Janusz Korczak: "King of Children"

Janusz Korczak is not a name everyone knows from the holocaust, but his courage and kindness to hundreds of orphans, even to death mark him as both a martyr and hero of the Shoah. A Psychiatrist by trade with a specialty in Child Psychiatry, he was already widely known and respected as the war came to Poland. With Adam Czerniakow, the head of the Judenrat, Korzak made sure the children had enough to eat and were loved and cared for apart from their parents who had met far worse fates. In the end, Korczak would not leave his precious charges: he was given the opportunity to live as "his children" were deported to the Killing Centers and a certain death. He chose instead to go with them, losing his life as he had lived it: in defense and care of his children. Janusz Korczak never married, but in the words of the Scriptures, he had "more [are] the children of the desolate than the children of the married wife, saith the LORD. " Isaiah 54:1