelm Beiner (ed.): Janusz Korczak from the grammar. and other educational texts. Dieck Agency, Heinsberg 1991, ISBN 978-3-88852-171-3 , p. 95, 306 .
  6. ↑ Margaret Ross Griffel: Operas in English: A Dictionary Rowman & Littlefield, 2012, ISBN 978-0-8108-8272-0 , page 262.
  7. ^ Opera Company of Brooklyn adopts Korczak's Orphans article in the Brooklyn Paper. Retrieved March 12, 2020.
  8. ^ Korczak's description of Orphans with a list of performances on operaamerica.org. Retrieved March 12, 2020.